The only 2 questions that matter at your job interview

No matter what and how your prospective employer will go about interviewing you and selecting the right person for that highly sought position, there are only two questions that really matter and that you should be ready to answer to ace your interview: why us; and why you.

1. Why Us

It’s really worth doing your homework and finding out what makes this company different from others. Do they have unique clients or work philosophy that’s different from their competitors? What is it about the history of the company or their management that’s appealing to you. After you study the company’s website, look at the biographies of the Company CEO and top management. Are you impressed with their credentials and believe you could learn from how they work? – Then proudly say so. Do you like the product or the service the company is providing? – Then tell the interviewing manager that you really want to be part of the team that makes this great product/service even better.

“Why us” is about what makes the company so great and so desirable to you andnot why you think they are good enough for you to work at. There is no place for showing any kind of sense of entitlement during your job interview, unless you are some kind of famous award winning professional. Arrogance in a job candidate is one of the biggest and sadly most common turn-offs to recruiters in a job candidate.

2. Why You

The trick in answering this question is telling your prospective employer why you are so great without saying it. Talk about your prior work experience and your interest in that field of work. Talk about your ideas that you believe would be very useful to the team you want to work with. Share other objective facts and quantifiable accomplishments (i.e. how you increased your prior employer’s sales in the past, reduced expenses, etc.) about why you are good at what you do, and why you would be a good fit for the company without using generic, self-serving cliche adjectives that should only be used as bullet points in a resume, if at all, and sound like bragging, i.e. “I am attentive to detail, goal oriented, reliable, hard worker, etc..”

Keep the above two questions in mind when preparing for a job interview in any field and it will really help you focus on what really matters to you and to that potential employer.

This article is published in collaboration with LinkedIn. Publication does not imply endorsement of views by the World Economic Forum.

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Author: Arkady Itkin is a civil litigation attorney specializing in a wide range of employment related issues, claims and wrongful termination cases, as well as serious personal injury cases, and business litigation.

Image: Employees talk at offices in downtown Madrid. REUTERS/Susana Vera.