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I'm not sure that works in the majority of jobs. If you are the world's 27th largest CRM vendor then how would you expect a programmer to answer that question?
by slyall 6y ago
I'm not sure that works in the majority of jobs. If you are the world's 27th largest CRM vendor then how would you expect a programmer to answer that question?
There is a good chance that after a couple of years they will be as passionate about the CRM market is you are but 99% of the companies out there are not Google or somewhere people lust to work at.
- pron 6y agoI don't mean why do you want to work at this particular company more than all other companies, but why do you want to work here at all? What is it that you find appealing here? This is also a good meta-question. Even after I write to a candidate to say that they will be asked this, you'd be surprised how many are unprepared. I remember one guy who told me, when I asked him, that he's interviewing at so many places that it's unreasonable to expect him to know any specifics about this company. I wondered if he thought it reasonable, given how many people I was interviewing, that I try to know anything specific about him. Unsurprisingly, that answer is the only thing I remember about him.
- tomjen3 6y agoThen you filtered out an honest person. Lets face it though, it is not that hard to jot down some notes for each company that you can review in a couple minutes in the car before the interview.
- pron 6y agoHonesty is a necessary condition, but certainly not a sufficient one. If someone came to the interview and said that they don't really know how to program, I might appreciate their honesty, but still not hire them, and I might think badly of them for wasting my time. And while it's easy to jot down notes and review them (which is what I, as an interviewer had to do), the fact that some people didn't even do that despite being told in advance that they should, told me something about them. I didn't ask them for a take-home exercise or anything too time-consuming, just to know what it is that we're doing.
- TheOtherHobbes 6y agoAnd if the prospective employee asked you what you think makes you special as an employer, what would you say? Would have an answer about what makes you unusual and distinctive compared to tens of other possible employers?
- pron 6y agoI don't think you understand. My question isn't why would you like to work here more than anywhere else, but why would you like to work here? For example, if we were McDonald's, the answer could be, because I like hamburgers, or because I like giving service, or because I'm interested in the supply chain -- not because Burger King sucks. And if the candidate asked me why I'm interviewing them, of course I'd have an answer, because I prepare for interviews. The goal is to know if the candidate knows what we're doing and is interested in the subject. And remember, we're talking about a high skill, high pay job.
- tomjen3 6y agoAs a programmer, I could be interested because I want to work with the language they use, because I want to work more with databases in a practical setting, because I want to work in a small company (I doubt the 27th largest CRM vendor has more than say 200 customers) or simply because I want to try something different.