Answering “What Can You Bring To The Company” (+ Examples)

Interviewers like to test you by asking what you can bring to the company. This is their way of making you think on your feet.

It also helps them see how you formulate responses to open-ended questions like this one. Which is a measurement of your verbal communication skills.

Knowing how to answer this question can make you seem confident and experienced. I’m going to show you exactly how to answer this question with ease.

Ready? Let’s go ahead and get started..

The Context Of Your Answer

Similar to answering “what can you contribute to the company” you need to understand what the interviewer is looking for.

Even though these two interview questions sound similar, one is about what you might bring to the team. And the other (this interview question) is related to what skills you bring to the table.

Mentioning a “soft skill” in this interview question would be less than ideal. Something like your verbal communication skills, again, for example.

What you want to bring up is something that you know most companies struggle with. And how you’re well-positioned to be able to help.

Here is an example, most companies struggle with team communication. It’s just a simple fact. With more companies relying on digital internal communication tools, communication can suffer.

Related: 3 Answers To “What Can You Contribute To The Company?”

While these tools are more convenient than having an in-person meeting, they can also create confusion and cause miscommunication to persist.

Your ability to mention your desire to communicate clearly across teams and ensure teams are on the same page before investing time into projects is a huge value.

That’s how you’ll want to structure your answer. By positioning the answer alongside a frequent issue within a company.

How To Answer This Question Accurately

You won’t be able to know what types of issues the environment has. But you can make some educated guesses. Or you can simply align yourself with a value the company already has.

If you choose to align yourself to a value the company already has, you might be able to derive this from the company “about” page. Or from their values that are listed publicly across LinkedIn or their “careers” page.

Look for something like “collaboration” or “innovation” as part of the values they instill within the environment.

Once you have that, you can structure your answer as saying you can bring a new perspective from your past experiences into the environment, hopefully creating more innovation.

See how simple that is to align yourself to the values of the environment?

If you choose not to align yourself to existing values, you can make some assumptions about the environment.

Here are some issues that most environments suffer from:

• Team collaboration.
• Cross-functional team communication.
• Projects that are far past due.
• Ability to execute quickly.
• Ability to support overall employee happiness.

Example Answer To “What Can You Bring To The Company”

Using our flaws from the above list, we can come up with some example answers to this question quite easily. Remember, align yourself to either existing values by researching the company in advance. Or use common company issues that you can make an educated guess about.

Example one

“I firmly believe that communication is a large part of effective collaboration. It does not simply have good verbal communication skills; it’s also about remembering to communicate and learn how others like to communicate. In that sense, I’m able to bring connective tissue to the company.”

Example two

“There’s not one company that I know of that doesn’t have one looming project that is far past due. It’s a pervasive case. I pride myself on being able to jump in, learn quickly, adapt fast, and move forward stuck projects.”

Example three

“Executive leaders sometimes need employees who know how to execute quickly. While "quickly" isn’t always better. Sometimes it is necessary. I’m so familiar with being inside fast-paced environments that I pride myself on being an executor.”

Your Answer Shouldn’t Focus On You

If you answer this question with your own skills in mind, you’ll miss the opportunity to be perceived as a high-value addition. Remember, in the question itself, it asks, “bring to the company.”

Keep that in mind; this question is about understanding what the company might need and how you might be able to fill it.

If you don’t know what the company needs, that’s okay. Guess! But make an educated guess.

If your answer contains a focus on yourself, you might be perceived as lacking empathy, and that can contribute to you being seen as difficult to collaborate with.

An example poor answer to this question would be: I’ve always seen myself as a leader. I would love to come into the company and help lead it!

The reason this is bad is that it emphasizes that when you think about the companies' needs, you put yourself first. And that’s rarely what is required of great employees.

Selfless employees are often the best employees. They put the company's needs first. Keep these rules in mind as you craft your own response to this interview question.

Customize your answer based on your own experiences and what you feel your strengths are.