Why should we hire you?

This is often considered a “gotcha” question, as it can be meant to trip you up. That said, it isn’t all that difficult. How you should view this question is an opportunity to sell yourself to the hiring manager. Review your résumé and find three to four selling points that you can reference during the interview.

First, look for summer job experience, skills, fellowships, internships, courses, or association experience on your résumé that are a good match for the job in question. Try to develop at least two success stories in which you cast yourself in a positive light and link this success to the job duties of the new position.

Also, be sure to give concrete examples. If you are touting your writing skills, be sure to reference the college award you won for best legal brief or a letter of reference from your summer internship coordinator lauding your writing abilities.

One other thing to remember: It’s fine to note what you’ll gain by being hired, but the hiring manager really doesn’t care about that. He or she needs to know that they are hiring someone who will bring value to the firm and improve its bottom line—and you need to stress this in your response.

3 in 4 Indian Professionals to look for new job in 2021

More than one-third of job seekers in India are worried about too many recruitment stages and extensively long application documents, while three in four professionals say they have reservations about networking. Despite this uncertainty, India remains resilient towards career growth as two in three professionals say they are confident about their future progression while two in five think attending networking events, and investing in online learning will be critical to landing a job in 2021.

The findings are based on 1,016 survey responses.

As job seekers continue to navigate the uncertainties of the job market today, LinkedIn launched the 2021 'Jobs on the Rise' India list to empower professionals with critical insights about the dynamic jobs landscape, especially those who may have lost their jobs during the pandemic. The top career opportunities as per the Jobs on the Rise 2021 India list include freelance content creators, social media and digital marketing roles, marketing roles, business development, and sales roles, and specialized engineering roles, among others.

Other top opportunities include finance roles, education roles, artificial intelligence roles, e-commerce roles, cybersecurity roles, data science roles, healthcare roles, human resources roles, user experience designer roles, and customer service roles.

"This year's Jobs on the Rise India list is a reflection of how the work ecosystem and the jobs market rapidly changed in 2020. Digital transformation has continued to drive all industries, and both, tech and non-tech roles have shifted to meet the needs of a new collaborative, remote work culture.

"The list shows us that audience builders and content creators are key to brands, HR continues to be at the heart of all operations, user and customer experience are critical in the new online world of service, and emerging tech, especially ed-tech, continues to boom," Ruchee Anand, Director, Talent & Learning Solutions, India at LinkedIn, said in a statement.

Top job trends based on the list include brands and individuals engaging audiences online, cybersecurity becoming critical to a digital-first future, Covid-19 accelerating emerging tech solutions, customer experience becoming key, and lifelong learning emerging as key to keeping talent ahead of the curve.