Turning The Tables

A surprising source of interview tips came from daytime Goodhope FM this morning.  They wheeled an ‘expert’ in called (I think) Kashi to answer listener questions in-between snorily predictable synthetic R&B.  The two posers he spent longest on were:

Where do you see yourself in five years? and

What are your strengths and weaknesses?

He was at pains to point out the correct answer for the former was not to say ‘in your job’, and that handling the latter well would mean talking about no more than two strengths, then only one weakness, which you’ve actually managed since to turn into a strength.

Nothing earth-shattering there you’ll probably think.  But hang on a minute I thought, these are a couple of the most common interview questions…. they must have gotten popular for a reason.  Maybe they’re good questions, period.

As you may know, I sell to sales teams, so I wonder how asking their ‘chief’ where they see themselves in a couple of years may earn me a firmer footing?  And a simple ‘swot’ style section may also enable focus on positives during a period of change that inevitably hears much about the negativity wishing to be erased….