Questa volta abbiamo cercato: Employers/Inteviewers of MassimoL, why do you ask the “So why are you interested in this job?” to people interviewing for basic jobs like a pizza delivery driver or a receptionist?
Employers/Inteviewers of MassimoL, why do you ask the “So why are you interested in this job?” to people interviewing for basic jobs like a pizza delivery driver or a receptionist?
Ed ecco le risposte:
To see how the person responds. It’s all about the meta. Of course it’s a dumb question. You’re going to get a lot of dumb questions and deal with a lot of dumb people. This will give a glimpse of how you deal with stupidity.
Because a lot of people will give a really bad answer.
It weeds out the folks who will say “I just want to save up so I can move across the country next month” and worse.
They’re not necessarily looking for anything specific, just trying to weed out people who give real bad answers because they’re clueless and/or truly don’t give a shit about keeping the job
It’s “Why are you interested in this particular job as opposed to any other job that pays about the same?” and “Are you gonna tell on yourself?” rolled into one question.
Pizza delivery good answer: “I love the pizza at this particular restaurant, I like driving, and I know this part of the city well.”
Pizza delivery bad answer: “McDonald’s won’t hire me back.”
Phone room good answer: “My friend [good employee] recommended this place, they said that it’s like the customer service I’ve been doing at the grocery store without the cart pushing in extreme weather.”
Phone room bad answer: “I wanna sit around and not do any real work.”
Pretending to be excited or at least pretending to care is a required skill in customer service. If you can’t fake it in an interview in front of a potential future boss, you aren’t going to do it 8 hours a day.
I no longer do this, but used to.
To see why they picked this job, instead of any other similar job.
The answer doesn’t have to be butt kissing, and I’ve always preferred practical answers. “Because it’s close to my house” is an entirely reasonable thing to say, and lets me know that there is one less obstacle to them showing up late.
Nobody actually expects a cashier or what not to be fulfilling their lifelong dream, and the bar for hiring is generally decently low, but you still want to at least try to ensure they’ll be an okay fit.
In my specific example, I was hiring for a game store, and a significant percentage of applicants wanted to be hired so they could play games all day, which was obviously not desirable.