First, and IIRC only, time I was asked this question, I wasn't expecting it. They first asked me about 1 year, to which the answer was "at least 1 level up."
"What about 5 years?"
In that moment in time, I was on the cusp of separating from my first wife (one of the reasons I was interviewing there in the first place), had a 18mo old, and thru the prev 5 years had been thru 4 different jobs. My answer was "I have no idea where I'll be in 5 years."
"Maybe at a different opportunity?" the interviewer says.
"Maaan I have no idea. 5 years ago, did you have a vision of being in anywhere near the position to be having this conversation?"
Nevermind the somewhat adversarial nature of that response back in 1995, I've been recently doing the "placement" portion of Lambda School, and they didn't like that response either. The small handful of students that were in the conference when I said that agreed with the sentiment... which makes me think that maybe it's a poor answer because it forces the asker to look in the mirror.
I dunno . . . I think I'll focus on accomplishments rather than "where".
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I have to rethink my answer to this question.
First, and IIRC only, time I was asked this question, I wasn't expecting it. They first asked me about 1 year, to which the answer was "at least 1 level up."
"What about 5 years?"
In that moment in time, I was on the cusp of separating from my first wife (one of the reasons I was interviewing there in the first place), had a 18mo old, and thru the prev 5 years had been thru 4 different jobs. My answer was "I have no idea where I'll be in 5 years."
"Maybe at a different opportunity?" the interviewer says.
"Maaan I have no idea. 5 years ago, did you have a vision of being in anywhere near the position to be having this conversation?"
Nevermind the somewhat adversarial nature of that response back in 1995, I've been recently doing the "placement" portion of Lambda School, and they didn't like that response either. The small handful of students that were in the conference when I said that agreed with the sentiment... which makes me think that maybe it's a poor answer because it forces the asker to look in the mirror.
I dunno . . . I think I'll focus on accomplishments rather than "where".