You walk in, placing your resume on the desk, and take a seat in the obscenely fancy chair across from the hiring manager, as they stand, smile and say “Welcome! Shall we begin?” You’ve had extensive correspondence with this individual, and this interview is the culminating effort to all your work, and in it, rests your hope for this job, and any prospects it may provide, but as you look around the room, you notice the manager isn’t holding your resume, as you would expect. He notices, and says “Tell me about yourself”. You pick up your resume, and begin to recite all the important strengths you assume apply to the job, and the person across from you starts nodding, just subtlety, as you say some of these attributes. Then towards the end they scrunch their face a little, and ask a different question. “What makes you a good fit for this position?”

This is a very difficult question to answer. This stems from the fact that a job description can never truly quantify all that a supervisor would require of you, as that is constantly changing, and adjusting with the company, and your place in it.

In my own personal experience, I have had the most success when I go above and beyond the job description, instead of fulfilling the basic duties. This is how I go about writing my own descriptions as well. It isn’t about what the person can do, it’s about what they will do, and the scope of their ability. The nature of the second question asked by the hiring manager is negligible. You already told them about the scope of who you are. The question better asked is on your end, simply “Am I what you are looking for?” The manager has a written job description that will consistently fail to quantify the impact any employee will have. And if used it correctly, those essential checkmarks of basic tasks lead their ultimate decision, not based of the job description, but on the possible impact, and the ultimate intent of the person to be hired.

istock image. Credit to Jacob Wackerhausen