"Why should we hire you?" is up there with Donald Trump style handshakes, group interviews, and other petty, controlling, derogatory, disrespectful, arrogant, i

"Why should we hire you?" is up there with Donald Trump style handshakes, group interviews, and other petty, controlling, derogatory, disrespectful, arrogant, insulting, pretentious, and abusively bureaucratic hiring techniques that are regrettably common. The abusiveness in the question lies in it's asymmetry. It's like playing a catch/throw ball game with somebody and they intentionally throw the ball far enough to the side to where they know you can't catch it, but they want to see you try. The best move, of course, is to not subject yourself to the indignity, not to try, and to make them go pick up the ball. You should probably also stop playing ball with that morally deranged person. The only reason, short of ignorance, I can imagine a hiring manager being motivated to ask a question like this is to find out if they can abuse you and get away with it. The willingness to be subjected to abuse is sometimes something that managers want in their employees.