What is the best way to answer this question? Asking for a friend.
The best answer is to talk about what you would contribute to the firm, if you start to explain about your skills or your professional background you will be only reading your resume to them. It’s a powerful question that your friend should answer wisely to convince them
All the best
Got to focus on differentiation, what sets you apart.
If all else fails, I’ll just provide them a link to the WC so they can see me at my best.
I’m Batman.
Sorry, Batman does not have any special abilities. Go Superman or Spiderman. More reliable.
Guys, respect the (SRS) tag. This is serious post.
LOL - JOKER!!!
Turn it around on them, guaranteed hit or miss:
“The real question is why should, I , pick YOU, out of all the offers I’ve received?”
If internal job, “I can be productive on day one”
Well… What is your answer?
For me, I often bring it back to the fact a resume doesn’t convey some of the key variables of work. I talk about what I think my competitive advantages are such as attitude and work ethic. I use concrete examples from my past
So far I’ve only been able to think of the intangibles, like, I can bring to the team an attitude that responds very well to feedback and criticism, and that I promise never to complain. I’ll come in first, and leave last, and finally that I’m a wholesome individual that will always promise to make the client feel like a million bucks no matter the cost.
So in all honesty, I think it’s a rather easy question to answer.
I think you should avoid saying things like “I promise not to complain”… to me, this is similar to saying I promise not to lie (obviously not as bad). This is already expected of you, no one wants to hire someone who complains.
rawraw makes a good point about discussing concrete examples from your past that touch on what value add you can bring to the company. Perhaps discuss your dedication by highlighting your participation in the CFA program while juggling a full-time job?
This.
At the end of the day that’s all they care about. If it’s about differentiation between you and other candidates, that’s up to you to figure out what makes you better. But stick to those 2 things - 1) how you can help the firm, and 2) why you are better than others.
Yeah and don’t re-read your resume like they said above.
I once had “Why shouldn’t I hire you?”. It definitely threw me. 
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So far I’ve only been able to think of the intangibles, like, I can bring to the team an attitude that responds very well to feedback and criticism, and that I promise never to complain. I’ll come in first, and leave last, and finally that I’m a wholesome individual that will always promise to make the client feel like a million bucks no matter the cost.
So in all honesty, I think it’s a rather easy question to answer.
[/quote]
I think you will be better off sticking with hard skills, instead of those intangibles. Those soft skills are different things to different people.
I think what I would say is that I am nice and reasonable, like no stress under tense situations. Most of the time, I don’t need to convince people that I am intelligent or hardworking, because they immediately profile me based on my appearance (sucks for them - I am actually lazy as F). At the same time, the industry is full of assholes, so sometimes people just like to have someone who is normal. If it is the kind of place what doesn’t care about your personality if you make money, I don’t think I would want to work with people like that anyway.
Would have to admit defeat and leave.
When hit with a tough interview question, I usually like to go on offense and take a page out of step brothers’ play book and tell the interviewer that now I’m interviewing him.