Anonymous Government Contractor: “Why Do You Want to Work Here?” Because I Need a Paycheck, Karen.

The absurd psychology of job interviews, corporate loyalty, and the institutionalization of bullshit.

There are few questions in corporate America more ridiculous than the old HR interview favorite:

"Why do you want to work here?"

Well, Karen, because I need a job. I enjoy eating regularly, having electricity, and not living under a freeway overpass. Your company has an opening, I appear to have the necessary qualifications, and you're offering money in exchange for my labor. That seems like a pretty reasonable foundation for a business relationship. But apparently, that's not an acceptable answer.

Instead, you're supposed to explain how you've admired the company's mission for years, how its corporate values align with your own, and how joining this particular organization represents the fulfillment of some deeply personal ambition.

You must deliver this little performance convincingly enough to distinguish yourself from the other hundred poor bastards competing for the same paycheck. Everybody knows the game. The applicant knows it. The interviewer knows it. Yet both parties are expected to maintain the fiction that this is a profound conversation about professional destiny.

What a load of crap.

You Don't Know What You're Getting Into, and Neither Does HR

Here's the fundamental problem with the question: Unless you've previously worked with the same team, under the same management, in the same organization, you probably have very little idea what working there will actually be like.

You might know what the company sells. You might have researched its financial performance, read employee reviews, and examined its corporate mission statement. Congratulations. You've learned what the company wants the outside world to know about it.

You probably haven't learned whether your prospective manager is an incompetent micromanager, whether half the department is planning to quit, or whether the entire operation is held together by three overworked employees and a spreadsheet nobody understands.

You don't know whether the advertised job resembles the actual job. You don't know whether the team works well together, whether management tolerates disagreement, or whether you'll spend the next three years sitting through pointless meetings about improving productivity. The job could be terrific, but it's probably a huge pain in the ass. Otherwise someone inside the company would have fought for it.

And there's a reasonable chance the interviewer doesn't know much about these things either, particularly if they're an HR representative who doesn't work in the department. Yet you're expected to declare your enthusiasm for an experience you haven't had, involving people you haven't worked with, under circumstances you cannot independently verify.

So What the Hell Is HR Actually Testing?

Let's give the question the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps the interviewer wants to know whether you've researched the company. That's reasonable. An applicant ought to understand the position they're applying for. Perhaps they're looking for evidence of motivation. Nobody wants to hire someone who openly despises the work. Maybe they're assessing social awareness. Does the candidate understand the basic conventions of professional communication, or are they some antisocial knucklehead who will tell customers to piss off?

But here's the problem: The question doesn't reliably distinguish among them. A genuinely enthusiastic candidate might give a beautiful answer. So might a thoroughly unmotivated candidate who spent twenty minutes rehearsing something generated by ChatGPT. Meanwhile, a highly qualified engineer, accountant, or software developer who responds that the compensation is competitive and the work matches their expertise might be dismissed as insufficiently passionate. Which candidate is actually more likely to perform? The person with the polished speech? Or the person who understands the job and can demonstrate the skills necessary to do it?

That's the question HR should be trying to answer. Instead, the traditional question risks measuring a candidate's willingness and ability to produce the socially approved response. The cynic (me) might call that a test of obedience. A more charitable interpretation is that it's a poorly designed attempt to measure motivation and cultural fit. Neither interpretation makes it a particularly good hiring instrument.

The Research Makes This Even More Ridiculous

There's a scientific term for the behavior these interviews encourage: impression management. People modify how they present themselves to influence how others perceive them. Sometimes that's perfectly innocent. Dressing professionally for an interview is impression management. But the process can cross into deception when candidates invent motivations, exaggerate personality traits, or claim values they don't actually hold. Researchers have studied this.

A 2019 paper, Faking to Fit In: Applicants' Response Strategies to Match Organizational Culture, examined the phenomenon across six studies. The researchers found that applicants inferred the personality characteristics desired by employers and adjusted their responses to appear more compatible with those organizations. In other words, applicants learn what the employer wants to hear and modify their answers accordingly .

Imagine that.

A separate 2021 study in Personnel Assessment and Decisions examined 206 recently hired applicants. It found that deceptive impression management during interviews was associated with poorer perceived fit after hiring, with relationships to stress, well-being, and employee engagement.

These findings don't prove that this particular HR question causes dishonesty. They do, however, demonstrate that the broader incentive to manufacture compatibility is a real phenomenon with potentially undesirable consequences. And the research on better hiring methods is hardly a secret.

A major 2022 meta-analysis by Paul Sackett and colleagues found that structured interviews ranked among the strongest personnel selection methods for predicting job performance. Structured interviews aren't simply a collection of familiar questions asked in the same order. They're designed around job-relevant competencies, with standardized evaluation criteria.

