In this series of blogs about Job Interview Questions, I have been discussing how to answer some tough questions. I have earlier discussed how to answer “tell me about yourself?” and “what is your greatest weakness” or “why should we hire you?” I hope these Job Interview tips are helpful to you. In this blog I shall discuss with you How to Answer Job Interview Question About Your Career Goals : Where Do You See Yourself in Five Years?
This Job Interview question has become quite a routine question in most of the job interviews and many of the times I have seen even a very prospective candidate answers a very vague answer or answers which are wholly based on imagination which is very far from reality. This happens only because they do not do the homework before attending the Job Interview.
In my opinion, this is a very important question which judges the candidate’s sincerity towards his/her career path. Single handed this question judges the candidate’s many behavioural aspects. This job interview question judges how long the candidate is willing to stick to this job. It also judges has the candidate has done any homework of the company’s background and work culture. This shows his/her seriousness towards this company.
The human resource or the hiring managers ask this question because they want to hire someone who is motivated and committed to work better and achieve organizational goal. They want to judge if the candidate is willing to stick to this company. They check this because they want to safeguard themselves against bad hires or candidate’s who are prone to job hopping.
Enough said, now I shall discuss in brief how to answer this question in the job interview. You as a candidate may be honest but surely a too candid answer may land you in soup.
Now, How to Answer Job Interview Question About Your Career Goals: Where Do You See Yourself in Five Years?
- Don’t be too serious with this question: Interviewers like prompt answers. If you ponder too much with this question you may lose the bus. The interviewer may think you lack a definite career goal. You need to keep in mind you need to provide an intelligent answer which shall convince the human resource manager that you have the spirit of a good candidate and you want to stick with this company.
2. Keep the answer general and not too specific: Everybody is ambitious and your ambition may be to reach the top as soon as possible. But if you answer something like “I want to become VP in 5 years and I want a salary of 50 lacs/month in 5 years from now” in a midsized company, rest assured you shall probably not be selected. Give a reasonable answer and this you can only provide – provided you do homework about the company well before the interview.
3. Show you are interested in a long term career: Show your enthusiasm for work and demonstrate in your answer that you would love to stick to this company for a long time. To show these qualities you must say how you are going to add value to this company in long term.
4. Don’t discuss your personal ambitions and interests which may raise red flags: As a candidate, you may be weighing various career options and other avenues of career. But take guard, the interviewer should not get any hint of these thoughts from your answer.
These are few tips which can help you offer an effective answer to the job interview question about your career goals, “Where Do You See Yourself in Five Years?” There are other variants of this question, like:
- How do you define success?
- What is your long term goal?
- What is more important to you in life, money or career?
- How can you reach the top in 5 years?
In the next blog again I shall discuss with you about other job interview questions. Till then you are welcome to come up with suggestions about what are the other questions you find very tough to answer in job interviews. If you have any suggestions on how to answer Job Interview Question: “Where Do You See Yourself in Five Years?” keep posting them in the comment box below. Do share this blog so that other applicants in job interviews get benefitted also. For our list of available vacancies of the HR Monks visit https://thehrmonks.com/search-and-apply/ and you can drop your CV/Resume and our team would get back to you.
Sayak takes care of both recruitments and assessment projects of The HR Monks team. He loves helping people finding their dream job.
He started his journey in career leaving the shores of Waiting for Godot and found The HR Monks a better place, where he can change the lives of people by helping them achieve their dreams.
He has been to quite a fewer place across India and loves to travel. He loves two books, in particular, one Siddhartha by Herman Hesse and the other The Shift by Dr. Wayne Dyer.