There used to be several questions that interviewers asked a person to explore their career ambitions. These included questions such as:
Where do you see yourself in the future? What do you want to be doing in five years? What are your career ambitions?
Some people answered by stating their aims to reach certain roles or achieve certain goals. There is, however, another way to answer these kind of questions.
This approach involves clarifying the kind qualities that you want in the work you do. For example, you may want to be in a role where you are able:
To play to your strengths … To have a certain amount of autonomy … To lead teams … To do pioneering work … To build new things … To do satisfying work … To help people to achieve success.
One Way Of Answering The Career Question:
‘What Do You Want To Be Doing In Five Years?’
Different people answer this question in different ways. As mentioned, one approach is to clarify the qualities you want in the work you do. Here is how one person answered this question during an interview.
The world of work is changing so it is hard to know the exact role I will be doing. Bearing this in mind, however, it will be role where I am able:
To do pioneering work that helps the company and customers to achieve success;
To lead superb teams that do outstanding work and help the company to achieve both present and future success;
To maintain a positive culture where people build on their strengths and make their best contributions to helping the company to achieve success.
As I said, I can’t tell you what the exact role will be because the world of work is changing. But it will have some of those characteristics.
The person who answered the question in this way did a lot of prework before the interview. This initially involved them aiming:
To clarify the specific outcomes the company wanted to achieve;
To clarify the specific outcomes to be delivered in the advertised role;
To clarify the specific things they would do to deliver these outcomes.
Bearing these in mind, the person also rehearsed how to answer the potential question about their ambitions. This involved them taking the following steps. They aimed:
To clarify the qualities they wanted in any potential future role;
To clarify how to position these in a way that may be attractive to a potential employer.
The person got the advertised role and delivered the goods. They then went on to craft another satisfying role that helped the company to achieve success.
Let’s return to your own work. Imagine that you may be asked the career question about what you want to be doing in five years. This could be when going for an interview or in a career development session.
How would you like to answer this question? If you wish, try tackling the exercise on this theme. This invites you to complete the following sentence.
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