Asking someone to explain how they diagnosed a difficult technical problem provides evidence about their technical and analytical abilities. Asking why they've always dreamed of working for Consolidated Corporate Bullshitland provides evidence that they've prepared an interview answer.

The LinkedIn Post That Spells Out the Game

A LinkedIn post by Paul Upton addresses precisely this problem.

Upton observes that the genuine reasons people want jobs are usually straightforward: compensation, benefits, commuting distance, professional advancement, and the general attractiveness of the position. But applicants often believe those answers will disqualify them. Instead, they're coached to talk about passion, corporate values, and an almost spiritual alignment with the organization's mission.

His conclusion is that candidates succeed by understanding the unwritten rules of the interview. There's something deeply irritating about this. We're not talking about an elaborate psychological experiment. We're talking about businesses trying to hire people to perform productive work. Yet we've constructed a ritual in which an applicant's ability to recognize and reproduce the expected fiction can become more important than their willingness to speak plainly.

And then companies spend millions on corporate initiatives promoting honesty, integrity, transparency, and authenticity. Apparently, those values become important only after you've successfully navigated an interview process that may penalize them. Just kidding, I have yet to meet a corporate executive with any integrity at all...but I keep hoping.

Why Employers Keep Asking

There's another explanation worth considering: institutional inertia. HR departments inherit interview practices from previous HR departments. Managers repeat questions that were asked during their own interviews. Career coaches teach candidates how to answer those questions, reinforcing the perception that the questions must be important. The process becomes self-sustaining. There's also a practical advantage for the interviewer.

A vague question produces a subjective answer, which permits a subjective judgment. That can feel easier than developing specific, defensible criteria for measuring competence. Candidate A seemed passionate. Candidate B didn't quite fit the culture. Candidate C just didn't have the right energy. These are convenient explanations. They aren't valid measurements. I could honestly give a shit. I want the dude that's going to be a good employee, not a 'passionate' corporate robot.

When an organization has a large pool of applicants, it can afford to reject capable people for flimsy reasons without immediately recognizing the cost. The rejected candidates disappear. Their potential contributions remain unknown. The company never learns whether it selected the best worker or merely the most convincing interview performer. But I'll tell you from experience, this is rarely the case.

That's a serious measurement problem, it's also an expensive one.

Here's What I'd Ask Instead

I have no objection to interviewing people. Hiring is difficult, expensive, and consequential. A bad employee can create enormous problems for an organization. But the interview should investigate the things that matter.

Ask candidates to describe difficult problems they've solved. Give them realistic scenarios from the position. Ask how they handle disagreements, manage competing priorities, recover from mistakes, and work with people who have different opinions. Let them demonstrate their technical skills.

If you want to understand their motivation, ask what they're looking for in their next position and what working conditions allow them to perform effectively. Then tell them what the actual job involves, including the unpleasant parts. A candidate who says, "I'm looking for challenging analytical work, competent management, and reasonable compensation," has given you useful information.

Can the employer explain why good people stay? Can the manager describe the department's turnover, workload, and management practices? Can they offer a realistic account of professional development?

Or will the candidate receive the same collection of corporate slogans?

It's interesting how quickly the conversation about passion and commitment can become uncomfortable when the employer is expected to provide evidence.

Why Someone Who Defends This Question Won't Be Running HR at My Company

Suppose I'm hiring someone to run human resources. I want someone who understands employment law, organizational behavior, personnel selection, compensation, and the actual business of getting competent people into jobs where they can succeed. I want someone who can distinguish between a valid measurement and a traditional practice that merely feels useful.

Most importantly, I want someone willing to challenge bad procedures rather than perpetuate them because that's how things have always been done. If an HR candidate enthusiastically defends "Why do you want to work here?" as an essential test of loyalty, passion, or character, without being able to explain what it measures or how well it predicts performance, that's a serious red flag.

Not because HR professionals are inherently incompetent. Most of them are, but let's move on.

When someone responsible for designing a company's hiring system ought to understand the difference between selecting qualified employees and selecting people who are good at being interviewed. Those are never the same thing. And if an applicant tells me they're interested in a position because the work suits their skills, the compensation meets their needs, and the opportunity looks promising, I'm perfectly happy with that answer.

I'll evaluate their ability to do the job. I don't need a declaration of corporate love. I don't need them to pretend their childhood dream was to join my payroll. They're offering labor and expertise. I'm offering compensation and working conditions. If we both deliver what we've promised, we have the makings of an excellent professional relationship. That's enough.

So why do you want to work here?

Because the job looks reasonable, the paycheck looks good, and I think I can do the work.

Now, can we dispense with the bullshit and talk about whether I'm actually qualified?

Anonymous Government Contractor

Sunday, October 25, 2026

“Why Do You Want to Work Here?” Because I Need a Paycheck, Karen.