The in 5 years question
I don’t know why, but the question “Where do you see yourself in 5 years?” bothers me. Maybe it’s because I usually get asked that when I’m job hunting, or because some of the people who ask me make it sound so superficial.
Because I discovered, thanks to a small survey I conducted, that there are people who think it’s a really good question (maybe they’re right, once again I’m the crazy one), they think it helps to make a plan for the future, to truly imagine oneself in 5 years, to measure goals and evaluate if one is on the right path to achieve them. I also heard some more philosophical answers that had to do with destiny and trying to make the world a better place and change the environment into something better (which I think can be good ideas, although part of the problem is that I don’t think those ideas are appreciated in job interviews). And I also found people who have thought about the question from beginning to end, specifically to find a job… I found this response particularly elaborate. (I honestly hadn’t thought about it that much… but mmm yes, those are the kind of things that sounded in my head as the things the people who asked me wanted to hear… You should say:
- That you expect to keep working for that company (so they feel your pleasure of working there)
- You need to say that you see yourself a few positions higher (so they see your desire for improvement and growth)
- As if you didn’t care, you have to say that you plan on being married and with a couple of kids (so they believe you did what in psychology is called free association, and now you’re talking about your personal projects, this shows stability.)
- You need to say something about your studies: “I hope to have my master’s degree” and etc (so they believe you’re a nerd and studying is an immense pleasure)
I think that’s what bothers me… I think the people who asked me didn’t want my answer, they just wanted to hear the answer that lives in their own heads, the idea they have of what a successful employee is, I feel it’s a closed question, I felt like I had to give an answer like the ideas above (which are not necessarily indicators of being happy or successful), it’s like they want to hear that we’re going to invent a new programming language, use a completely new (also invented by us) and optimized compiler (better than any they’ve seen), of course we’re going to license it in the name of the company we’re going to work for (so they’re going to get all the profits), they also want to hear that we’re going to have a doctorate from some famous foreign university… but without leaving our job and of course we’re going to work on their projects as analysts, developers, quality control agents, administrators, etc, etc and we’re also going to have a healthy social life and why not? a family and that… that maybe makes us worthy of the position we’re applying for… oh! but I almost forgot, maybe they also want to hear that it doesn’t matter that you’ll always be earning the same amount of money… I mean, you can achieve all your goals on a low budget, you don’t need raises at all… oh and who needs sleep when you can work to keep up with your goals for the next 5 years? (Research for the totally new compiler is totally your problem, besides, the only thing you need is a desktop computer with 128 megs of ram and 5G of hard disk) that means you’re an employee who knows how to optimize the use of resources!
I know I’m exaggerating, but again that question sounds so superficial to me, you can answer what they want to hear (for example, the template above) they won’t notice, and I dare say this not because I don’t think they know anything about psychology or that they can do additional tests to verify the answer… I don’t know what… but I’ve been asked the question by technicians who don’t know anything about psychology… and they didn’t do any additional tests or anything… they were just looking at me (I’m not sure how much they were listening… they seemed a bit lost in their thoughts… thinking about how my answers matched the ones they had in their heads) and then they say… mmm okay sounds good!!!!!!! and that’s it, that’s all I would hear back about my plans for the future…
Sometimes I feel like answering something like “I’ll be in Disneyland with Mickey Mouse” or “dancing on Broadway” or “at NASA improving the plasma engine”. Sometimes I think I’d rather be told… jnnnn “You need to spend some time in a psychiatric hospital before looking for a job” than that blank look and the “ok … that sounds good”… maybe I should just ask back “where do you see your company in 5 years???” (after all, if I want to work there, they give me the job and give me a good answer… well, that’s where I’ll be :P)
Anyway… I just wish these things were a little different, I’d like to be able to explain that yes, in 5 years I’ll still be an employee, that yes, I have goals as a professional, that I want to make a good career, but I’d also like to say that I’m a whole human being, who has parts that don’t relate to work and that if they hire me, I’m not selling them my soul…
I’d like to feel that it’s okay to explain that growing up is also about things like: