WHERE DO YOU SEE YOURSELF 5 YEARS FROM NOW?

When I gave my first interview as a fresher and was asked this question “where do you see yourself 5 years from now”, like any other newbie I said, I want to be in your company in some higher position of the ladder. Afterward, I realized this is such a common answer and to get selected I have to be different than 50 people waiting outside who have the same qualifications as mine.

So, I pondered on this question, researched a bit, and figured out some interesting things interviewers do. What is it that he wants to know about you? Let me tell you a fun fact, they are not asking if you will still be working for them, they just want to know if you are a forward-looking person. In other words, if you have a vision for yourself, or you are only looking at the present. People who have a vision, are “go-getters”. They want to see if you are one.

All interviews are different depending on the company, your profile, etc. But broadly they want to know three things from you.

• Do you want “this” job or any job?
• What is your ambition? (to know if you have any real focus in your career?
• To understand whether your long term goal aligns with the company.

They want to know if you’re reliable and a dependable person else why would they invest their time, energy, and money on you.

COMMON MISTAKES TO AVOID

• Avoid answers like I don’t know or I have not thought about it or I will see what life offers me. Currently, you want an offer letter from them so avoid such immature answers.
• If your answer is you’d like to be the President of this company then you’ll appear to be out of touch with reality.
• If you say you’d like to be an owner of your own business then you’ll give the impression you won’t be at this company very long, then there is no point in hiring you.
• If you say I’d like to be in this same job in 3 to 5 years then you’ll be interpreted as not being motivated.
• If you say, I’d like to have your job then you’ll appear to be conceited.

WHAT TO INCLUDE IN YOUR ANSWER

• Excitement about the work and how it encourages you to learn more.
• Break your answer in the short term and long term goals
• What realistic actions you will take to reach your goal.

 THE EXAMPLES COULD BE:

I am very passionate about test automation tools and technology and I would love to automate the stuff which is getting repeated multiple times during our test cycles. I would like to explore myself into automation and different areas of automation like performance, security, BDD , CI-CD etc. I would like to become best in my work in next 5 years and will be more exploring more option apart from automation. You can also mention that you would like to become test architect or automation expert in coming years.

Another example could be below.

I am interested in being a blogger at your company. for the first 1-2 years, I would like to continue developing my writing skills and once I have established my credibility and a thorough understanding of the company’s protocol, In the next 3-5 years I would like to see this role turn into a bit of editorial position where I build my strategies for the team and also help edit other writers work

KEY TAKEAWAYS-

• Be realistic and sound passionate about your answer.
• Be honest, it’s your goal, not their’s.
• Confidence is the key.

5-year plans are nothing but your vision for yourself. It’s good to have goals but it is best if you present your goals, not as results. After all, you cannot control results but present those goals in the form of actions because you can control what actions you are going to take in the future. I hope this formula helps you to create a good first impression.