Where do you see yourself in five years?
Now that may seem like a trick question because obviously we can't really know
exactly where we'll be even one year from now,
but it's a question that a lot of interviewers like to ask.
So if you find yourself at an interview or preparing for an interview
and you know that maybe they're going to ask you,
where do you see yourself in five years?
I'm going to give you three things that you can do to craft a response.
The good news is that you don't have to be right because obviously nobody
can know where they're going to be five years from now so you don't have to be
right. So if somebody asks you, where do you see yourself in five years?
Take it as an opportunity to share your vision and your dreams.
When somebody asks you this question,
they're trying to get an idea of whether or not you spend time,
serious time thinking about your career goals.
Goal setting is important anyway if you want to achieve your milestones
and if you do want to take that next step in your career.
Goal setting is something that you want to do anyway. So on a regular day,
this could be the start to kickstart a great conversation
around your career milestones and declaring your milestones for your career
and also having some accountability around that.
But if it was an interview question and an interview was sitting in front of you
and they asked you, where do you see yourself in five years?
They're trying to get an indication of whether or not you really sat down
and set out for yourself what are your career goals. And in addition,
more importantly, they're trying to see whether or not your goals aligned with
the potential career path that the role can possibly have for you in your career.
In other words, they want to know whether or not you're likely to stay
with the company for a long time or whether or not your goals
can align with the potential of that career path in that role.
So they don't want a high turnover rate because it takes
a lot of resources and time to retrain people.
So they want to make sure that the trajectory of that career
is suitable for what you're looking for. So I'm going to give you
three things you can do to answer this question effectively.
The first thing you want to do is answer honestly, but not too honestly.
And here's what I mean by that. If someone asked you,
where do you see yourself in five years? And it's in a job interview,
chances are you might be thinking,
well I don't see myself working here in five years.
Or you might be thinking,
I see myself running this place or I see myself in a promoted position.
And maybe that's not the career trajectory for that position.
So don't answer too honestly. Because if you do, then it's an indication that
you don't see yourself in that company or that maybe they can't provide for you
the trajectory that you're looking for in your career.
So you want to answer in a way that's honest but not too honest.
So you don't want to answer too honestly,
especially if you're just trying to keep your options open.
Because the last thing we want to do is hire someone if there's indications
that you're not going to be around for a long time. The second step is to
keep your answer within the bigger picture. Don't go into the minute details of
where you see yourself in five years cause they don't want to know whether or
not you're thinking about starting a family or whether or not you're going to
move somewhere else.
That's not what they want to know.
So a good rule of thumb is to research potential
career paths that this role could take you and talk about it in terms of a story,
a career outline of where you see yourself in five years,
that this career role could potentially take you down.
Answer in terms of outlining your career path and where this role could possibly
take you in five years.
You can also talk about why you're investing the next five years in this career
path and industry and that is also one direction that you can take as well.
The third step is to envision the experiences and the skills that you want to
have in five years. For example,
what do you want to have achieved five years from now in your career?
What skills do you want to have that you could have on your resume and talk about?
You don't have to include specifics in your answer, but just thinking about them
will help you to provide an answer and response for this question.
No matter which angle you do decide to take, just remember to project enthusiasm
and certainty throughout your whole response. Comment below.
Where do you see yourself in five years? If you enjoy the content,
and it was helpful to you, give it a like.
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every single week. Where are you at in your career journey?
Maybe you are applying for jobs,
maybe you have some interviews lined up or maybe you're just preparing and
you're just trying to figure out what's out there. But here's the good news.
A career isn't something that you just find,
or fall into because chances are there's a lot of job postings out there.
But finding your dream career,
your fulfilling career that way is an uphill battle
because it's not going to be something that you find.
A career is something that you build intentionally and with purpose.
But to do that, you have to know what you want in your career.
You have to know and you have to be connected deeply to what your purpose is.
And I have the thing for you, if that's you and you're trying to figure this out
and you're trying to find out what is my purpose, what do I want in my career?
What does that look like and how do I get there? Then I have something for you.
It's an intensive that will help you to figure this out and you have access to me
and I will help you every step along the way. So if you want to find out more,
just visit careerrevisionist.com/intensive
that's careerrevisionist.com/intensive. I'm including the link below.
So visit that link and I look forward to seeing you on the inside.