Where Do You See Yourself in 5 Years?
My answer is:
“I don’t know!”
Well, actually NO ONE knows.
At least once in a lifetime or many times like in my case, you may have faced this stupid and unworthy question during job interviews. During my 6 years of my professional career, I have attended many job interviews and after this many years of frustration, I have decided to write this blog to address this issue (literally, it isn’t an issue. it’s stupidity!).
I don’t know who has started asking this unanswerable question. If you know please do let me know in the comment section. 6 years ago, I have started my professional career as an executive in business development and at that time I wasn’t aware of any designing software and have zero clue about UI & UX. Today after 6 years I am working as a UI & UX designer. I just want to say that no one knows the future. 5 years ago, there was no job exists of Data Scientist. Figma was released in 2016 and Adobe XD was released in 2019. Before that, we were using the Sketch on mac and Adobe Photoshop for almost everything like UI designing to photo editing. Does any designer predict that after 5 years I will stop using photoshop and will use specific design software(Figma/Adobe XD) for designing? Neither the designer nor the interviewer has predicted about it. I was amazed when the first time I learnt to make GIF in photoshop. Now I am making buttery smooth, lightweight & code-based animation and micro-interaction with help of Lottie animation. Can you believe a room rental company have made this awesome technology? I hate to make GIF in photoshop now and also hate when I see GIFs on websites and in the mobile app.
Technology is involving day by day then how can you predict about yourself and your career for the next 5 years?
5 years is a big span. It isn’t 5 days or 5 months. It’s for half a decade. As I mentioned earlier, I have started my professional career as an executive in business development. While pursuing business development I got an opportunity to learn designing software like Illustrator and Photoshop. After completing my training, I wasn’t enjoying working as a business development executive as I love to make designs. I got promoted as full-time Graphic Designer after 6 months of completing the training. As I was getting deeper in designing and connected to technology, I was astonished by seeing UI & UX work on dribbble. So in my second company, I have started working on UI & UX designing. The CEO and my team leader showed me Lottie animation and my mind exploded by the tech. I learnt After Effects by myself and started making Lottie animation. Now making animation in photoshop feels crap(actually it’s crap) to me.
In 6 years, I have changed my career path three times. At this moment, I don’t what I will be doing in the next 5 years. Yes, I am loving UI, UX & animation work and want to continue to do that but you don’t know the future.
Your desire change, priorities change, responsibility change, needs change and technology change. You just can’t control everything.
I think this question should be asked to a Futurist. “Futurist” most commonly refers to people who attempt to predict the future (sometimes called trend analysis) such as authors, consultants, thinkers, organizational leaders and others who engage in interdisciplinary and systems thinking to advise private and public organizations on such matters as diverse global trends, possible scenarios, emerging market opportunities and risk management. Those people are the right ones to be questioned. Stop asking this question to designers or even anyone. Trends come & disappeared (neumorphism). Products launched every day, some get succeeded or some just became vapour in the air.
My humble request to all HRs and interviews to stop asking this question. Start asking new & challenging questions related to the role/profile so that the person enjoys giving the answers and might be he/she will get more engaged and feel comfortable with you. As technology changes our hiring process and interview questions should be changed. Will you use a five-year-old smartphone/laptop this day? Will you still like to play the 5-year-old mobile game? Will you like to pay your bills standing in the queue like 5 years ago?
Hope this blog will help to address this stupidity. Appreciate this blog by giving claps if you feel the same as me. Share this blog with your colleagues, HR and friends to solve this stupidity asap. Share your thoughts in the comment section and correct me if I had said something wrong.
Regards,
VM
