Question

Scenario you are a 30 year old college student going to school for business and will graduate in a year.

Instructions:

Find a company online where you would like to apply for a job.

Research the company and write a description using the guidelines below.

Answer the question: Why do you want to work for this company?

Do Your Homework

When I say, “homework” I am referring to research and preparation in three key areas:

Know yourself

Know the company

Know the position and the department

Know Yourself

Before you talk to employers, or even network for positions, you need to have a strong grasp of what you can offer them. (What’s the return on investment you provide to the employer?)

You should be able to talk about your strengths and your accomplishments, and to readily give concrete answers to questions such as “What are your greatest strengths?” “Why should we hire you?” and “Tell me about yourself” as well as “What do you know about us? And “Why do you want to work here?

Know the Company

Get to know the companies you will be talking to (or talking about, if networking). When you know details about them, their culture, their goals, their products, and their challenges, you are then able to talk about yourself and your fit into the company.

Google the company and read all you can. Visit their company website to learn more about them.

Know the Position and the Department

In this economy, there is no room for shopping for “any job you find me qualified for.” Instead, you need to know where you would fit into the company, whether there is a current advertised opening or not.

Putting it all Together

Once you have done all your pre-interview homework, you will never again find yourself blundering on critical questions like, “Why do you want to work here?” Instead, you will be prepared to talk knowledgeably about the company and position, why they interest you, and how you will fit in with your skill set, personality and experience.

Answer 1

I want to work for Amazon as an Operations Manager for e-commerce department.

Knowing myself

I have previous work experience before beginning my courses in the business school. This has helped me understand the ground level work as well as gain theoretical knowledge of business management that I am ready to apply. I am willing to take risk and initiative. Given the personality that I possess and the knowledge that I have acquired, I will be suitable at a high risk/high gain organization that is has a good mix of technology and business concepts.

Given these conditions and the way Amazon is progressing in the world, I can see myself flourishing at an organization like that. My contribution towards the organization is likely to be mutually beneficial for both me and the organization.

Knowing the company

Amazon is well known for their fast paced culture. The projects are initiated quickly, the employees are encouraged to take new initiatives, failures are taken in the strides of the career and the overall culture of the organization has a very startup feel to it.

Amazon is also well known to be a place where hard work is necessary to produce result. While it is a large organization, the unorganized structure gives it a feel of a small company and the teams work in modules. Such a company will be a perfect fit for me in terms of culture and my personality.

Know the position and the department

I would like to work for the ecommerce department. The e-commerce industry has been developing for over a decade now. However, in spite of all the innovations, the industry is still quite young and there are a lot of scope of improvement. Amazon seems to be in the forefront of the logistics excellence when it comes to e-commerce. The organization has been continuously making improvement to their delivery system, launching new concepts (such as prime) and exploring new technologies.

Naturally handling one or more of the operations function for Amazon will provide me with the opportunity to learn and grow in the organization.