Essential Interview Question Not to Mess up (& That You Can Prepare For)

Interviews cover a wide variety of subjects, from behavioral questions to your relevant experience. One make-or-break question is why you want to work at that company.

I like this post by First Round Capital on not only good interview questions for the company but also good answers from the interviewee. First Round addresses “Why do you want to work at this company?” particularly well, with insight from a hiring manager who has worked at Google, Facebook, Twitter and Dropbox. A weak answer is “X is getting a lot of buzz… It’s really hot right now.” A good answer instead shows passion about the industry, company, or project. It also has specific ideas and plans how to make things better. That kind of response shows the interviewee researched the company and thought deeply about it. The hiring manager wants someone who shows long-term thinking and commitment to the area. For law, I recommend talking about not just how the law applies to the company now plus how the law got there, where it will likely go, and why.

Here’s sample language from the post on how to show you are excited about the space.
·        I’ve always wanted to work in X industry, I’ve done Y and Z in the last couple years to really prepare
·        Company X has a huge competitive advantage because of Y.
·        I have been using product X for a while, and I really like feature Y. I think feature Z could really improve growth/engagement/monetization and here’s why…