Preparing Your Answer for this Critical Question
The interview is just about over and you think you’ve done okay. You answered all the questions without too much hesitation. You asked a few of your own that you thought were pertinent to the facility. You sat up straight in your chair, you plastered a nice smile on your face, you made sure your handshake was firm, and you expressed enthusiasm for the job.
As you’re mentally preparing to get up and head out the door, though, the hiring manager leans over her desk and looks you earnestly in the eye. “Just one last thing,” she says. “Why should I hire you?”
“Why should you hire me?” you think. “Gee, isn’t that all we’ve been talking about for the past 45 minutes?”
Yes and no. Sure, the hiring manager has been learning more about you during the interview process. But now she wants you to step up to the plate and tell her just why you’d make a great addition to her team. If you haven’t prepared for this question in advance, you’ll probably flounder around, listing the items covered on your resume: your educational background, your prior experience, and your passion for respiratory care.
That’s not what she wants to hear. She already knows what you’ve done before. Now she wants to hear what you’re going to do for her and her hospital.
Here are five tips you can use to prepare for the “Why should I hire you?” question –
- Start with what should go without saying (but the manager would like to hear anyway), such as an assurance that you will show up for your shift on time and appropriately dressed.
- Go over the job description and decide how you would fulfill each of the roles you’ll be given. Take your cue from what the manager seemed to emphasize most during the interview when deciding which roles you should talk about. For example, if she stressed the need to work collaboratively with nurses in the delivery of bedside care, tell her how you would go about making that happen.
- Tick some of the boxes that are on every manager’s mind these days, such as patient satisfaction. Tell the manager how you’ll do your part to make sure your patients will say they were “always” satisfied with the care they received in your hospital when asked to complete the HCAHPS survey that’s now being tied to hospital reimbursement. (If you don’t know what kind of questions are asked on this survey, check out the series of articles in the July 2013 issue of AARC Times.)
- Let the manager know you are excited to work as part of the health care team and plan to take advantage of opportunities that may come your way. Say that you will join committees or work groups charged with exploring new ways of operating in the department or hospital.
- Ensure the manager that you’ll be on board with continuous quality improvement initiatives and will welcome the chance to implement best practices. Let her know she can count on you to be a positive force in the department, not a “negative Ned or Nellie” who is always dragging his or her feet when changes are introduced into the department.
Remember: by the time the “Why should I hire you?” question comes around in a job interview, your professional past is an open book. Adopting a forward looking stance is the best way to show the hiring manager how her department will benefit if she brings you on board.
