The worst question about career goals is something like, “What’s your major career goal for the next five years?”
Here's
why. I just Googled this question and found over 64 million answers.
And from my viewpoint my advice to job seekers is not to answer the
question. There are just too many variables and situations to consider
that no matter what you say, you’ll probably say it wrong. Worse, your
answer doesn’t matter. It’s contrived and so is the question. In this
post I’ll tell you how to not answer the question and, if you’re the one
asking it, what you should ask instead.
First off, while having a
reasonable long-term career plan is worthwhile, telling someone about
it isn’t. At least not without some context.
For example, if
someone tells me he or she wants to be a functional VP within five
years, it may make perfect sense if the person’s already a director. But
if someone’s a manager and makes the same statement, I’m going to
conclude the person is naïve or too arrogant. This would be the case
even if the person was competent and capable of achieving the goal.
Alternatively, if someone who’s been a director for 10 years wants to
become a VP in the next five years, I’m going to use the interview to
figure out why the person hasn’t already become a VP. So in both cases
the interviewer will head off in the wrong direction.
Given the
wide range of potential wrong answers, my advice to job seekers is to
always avoid answering the question outright. Worse, being clever enough
to figure out the right answer doesn’t mean you’re competent to do the
work or that the job will allow you to achieve your career goals. On top
of that, answering the question correctly doesn’t mean you’re
goal-oriented. To address this important issue, here’s what I suggest
you do no matter which side of the interview desk you’re on.
First,
before I ask someone about their long-term career goal, I want to find
out if the person is goal-oriented. In this case, I just ask the best
goals-oriented question of all time. It goes something like this:
“What’s the biggest career goal you’ve ever achieved?”
If the answer makes sense I ask, “What’s the most recent career goal you have achieved?”
These
simple questions are set-up questions to this more realistic question
about goals: “What’s your current major career goal?”
The idea
behind all of this is to first find out if the person has ever achieved
any reasonable career goal. If so, it’s important to find out how
significant the goal was and if the person has made a habit of achieving
significant career goals. If the person has never achieved a
significant career goal, why even ask the person about some future
hypothetical goal?
Given this perspective, it’s important to
validate the candidate’s already achieved goals and their significance.
This requires some follow-up fact-finding to gather the following
information:
- The relative significance of the goal and how challenging it was to achieve.
- How and why the goal was developed and the process the person went about achieving it.
- To determine if the goals already achieved map to some grander purpose.
- The trajectory of the person’s career goals including some insight to the rate of change of growth and personal development.
- To figure out how committed the person was in achieving these past goals.
Given all of this, the question about the person’s current
career goal can be logically assessed. The key to this is to first
answer the question, “Does the person’s current goal seem realistic
given the person’s past pattern of goal setting and achievement?” If
yes, then the next question needs to relate to the job opening and the
opportunity it represents. This requires an answer to the question,
“Does our opportunity provide the person a platform to realistically
meet his or her current career goal?” If yes, continue the interviewing
process. If no, but the person is a top prospect, modify the job to meet
his or her aspirations.
For the job seeker, here’s my advice on
how to answer the “tell me about your career goals” question.
Start off
by stating that you’ve always had career goals. Then describe the most
recent few you’ve achieved. Then describe your current goal and what
you’re doing to achieve it. Then wrap it saying this is one of the key
factors you’ll use to evaluate your next job opportunity. Then ask, “Do
you think the opportunity you have open would meet this criteria and if
so, why?” The interviewer’s answer will give you a great clue if you’ll
be a finalist for the job or if you even want the job.
And that’s how you ask and answer questions about career goals.
"How to Not Ask or Answer Questions About Career Goals" by @LouA on @LinkedIn
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/best-interview-question-career-goals-all-time-lou-adler
