Whats the right answer?

digitalsystem

I was in an interview today for a graduate program. I am a mature student (27 years old) but I was very happy to be interviewed for the role.

The last question in the interview was "Why do you want to work for X?"

I responded by saying that I believed that this company could enable me to fulfill my potential, to build on the solid foundation I have gained from my college degree and because I believe that I could be a difference maker within the company given the different skills I have acquired over the course of my working life...

The interviewer was taking notes and I noted that as I was finishing this response he had written down "crap" in the box beside where this question was on his sheet!

I understand that what I said was a very generic response but what is the actual answer to such a question in an interview? "It's been my life long dream to work for you", "This is the job of my dreams"(its a graduate role!)... or should I have told the truth and said that I just want to get a start in this industry and that your company seems like a company that is hiring at the moment

Just wondering if there are any HR managers reading this or anyone with more interview experience as to what is the type of response that is expected to this question? Otherwise felt the interview went reasonably well so I am hopeful for a call back if that response does not stand against me...

Thanks

Eoin

I'm not in HR, but have interviewed several candidates over the last few years.

Interviewers tend to like a candidate who has done a bit of research and can talk relatively enthusiastically about the company and/or industry. Or at least talk about specific parts of the role that are of interest.

Mr. Loverman

In my opinion it's a stupid question.

We all know why you want to work there:

You need to earn money.
You hope it's a nice place.
You hope you can build some sort of career there.

I deal with HR all the time so I have an extremely low opinion of them. If you asked the average HR person why they ask this question, they'll probably stare at you blankly and say it was written down. Or they had ran out of questions to ask and needed to drag on the interview a bit longer.

So let's try to get into the mind of a HR person and guess what would they like to hear.

They need something they can write on their piece of paper, so you have to say something.
They want to be able to tell their boss "oh this person is a little bit different, special, they said X".
They want to be able to show they followed the HR process.

In interviews I ask a lot of questions. I always ask if the company is making money, is it growing, is there high staff turnover, are the management team competent, etc.

I ask these questions because I don't want to join a company later to find out the management team are a bunch of monkeys and the company is losing money.

Also, I like rattling my interviewers a bit. If they can't handle someone asking questions about the company they are about to commit to, I don't want to work there.

So assuming HR/your potential manager have answered your questions, you now have reasons why you want to work there. So when they eventually ask you why you want to work there, you can say it sounds like a great company, it's profitable, low staff turnover so it is a good place to work, it's run by an experienced management team, etc.

Of course you should try to find out this information before the interview (easy to do with a multi-national, hard to do with a local company) but if you can't find any information on the company just ask them in the interview before you get to the end of the interview where these HR questions tend to get asked.

wuffly

I think you can ask for a copy of those notes... data protection act. Happened to an old boss of mine and she warned me to be very careful about it when i started interviewing. Doesn't seem like a professional thing to do from his side, some HR people have a bit of a god complex at the moment with so few jobs available and so many candidates. I had a friend recently asked in an interview what circus animal would they be and why, she was interviewing for a HR job and had no clue what they were on about. Whatever happens push them for feedback, I don't why people don't do this more.