Why Are You a Good Fit for this Role - How to Answer
About this video
Jeff Su breaks down how to answer ‘Why are you a good fit for this role?’ (and its variants ‘Why should we hire you?’ and ‘What makes you a good candidate?’). He says interviewers are really probing three things: what you can bring to the role, what you are trying to get out of it, and what makes you unique — and the answer should be weighted 50% on the first, 30% on the second, and 20% on the third, inside a total of two to two and a half minutes. For part one, research the job description by pasting all its text into a free word cloud generator to see which words and phrases recur most, then match your strongest experience to those requirements as your value proposition; his worked example is a Tesla manager role on the global operations team, whose keywords (team, global team, supply chain, logistics, system implementation, new process) lead him to lead with team leadership and internal-process optimization from his B2B product marketing role rather than his thin supply-chain experience. If you have relevant experience, double down and frame the new role as a growth challenge; if you are a fresh grad or industry switcher, highlight transferable skills instead. Because part one gets half the time, prepare a full story in STAR format. Part two is the counterintuitive one: honestly state what you selfishly want from the job. He argues this reads as authentic and proves you researched the role — interviewing for a Google account manager position in sales, he said he gets a rush from watching clients immediately adopt his recommendations in their Google Ads accounts, unlike consulting work where results took weeks or months to appear. If stuck, think about the ideal end result of doing the job well, or ask someone already in the role whether they are happy and why. Part three closes with something memorable: either something genuinely uncommon about you tied to the role (his own example: half his life in the US and half around Greater China, an asset for a multinational like Google), or a common strength backed by a memorable example (his proactivity, shown by making how-to videos for clients while on the sales team).
Key takeaways
- Structure the answer 50/30/20: what you bring, what you want to get out of it, what makes you unique — in two to two and a half minutes.
- Paste the job description into a free word cloud generator to find its most frequent terms, then match your value proposition to them.
- Prepare one full STAR-format story for the ‘what you bring’ half of the answer.
- State an honest, selfish motivation for wanting the role — it signals authenticity and that you researched the job.
- Close with a memorable hook: an uncommon background tied to the role, or a common strength proven by a specific story.
Episode details: published August 26, 2020 · 6:28 long. Summary written by Self Growth Videos from the episode itself. Business results and any income figures mentioned are Jeff Su’s own claims, shared for education — they are not typical or guaranteed.
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