Career expert talks about how to answer the 'most annoying job interview question'

Interview candidates have to answer different types of questions from "Tell us about yourself," "Why did you quit your last job?" to "How much salary are you expecting?" Sometimes, the interviewee is unable to give the best answers as it is a high-pressure situation. Erica McGoff, a career expert, posted a video on how to answer this tricky interview question, "Where do you see yourself in five years?"

The career adviser starts by telling what are the wrong ways to answer this question. One way is to say, "I don't know." The other way wrong way to respond to this question is, "Oh, you know I like to go with the flow and not to put myself in a box of limitations," she says in the video. She also mentions not to say that he/she will be working for the company's competitor or "I see myself traveling the world and enjoying life, drinking lots of wine." Then McGoff tells the right way to answer it. The overlay text reads, "Acknowledge the question" and she then gives an example of how to respond, "It's hard to say how life would be I mean as we've seen, the world can be very unpredictable."

Next, she wants one to be flexible and to talk about the goals. "But while I do like to maintain flexibility, adaptability, and an open mind, I do have specific ambitions and goals," is what she replies to the question. "Five years from now I'd like to be in a role where I'm leading a creative team. I'd like to be working on projects that I'm excited about for campaigns that I believe in," she states. "Becoming a senior director or having a senior leadership role is a goal I'm working towards," concludes McGoff in the video.

The video gained 2.1 million views. She gives some tips in the cation as well to answer this question. She wrote, "They’re just asking 'What are you excited about? What are you working towards? Do you have goals? Does this job fit into the trajectory of your career? The trick is to keep it vague. Don’t get specific or too rigid." Then she talks about the sort of language that she should be used by the candidate. "Use language like: 'I’d like to…', 'Ideally, I would be…', 'My day-to-day would involve…' Feel free to focus on how you want to feel. I want to be in a role where I’m [excited] [challenged] [stimulated]. Stress that you value flexibility, but you also, right now, have specific goals you’re working towards," says McGoff.

People in the comments section shared their opinions on this question." @angela_treharne commented, "They just want to hear that you want to still be working for them. I learned that the hard way."  @cami.revilla wrote, "My mind always goes blank when I hear that question." @serioustom79 shared, "I never understood why companies insisted on such questions. Why are they asking this kind of question?" @wendation_ said, "This was an ice breaker at our last whole team meeting with supervisors and program managers, but 2 years...I said with a nice raise!"

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