Sample Interview Questions and Answers: What Are Your Goals? Denise’s Answer

(Who is Denise? Denise – Global Integrated Marketing Executive seeking Director of Strategy position)

Terry: What are your goals?

Denise: My goals are I would say threefold.  I’m again very excited about technology and the trends that are happening with digital marketing.

One of my goals is to be a thought leader in terms of how digital marketing is changing the landscape in terms of traditional marketing.

My second goal is to be able to apply the skills that I’ve developed and honed over the course of my career, really apply them to my next assignment and add value.

I want to make sure that wherever I land it’s a great fit and that I’m positioned for success and that I’m able to add value form the get go, that I’m able to hit the ground running.  That’s a really important goal of mine.

Third is balance. I want to make sure that the next adventure and opportunity that I take on to really challenge myself as I take on big goals and opportunities helps me maintain balance in my life. That I can continue to check in and make sure that Denise is happy and she’s moving along and accomplishing all the things that she’s doing.

Terry: For the balance portion of that, what would balance look like to you?  How would you know if you had attained it in terms of your next job?

Denise: I’ll give you an example.  I was living in the XXX area for a better part of eight years and didn’t have a lot of history or support mechanism in place there.  It was very easy to get consumed with work and fill up all of my time there with work and there was no distraction to stop me from doing that.

Now that I’ve actually re-located myself to the XXX area, there’s not just support in terms of family, but my alma mater is here. I have friends that I went to school with here, community outreach programs and activities that I’m interested in.

So, it’s really simple for me now that there are different buckets that I’m challenging myself to make sure I’m applying my time to so I’m not finding myself being one dimensional.

Here’s how I would rate this answer . . .

Q6. What are your goals? – DENISE QUICK RATING – F

You have goals but would be stronger if they were related to something they cared about too. Really worried about your balance goal. My impression of agencies is that those are some of the last places where you would expect to have balance, so have you just told them not to hire you because you don’t want to work so hard or long? You’ve just told them your priority is outside work.