The weird yet frequently asked question of “Where do you see yourself in 5 years?”

05-14-2025

At the very beginning of my professional career, I was asked almost in every interview that where do I see myself in 5 or 10 years so much so that I could anticipate this question in any interview I was about to appear and yet I was never able to answer this properly, maybe because I didn’t have any clear vision of where I want to be not that I was unclear about my field, off-course I wanted to purse in accounting & finance but I didn’t know what could I expect after year 1, year 2 and so on, it was just more of a go with the flow situation. Tables are now turned, I was on the other side of the table the other day when interviewing a candidate for a very beginner position and I asked the same question without giving it an initial thought, maybe it was some deja-vu thing that just came out, so I asked how do you want to pursue your career and where do you see yourself in 5 years, the moment the candidate started answering this, I realized what could exactly be my take from this answer? What should I write-down while the candidate is answering this question? Candidate seemed more prepared for the answer then I ever had been and now I was even less prepared as an interviewer for the answer to this question, candidate completed the answer while I still remained in that state of mind, I concluded the interview and gave it a thought that why do we need to know at this point of time where the other person see herself/himself in 5 years, since the reason for hiring is solving some current problem and not currently fix something in the future, which in this fast paced environment is highly unpredictable anyways, and maybe it pressures the candidate to say what employer want to hear for example “I see growing myself with this company”. I think it focuses more on predictive thinking than current fit, real motivation or problem-solving ability so a better question might be “What kind of problems do you hope to solve in your career?”