This can be a very tricky question to answer, because although some interviewers might ask that question directly, many others will not.
The interviewer’s job is to find out whether you fit the job and the Company – and the easiest way to find that out is to ask you about your ideal job, and see how closely you and your ideal matches what’s on offer now and what might be on offer in the future.
You therefore have several options – and all of them require prior thought and planning.
1. Write out an answer to the question ‘Why do you want the job?’ based on the job description and what you have learned about the Company from its website and other sources.
The interviewer’s job is to find out whether you fit the job and the Company – and the easiest way to find that out is to ask you about your ideal job, and see how closely you and your ideal matches what’s on offer now and what might be on offer in the future.
You therefore have several options – and all of them require prior thought and planning.
1. Write out an answer to the question ‘Why do you want the job?’ based on the job description and what you have learned about the Company from its website and other sources.
2. Write out an answer to the question ‘What is your ideal job?’ based on the job description and what you have learned about the Company from its website, etc.
3. Visualise your genuinely ideal job, and write down a description of it.
If the interviewer asks ‘Why do you want the job?’ you can use the answer you formulated based on the job description and etc – item 1.
If the interviewer asks ‘What would be your ideal job? You can use item 2 or take a chance and go for item 3.
You might think it would be safer and more productive of success to stick to item 2 – but I wouldn’t take that for granted if I were you.
In the first place item 2 would be, to a greater or lesser degree, a lie – and few people are as good at lying as they think they are. An experienced interviewer would almost certainly notice something missing: the genuine and unmistakable enthusiasm of a person describing something they really want.
Secondly, a job description (however good) isn’t necessarily the be all and end all of what a Company is looking for in a potential employee. Your ‘ideal job’ might make you an ‘ideal person’ in the long, albeit not the short, term.
And please don’t forget that you are interviewing the Company just as surely as they are interviewing you. The Company may not be right for you – and you need to find that out. The easiest way to do that is to ask questions and tell the truth about what you want.
If the interviewer asks ‘Why do you want the job?’ you can use the answer you formulated based on the job description and etc – item 1.
If the interviewer asks ‘What would be your ideal job? You can use item 2 or take a chance and go for item 3.
You might think it would be safer and more productive of success to stick to item 2 – but I wouldn’t take that for granted if I were you.
In the first place item 2 would be, to a greater or lesser degree, a lie – and few people are as good at lying as they think they are. An experienced interviewer would almost certainly notice something missing: the genuine and unmistakable enthusiasm of a person describing something they really want.
Secondly, a job description (however good) isn’t necessarily the be all and end all of what a Company is looking for in a potential employee. Your ‘ideal job’ might make you an ‘ideal person’ in the long, albeit not the short, term.
And please don’t forget that you are interviewing the Company just as surely as they are interviewing you. The Company may not be right for you – and you need to find that out. The easiest way to do that is to ask questions and tell the truth about what you want.
And in any event, appreciating that you are an interviewer and not a supplicant can make you feel a lot less nervous and a lot more confident about being interviewed - and having confidence and showing it can give you a huge advantage.
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