Page 264 - Marky Stein - Get a Great Job When You Don't Have a Job-McGraw-Hill (2009)

Fearless Interviewing

C is the preferred answer to this question. It is open ended and
nonthreatening. It is also generic enough that you can say it with-
out feeling that you are lying. Though you don’t say you’d be
committed to the company, you do say you’re committed to your
profession. You also express enough ambition (“growing and learn-
ing”) to sound like you’re hard working and success oriented but
not interested in rocking anybody’s boat.
Let’s explore a few more questions in this category. Try to
guess the recommended response to the following questions:

QUESTION: Why did you apply for this job?

ANSWER A: I was just looking through the newspaper, and I
came across this one.
ANSWER B: I have been targeting my job search toward major
companies in the software industry. I came across
yours on the Internet and decided to research it a bit
further. According to your Web site, you’ve intro-
duced several new product lines in the past few years.
I was impressed by your track record and wanted to
find out more.
ANSWER C: I heard about it from a friend.

The question behind the question is “Did you just stumble upon
our company, or did you put some thought and effort into mak-
ing a choice to work with us? Have you done your homework?”
Answer B would indicate that you had the most forethought.
Being able to answer a question like this one is the payoff for the
research you learned to do in Chapter 4.
The same sort of strategy can be used for the following ques-
tion, in which the question behind the question is also “Did you
do your homework?”

QUESTION: What do you know about this company?

ANSWER: Well, in my research I learned that your company
headquarters are in Philadelphia and that you have
grown from one small office to over 56 locations in
the last 3 years. I also know that at first you were pri-
marily a brokerage firm and that now you employ

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