By Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter
What do you do when your manager wants your goals and you;’ve been with the firm for more than 30 years? Worse, how do you answer where do you see yourself in 5 years? UGH!
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Hi, I’m Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter. People hire me for No BS Job Search Coaching and Career Advice globally, because I make the process of finding work and succeeding at it much easier. Someone messaged me with a question on behalf of a friend of theirs.
And the long and the short of it is, this person has worked for their firm for a long time, like more than 35 years. And they’re in a situation where they’re very good at what they do, and they keep getting transferred from manager to manager. All they want to do is their job and they’re very good at it.
But each manager asks the question, so where do you see yourself in five years? And what are your goals for this year? And you know, as a veteran person who’s been at one organization for a long time, all they want to do is their job, period. They don’t have career aspirations. They’re at the back three holes of their career.
So how do you respond when people are pushing you for your annual goals? How do you respond to the, okay, what can we do for you over the next five years that’s going to help you? I think the correct way to respond, and you have to put this into your own way of doing it, is to say something like, you know, you may have not noticed this, but I’m not 25 anymore. And that’s going to get a snicker from them, a chuckle. And then you continue on by saying, you know, I’ve been with this firm for a long time, and I really love what I do.
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I love the fact that I’m making a significant contribution year after year. What I’d like to accomplish over the next five years is mentor my successor. Because in five years time, I would fully expect it would be time for me to step down and to give the reins to someone else.
Now, that may not be what you want to hear. But that’s the reality of the situation. I’m not going to live forever.
And I may get hit by a bus tomorrow. And you never know what will happen as a result. So what I’d like to say is I’d like to identify someone to work with to mentor into this role, so that over the course of the next few years, they can take over responsibility and I can gracefully exit.
Again, most firms want to hear you talk about conquering the world, taking charge, hard charging and stuff along those lines. But I don’t think that’s the truth of it. The truth of it is you want to complete your tour of duty.
You want to be honored for it. And thus part of the honoring is to say, you know, I’m not going to live forever. Someone’s got to learn how to do this.
Maybe we could identify someone I could work with and slowly but surely have them take over my responsibilities, so I could step out gracefully. That’s the way to really address it. So I hope you found this helpful.
I’m Jeff Altman. Most of my work is around job search and helping people succeed professionally. So I have a site at JobSearch.community, where I’ve got video courses, books and guides to help people be most effective.
Also, connect with me on LinkedIn at LinkedIn.com forward slash . . . excuse me, forward slash IN forward slash TheBigGameHunter. Hope you have a terrific day and most importantly, be great!
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ABOUT JEFF ALTMAN, THE BIG GAME HUNTER
Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter is a career and leadership coach who worked as a recruiter for more than 40 years. He is the producer and former host of “No BS Job Search Advice Radio,” the #1 podcast in iTunes for job search with more than 3000 episodes. He also hosts Job Search TV on YouTube, and Amazon, as well as on BingeNetworks.tv for Apple TV and 90+ smart sets.
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