Answering - Where do you see yourself in Five Years?

How to respond to the interview question - Where do you see yourself in Five Years?

It has been one of the most regularly asked interview questions for a very long time (and now outdated) ,so now it's quite ineffective for an interviewer to expect to make an informed hiring choice with this question.

Why? You might ask? 

You might even say - it shows me how the candidate plans for his future. In a linear world, this could be true. However, this is a valid but somewhat insufficient thought.  Terry Pratchett (one of my favourite authors), said it better than I could:

A similar thought was echoed by the creators of the Scrum Methodology.  You can find it in the Scrum Fieldbook.

What if the candidate asks you what your organization is doing to ensure that it will be around for the next five years?

Of course you can plan the future, you might say.

Reality says - sure, give it your best shot.  Show me the crystal ball you are using, and I will show you what happens when the time comes.

The point is - The world we live in is in constant flux, at a high speed, pulling and tempting us in multiple directions at once.  Changes in technology are happening so fast that yesterday's knowledge gets redundant faster.  What's worse, some of the things we once considered true and sacrosanct are now found to be inaccurate.

Another thing - we tend to base our plans on our past experiences.  While that's a fairly normal practice, that's extremely effective in a linear world, we don't realize that those past experiences occurred due to a multitude of factors, including situational factors beyond our control, our own stage of growth and maturity, and our reactions at that time.  This means that for our plans to be successful, we need to have the same set of factors occurring in the same degree, and we have to take those same steps.  This likelihood is really low.

Now, let's examine this question from the perspective of:

A Candidate, what could be a suitable response to this question?  Here's my suggestion - 

"I'm building my strengths and skills by undertaking diverse experiences and learning from them.  I supplement this with networking for knowledge, and working with a mentor.

I see myself applying my strengths in my future role of influencing or managing people to deliver great results in my chosen field of expertise for the organization, either mine or my employer's, leveraging suitable opportunities that come my way."

Please feel free modify the above so that it suits you, your profile  AND sounds like you, and not someone else.

I cover this and other aspects in my Interview Coaching sessions with both junior and senior clients.

An interviewer - my suggestion would be to modify the question as follows: 

"As you move ahead in your career, what do you see yourself doing five years from now?"

This could be followed up by - "What have you been doing so far to make this a reality?"

This helps move the interview into a detailed conversation where the candidate gets to share deeper information about themselves and you get more clarity on the candidate's potential capability.

I cover this and other aspects of Behavioural Event Interviewing in my specially designed workshop for organizations,  "The Selection Discussion".

Want support to know more? Write to me on +919820155778 or call +919820155778 to schedule a discussion.