Could someone shed some light on how to answer these interview questions intelligently? I know most of the answer will be BSes anyway, but I wonder what the interviewer would want to hear:1. Why do you want to be a trader?2. Why do you want to be a structurer?3. Why do you want to be in Risk Management?This is assuming that you are currently not working in that area.Many thanks.

1. To make untold money quickly!2. What's a structurer?3. Ummm...

If you applied for a position that you cannot say why you want to work in that position, I suggest maybe not even applying in the first place. If somehow you think that molding an answer to what the interviewer likes to hear will be useful in landing a job, this is more of a debatable point. They asks these questions to gauge your interest and try to understand your job persona. Honestly, people throw out the answers that are BS and wants to hear the real reason unless you are interviewing with the HR person. Of course you can be more tactful about it than just saying you want to make a shit load of money. But that is rather up to how good you are at phrasing the truth.

Exactly, that's why I am wondering how to phrase the truth properly. And Tabris, I'm noting that assuming that the interviewee is not working in that area. (e.g. when a student just graduated from school, how would he know which area he wants to work since he hasn't had any experience? How would he answer the question?)IMHO, it really comes down to the conclusion that these questions shouldn't be asked to someone without prior experiences. Unfortunately, they do.

Actually, my opinion differs in that I believe these questions should be asked at any interview. It is more of a question of why did you take the time and effort to submit your resume for this position and why I should waste my time continuing to further interview this candidate. The idea of sending that cover letter and resume out already shows that you took the time and effort to apply for the job. Especially for new hires, you want to weed out those who are just applying for the sake of applying and having experience. Remember, the company spends a lot of time and money to train the candidate and would prefer the new candidate to stay in the company. If the candidate really BS his way to get the job and move to a new position the next year, the company just wasted a year. As for phrasing the truth, I usually like to sense out the interviewer. If he/she is the bold and arrogant type, you probably can get away with I want to make a lot of money and I believe learning under you would be very beneficial. Also depends a lot on the description of the position. You want to phrase it in such a way that the truth very much resembles what the company/manager was looking for in that position. If the structure position wants VBA experience, just say you got interested in the product through class and that you think that you can combine your VBA skills from school to the position. It really is more about selling yourself better than the next guy. If you can't sell your skills, it doesn't matter if you even have them.

Tabris, thanks for the comments, that was quite helpful.