What are your thoughts on how to answer the question “what are your career goals” in a first round interview? Do you think it is okay to be vague?

Communicating that you are similarly organized in your career plans builds alignment in the eyes of the hiring manager that “you think like us and will fit in here”.

There is a lot of valuable meta-communication that can happen with this question and vagueness will not serve you well.

Successful businesses (and people) make short and long term plans, monitor those plans, tweak and adapt those plans to changing conditions, take corrective action when they find their plans are not achieving the desired end goal and are constantly formulating the next higher-level plan which the current plan will enable. Communicating that you are similarly organized in your career plans builds alignment in the eyes of the hiring manager that “you think like us and will fit in here”. This is enormously valuable and will make you stand out from other candidates (especially those whose only goal appears to be “get this job” and then focus solely on what you want for you.) Even when talking about your personal career goals, it helps if you can spin them with an undercurrent of “becoming more valuable to the company and contributing more to its success over time”.

A specific example depends on many factors including your experience level and the field you are going into. Most importantly though, your answer must be real and applicable to you and your actual plan. Here is just a sample to hear how an answer might sound:

“I have always been interested in X (the field in which the company and this position operates) and developing myself into someone who contributes significantly over time to its development. At university, I studied A, B and C topics to help me understand this market better and I personally follow the evolution of this product over time. In this position with your company, I’ll be able to put my knowledge to practical application and learn more. I desire to take more responsibility over time and to grow the skills of the people I with with and who work for me. As my skillset advances, I am very interested in carrying more workload and responsibility and seeing my impact on our bottom line. I enjoy helping my coworkers grow and am very effective at leading a team. To that end, I envision supervisor or manager level positions for myself in the 1–3 year lookahead and would like to lead a product development team in 3–5 years. I’m open to opportunities, challenges and change of course and ultimately desire to go where the company’s need is greatest and do what you need me to do to achieve the long term goals of the company.“