What do you see yourself doing five years from
now?
It's an innocent enough question. It's also the
kind of query that is common fare for most job interviews these days. In fact,
if you do Google search for the five most asked job interview questions it
lands right near the top of most of the lists.
There was a time in the not-so-distant past that
this was a valid job interview question.
Back in the pre-recession days, you set your
career compass on the road ahead and the milestones practically fell into your
lap. It usually started with: 1) Land first job; 2) Get job that pays more
money; 3) Move up the ladder to a job with more responsibility; 4) Become the
boss; 5) Retire.
But these are the days of reinvention. They are
also the days when the marketplace has folks on steps three and four competing
with those on the first step for jobs.
But as sure as anything, people doing interviews
are still working from the same playbook. I've been asked more times than I
care to recall what my goal is, or where do I see myself in five years?
In all honesty, if the past five years are any
indication of the next five, I have little doubt there is no way to predict
where any of us will be. My pat answer is that I want to be relevant.
Throughout my career, I've been able to change roles and jobs to meet a variety
of situations.
I'd love to still be doing website content work.
Beyond being relevant in my field of interest, I have few other goals.
From here the interview playbook is pretty much
predictable. For those of you who haven't been down this path before I spell
them out for you.
Tell me about yourself. For this one you want to
have the elevator resume ready to go. They just want the highlights, so think
of it as an interview that only lasts as long as the average elevator trip.
Next is the old, "Why should we hire
you?" It also comes in many forms including, "Why are you right for
this job?" or "What distinguishes you from other candidates?"
This is a tricky one when you think about it. If
you've made it into the room for an interview, obviously you've got a skill set
they are looking for. And everybody always says they're willing to give 110
percent. Some folks even go the intangibles route as in "I've got skills
that are tough to put on a resume but will add value to the company."
From here the list usually goes to "What do
you know about the company?" "Tell me about a time you failed, or how
did you recover from XYZ?" And then there is the "Why did you leave
your last job?"
These are all pretty good questions, and you
won't go to a formal interview without hearing most of them.
The other day, however, I had a conversation with
a person who was looking to make a hire. It was part of the interview process,
but instead of going off the script, we just talked. We threw topics out there
and sounded our way through them.
Back in the day when I was involved in hiring, I
did the same thing. I found people will tell you more about themselves in a
conversation then you'll ever get from a list of standard questions.
