Q: How do I answer the interview question: why should I choose you over the other candidate that had same qualifications and/or the same personality as you?

A: This is a great interview question to prepare for, for a number of reasons.

1. You need to know your worth and value. You are a unique combination of innate strengths and talent and experience. If you don’t know what that is, then how can your interviewer?
2. By exploring your strengths, talents, and relevant experience, you remind yourself of what you can contribute. Just by exploring this question, you can boost your self-confidence which always helps during an interview.
3. This gives you a chance to summarize your strengths and leave a lasting impression.
4. This forces you to think about what is important to the company and hiring manager. Even if you are a clone of your competitors (which you are not), if you frame your experience and personality in a way that reflects the company’s needs and values, you have the advantage right there!

So how do you prepare for this question? You might start by taking some strengths assessments to identify where you shine (My Career Design Studio has several great assessments that identify your strengths). Then, look at the job description. What are they looking for? Make a list of what is most important to them. Look at their website and do the same thing. Then, think about how your strengths and experience can address those needs. Then, when you’re asked this question, you can say: “According to your job description, you need a, b, c, and d. I can address those needs in the following ways…”

Often job seekers can get stuck thinking about what they need from a job. That’s important to know, but when you’re interviewing, you need to be thinking primarily about what the company needs from you. The more you can do this, the more successful your interviews will be. Career design helps you to figure out both.

Live in the future you design!

(First published on the website The Muse)