Where do you hope to be five years from now?

Knowing the destination of a jobseeker in the next couple of years is increasingly becoming a noteworthy subject in modern day job interviewing.

So frequent has this question featured in the list of the things the interviewer hopes to do before the session ends that unless you doom yourself for failure, you cannot adequately prepare for a job screening without taking a close look at the requirements of this question.

If you are getting set for an upcoming job interview and forgot to rehearse premeditated answers for the above question, chances are that you may fail to impress the job giver and subsequently miss out on the final list of successful candidates.

When an employer finds it necessary to ask a prospect the above question, she may be trying to elicit information very important for her decision.

Which is why the marks on interview score sheet is not the only consideration after the interview has come to a close.

When a heavy duty equipment company is seeking to hire technicians to put on its service and maintenance team for instance, apart from the degree or diploma this business will set as the minimum qualification, the possession of these certificates may not be enough to secure one a job in the company. In fact, sometimes while everything may be ok for a candidate, the answer to this simple question may turn a success into a failure.

Businesses such as the ones in service and maintenance of equipment and the bulk of businesses in such related areas sometimes rely on the answers they obtain from this question to arrive at the judgment as to who gets a nod and who goes home without an employment contract.

While some businesses are seeking ambitious young “flyers” to fill their vacancies, others are in search of persons with moderate and even low ambitions to hire.

And so while an ambitious, success-driven five-year personal development plan may secure the jobseeker a desk in one company, same may be reason to bid good bye to a great opportunity.

As it turns out usually, start-ups need very ambitious persons to be able to work to lift the business to new heights but the irony of start-ups is that they are actually the ones that often do not get to hire the highflyers. While remuneration may be an important reason for this, that alone may not properly explain the condition.

And the explanation that seems to capture the entire myriad better lies in the talent’s lack of patience to wait for the game to warm up so they get to play to their satisfaction.

When the leader of the small scale business holds a brief discussion with a jobseeker with the intention of assessing the suitability or otherwise of the latter, a question such as the above is just as pivotal as the survival of the business itself.

Understand the Psychology of the Business Leadership

It is often the case that answers that have been proven to help the jobseeker to secure employment in some companies have often been the ones that take account of the size of the business and general psychology of the leadership of the company.

Companies that welcome ambitious highflyers, even if such businesses are new and young, often have websites on which they advertise their excited teams. By the time the serious jobseeker finishes taking a tour of the entire website, some pattern may be emerging.

While conservative, unexciting and possibly highflyer-unwelcoming companies may own websites, these sites are often equally dull and usually hosts uninspiring images of their team on same sites.

While one cannot make a hundred per cent claim that all companies with the above features are unwelcoming to highflyers and persons of above average ambitions, quite a number of them satisfy this description and fit into the psychological framework typical of them.

Research the Company One More Time

If you did not thoroughly research the company in which you prospect employment before forwarding your employment request, do not miss the opportunity of doing this research immediately before the real interview.

While a thorough research of the company may not entirely guarantee that you will have all possible relevant knowledge of the business, such an exercise reduces the chances of failures.

In the case of the heavy duty company in the above example, while seeking diploma and degree holding candidates, the company may be listening attentively to the answers the prospects furnish the company about their personal aspirations as regards their destinations in the future.

By the time the interview is over, this company would have separated those considered too ambitious from those whose vision of the next five years threatens the company’s survival less.

Corporate Hiring Traditions Worth Learning

 In the history of the company, diploma holders who desire a degree within the shortest possible time usually have difficulties working in areas of the company’s operations in the mines where opportunities for further studies are almost not available.

Degree holding engineers too who desire an advanced degree within the shortest possible time are clearly not welcome to the new team because by the time they wish to pursue such personal improvement dreams, the equipment company is unwilling to concede to such requests.

To forestall such personnel misalignments and inconveniences, the general interview and  the above question, especially are key areas that help them predict the line of action of the jobseeker even before they finish hatching the plan.

Get an Interview Coach with Invaluable Experience

When you are preparing for a job interview, first research the company enough to know the internal progression schemes in place in the company. Try to know how friendly the company is to personal improvement plans and what internal schemes execute these.

Finally, acquaint yourself with the opportunities for possible company expansion since such expansions are the sure routes to rising in the ranks.

When you find limited opportunities for growth but still want the job, be sure your next five years plan does not suggest that you hope to lead the HR, operations, sales, marketing or IT or R&D. Any of the heads of these departments present at the interview may not be amused by your plans to displace them, even if you were only kidding.

Pay the experienced job interview coach to secure the above information for you if you know you cannot gather it. And when you have such pieces of information, use it to get a nod even in almost impossible circumstances.