Why do you want to join our team?
Workplace gossips may have furnished you with the first bits of hint about the excellent pay policy and other sweetened reward schemes that are about second to none in the industry. Then when you felt interested in that company and went out of your way to dig more information relating to the tales, the gossips were confirmed.
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Since leaving college, you have worked in three separate establishments. Your grounds for quitting have always anchored on inequitable reward systems and general unfair pay policies.
When you heard gossips that warmed your heart, and subsequent research having raised your expectations, you applied to be considered for membership of the dream team.
More equitable reward policy
When you are asked this question, coming from your kind of background, there is that strong, almost irresistible temptation to start stating in a raw, near unacceptable manner your main motivation for wanting to jump on board. And no one is here to say that a motivation this genuine and real is unacceptable.
The one thing that makes this raw statement a little uncomfortable is the fact that in a claim this straight, there is the potential for the employer to conclude that you tend to denominate every effort and achievement in your life in money terms. And an assumption such as this by the job giver is a mark of a bad omen.
When your understanding of reward is expressly restricted to monetary considerations, a great employer, an experienced one with sober reflections on life in general, may thank you but dispatch your documents to the dustbin as soon as you turn your back to go.
It does matter little what kind of person you are and what understanding you have of rewards. As long as you can learn and practise how to advance this money mission of yours, without endangering your chances at getting a nod, that will be ok.
And to do so will involve focusing primarily on the big picture. And that big picture is the welfare of the company and its endearing leadership position which has attracted you and all the other job seekers.
Prestige
Sometimes the main motivation is not mere monetary rewards. The desire to belong to a team of men and women who inspire respect and owe the entire industry may be so overwhelming that monetary considerations may be relegated to the background.
The longing to belong to a dream team famous for sterling results may become an obsession almost impossible to bear.
If this applies to you, clearly, concisely and in a clever manner communicate this to the job giver, minding the fact that as much as the excitements driving you must be demonstrated in your presentation, allowing such excitements to spill over may not necessarily be in your interest, because when uncontrolled emotions pour out, the employer may be inclined to believe that she is screening a failure in search of career mentors for help.
But when you rein in your wild feelings and are able to communicate your purpose calmly and intelligently, you will be viewed as a young person in search of a team of career visionaries and those who make the magic happen.
Opportunity for Personal Development
The desire to join a corporation for purposes of advancing one’s personal development is as genuine as the right for self-defence.
Some companies have adopted human resource policies that are hostile and deliberately unwelcoming to members of their existing team and new entrants who exhibit symptoms akin to lack of ambition and drive.
Corporations such as these go the extra mile to administer personality related pre-interview assessments that separate the ambitious from the unambitious.
Making a case for personal development when confronted with the above question is an intelligent move but you need to bear in mind that the institution you are readying to join isn’t just throwing its money in the name of personnel development.
You have to work your way to excellence in order to deserve the so-called opportunities for personal development.
The right answer is the one that focuses more on the synchrony between the goals for which the corporation is hiring you and the acquisition of skills-set necessary for the advanced achievements of such goals.
Desist from making yourself the sole object of interest. Make the company the object, you the means and your education and future knowledge improvement the tools for getting there.
Whiling away time
Sometimes we apply to be considered for a job in a company we know from the onset that this is not the ideal company we have in mind. At times too, while we wait for an opportunity in our preferred industry to show up, we may feel like doing something while time passes by.
We may have information about the miserable reward conditions and other appalling practices in the company yet we wish to offer ourselves for consideration in the same firm.
But at times, while some candidates genuinely regard the company as ideal in their estimation and in fact in general estimation, the same company may not be one of the best on our list.
For us, therefore, this company is only a shed at the train station. As soon as the train arrives, the shed will be of little use to us. If this scenario fits your context, you have to learn to pass the hypocrisy test.
Candidates who view an opportunity as un-ideal and below their basest expectations tend to be too relaxed at screening and invest less attention and seriousness in the screening processes. Unless you steer your way out of this mood and stay focused on the interviewing, pretending that such an opportunity is as ideal to you as it may be to the rest, you may bid goodbye to an opportunity to be under the giant shed.
When an opportunity to demonstrate why you want to join a team is thrown to you, treat the question with all the seriousness it deserves. Being shy, timid and reserved pay little, if any at all. Even if your desire is to while away time while you await an ideal job, stay way from making a blunder of the question. — GB
