To stand out in today’s job market, it’s crucial to go “one step beyond” other candidates by polishing your personal narrative and preparing for tricky interview questions.
Candidates who are able to provide clear, calm and thoroughly researched answers will stand out to hiring managers, according to Madeline Mann, founder of career coaching business Self Made Millennial and author of “Reverse the Search: How to Turn Job Seeking into Job Shopping.”
In her experience, one interview question that frequently trips up job seekers is: “Where do you see yourself in five years?”
It’s “kind of an impossible question,” Mann says. Nobody really knows what their future career will look like, but the question “gets so many job seekers rejected — and they don’t realize it.”
Your response should demonstrate to hiring managers how your goals and experience “fit into this role,” she says.
Here’s her best advice for job seekers on how to tackle this interview question.
How not to answer, ‘Where do you see yourself in 5 years?’
From a hiring manager’s perspective, the purpose of this question is to figure out if candidates are sincerely interested in the job and whether it aligns with their career ambitions, according to Mann.
Many job seekers inadvertently “prove that this role isn’t in their trajectory” by sharing future goals that have nothing to do with it, Mann says.
“They’ll say things like, ‘I hope to open my own business in five years,’ or, ‘I hope to get married in five years,” she says. Answers that focus on entrepreneurship or personal milestones can “give the impression that this person might be a flight risk,” Mann says.
Companies are looking to hire employees who will stick around for the long term, according to Mann, not ones who are already planning their exits.
Finally, don’t tell the interviewer, “I want your job in five years,” Mann says — you’ll seem arrogant and unrealistic.
What to say instead
Mann recommends focusing on tangible career outcomes instead of on job titles or promotions in your answer. She recommends thinking of the question as: “How is this role favorable to my trajectory?” she says.
Rather than saying, “I expect myself to be the director of this department” in five years, candidates should focus on the steps they would take to achieve that, she says.
“Maybe I’d say, ‘I’d like to be taking on more direct reports,’ or, ‘I’d like to be owning bigger accounts, and I would like to be the go-to person in the organization for expertise,’ or, ‘I’d like to be speaking on bigger stages,'” she says.
All of these examples are “the product of excelling to the next stage,” Mann says.
“Instead of just saying, ‘I’m chasing a title,’ you’re saying, ‘I’m chasing outcomes that are going to be beneficial to the business,'” she says.
Overall, your answer should be “in flow with the role,” Mann says: It’ll show the company that you plan to stick with the job, but continue “achieving at higher and higher levels.”
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