Where do you see yourself in 5 years?
"Thank you for asking. I just revisited my five-year career goals, which I do once every year or two, depending on where I am at in my goals. For the next two years, I've set some pretty aggressive goals for myself. I like thinking of it as acting as a cartographer of my future. The nearest destination on my map of the future is learning and picking up new skills and experiences with a company whose goals and values align with my own. Once I've completed my training in that position, I hope to be growing within that organization, being mentored and accelerated toward our mutual goals. I have some charts with me that detail my plan if you'd like me to share them."
How you answer this question will offer insights into the level of your ambition, clues to where you want to take your career, and how well your goals align with what they offer. It'll also reveal how familiar you are with Siemens, how familiar you are with the position, and how your future aligns with the opportunities their internship will provide.
One's self-development should be as never-ending as one's determination. Perhaps you've heard a person can drive from coast to coast in the dark, only seeing as far as one's headlamps allow. This analogy suggests one can surmount seemingly unachievable goals by breaking them up into smaller, more easily attainable goals. With a career mindset, one way a person can go about this is by putting together a five-year career plan. If you haven't already, put together a couple of five-year career plans. Start with creating one starting from your college experience. Next, determine where you currently stand on your trajectory of that plan and build out another five-year plan from there. Following this exercise, you should be able to revise your five-year career plan every year, determining where you are on that map, and building again from there. This way, you can adjust and correct your itinerary accordingly. You'd be surprised how doing so will aid in you your interviews.
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