Where do you see yourself in five years time?

Fifteen months ago I was made redundant. That's life, and it wasn't exactly out of the blue. I had ten months to prepare for the day when I'd need to find work.

Now i'm in a slightly different situation, an opportunity has arisen at work to progress my career (and hopefully take those I care about with me). My boss is leaving, and I've applied for his job. On Monday, I face the HR manager, and on Tuesday my current boss's boss's boss. So I thought i'd dig out the prep work I did 15 months ago for the behavioural interviews I anticipated having back then and review the notes I wrote against a list of about 80 sample interview questions.

I'm not going to post all that stuff up because it's mostly shorthand notes, but when I got to the "Where do you see yourself in five years time?" question, for some reason that I don't quite recall I wrote the following (I accept no responsibility if you barf over your keyboard)

Five years ago my wife and I were about to be married. Since then we’ve found our long term home and we’ve now got two beautiful boys who surprise and delight us every day.

Could I have imagined so much happening in five years? – No, so I’m always wary about making predictions. The key is to remain focussed on making the most of opportunities as they appear. That’s why I’m here, because this is a definite career-step opportunity that I want to grasp with both hands.

But that doesn’t really answer your question does it?

Becoming a dad has opened up a whole new side to my character that I really like. At the same time I’ve enjoyed being a mentor to my team. Nurturing talent, helping people of any age to be everything they possibly can is very rewarding. I’ll look for opportunities to continue with that.

I’ve never lost my desire to discover and learn new things. I’ll take the opportunity to increase my understanding of <insert nature of business here>, and formalise that knowledge through qualification if given the chance.

The common thread is to look to add value, be it at home - nurturing and supporting my children, or growing my own knowledge and experience, or helping my colleagues become all they can be for themselves and for our company.

I see a great opportunity here to fulfil that desire and in the process forge a mutually successful and long-term career with <insert name here>

Here.... you may need this...