How to Answer ‘Why Are You a Great Match for This Role?’

Hiring managers and recruiters ask this job interview question to give you a chance to explain why you’d be the best person for a role out of their final candidate pool. Interviewers only have a limited number of questions and answers to assess each candidate, and this one helps differentiate what makes for a standout candidate better than most. They want to hear information and anecdotes about past work experience, technical skills, teamwork abilities, and anything else that makes you uniquely qualified above the rest of the competition.

As an interviewee, you will know you’re a great match for a role when it aligns with your experience and talents. Compare your relevant skill set, prior track record and experience, and personality traits against the job description on the company’s website. Seek career advice from trusted mentors, coworkers and managers from previous jobs, and friends to see if you can authentically and organically answer this question if it pops up in an interview. Ask whether you would fit in with the company culture as you see it from the outside looking in.

Knowing how to answer this question well will help you go from job interview to job offer. Keep these seven tips in mind when explaining why you’re a great match for the role:

1. 1. Aim for specificity. Focus on skills and experience that tie in directly with the job you’re applying for rather than more general information. As an example, if you’re interviewing for an accounting position, talk about what makes you a budgeting master. Similarly, if you want to prove you’d be a good fit on a project management team, talk about the hard and soft skills that help you lead teams, make plans, and bring initiatives to completion.
2. 2. Be confident. Even if this is the first job posting you’ve ever responded to, you need to go in confident you’d be a great match for the role. Remember your high-quality work, leadership skills, years of experience, and the relevant abilities you’ve honed. All of this should boost your confidence and show the interviewer you mean what you say when explaining what makes you a good fit.
3. 3. Brainstorm your greatest strengths. This helps focus the eventual answer on concrete, unique skills and strengths rather than abstract and vague notions. If you have a hard time deciding on your greatest strengths, ask a former coworker or look at example answers to this question online to see if you relate to the sample responses.
4. 4. Differentiate yourself. Your goal is to prove you’re far and away the best candidate. Think about past experiences, technical skills, people skills, and related personality strengths that distinguish you. As you answer this question, you want to leave the interviewer with a strong impression of you as a distinctive individual.
5. 5. Practice your interview answer. Aim to prove why you can go above and beyond fulfilling all the stated job requirements. Try to stay calm and organic as you practice—and especially in the interview itself. You want to demonstrate great communication skills rather than seem like you are reciting your cover letter from memory. Compare your potential answer against sample answers to this question online to see if you’re heading in the right direction.
6. 6. Strive for brevity. Treat your answer to this question as a brief sales pitch instead of a chance to recapitulate all your past experiences and greatest skills. Distill why you’re the best job candidate into about thirty seconds to a minute if possible. This allows your interviewer time to ask more questions that will help you further prove your worth.
7. 7. Tie in the company’s mission. Visit the company website ahead of your interview to make sure you can tie in all your unique talents, experience, and skills into the company’s broader mission. Interviewers will appreciate your awareness of their company goals and the effort it took to tie your answer into them.

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