What are your career aspirations beyond your first management position?

Why the Interviewer Asks This Question
Answer Example
Community Answers

You are a new manager, and it's an exciting time in your career. Focus on the now while keeping in mind that the interviewer also wants to see evidence that you are looking to your future. Discuss where you'd like to see this first management position take you. Include the hiring company in your career aspirations, and assure the interviewer that you plan to stay with the organization for the foreseeable future.

Consider what you visualize when you think about your future with the hiring company. Although this question presents an opportunity to share a career-related dream or aspiration, be sure that your goals are realistic. For instance, the interviewer does not want to hear that you plan to become the company's director in five short years when the current director dedicated fifteen years towards earning the promotion.

You can benefit from researching the tenure and career path of the hiring company's management team. LinkedIn is a helpful platform for researching this information. Search on LinkedIn for individuals in this role before you and take time to study their career path. Gain an understanding of what reasonable and achievable career growth looks like within the hiring organization.

"After researching your organization and learning more about this position, I feel that this role fits well with my future aspirations of leading beyond a local level and moving into regional leadership. I would love to see myself promoted based on my hard work and results and eventually managing multiple local branches and then moving into a regional management position. To achieve this goal, I will dedicate my time to learning the company values and expanding my leadership and business skills to help the organization achieve growth in the local market, better brand positioning, and deeper customer loyalty."

Anonymous Answer

"My passions are education and plant sciences. I would I love to see growing and increasing program numbers and visitation and making position and moving us into a position where programming can be expanded, and a strong youth-teen program would emerge. I would do this by learning more about the role and organization, improving my leadership skills, and the relationships with community stakeholders."