I've made a point for myself to never ask questions like "what are your dreams" or "where do you see yourself in 10 years" in an interview, ever. For a long time, I've used these as a filter, too. Getting this kind of question in an interview is a big red flag for me and a huge disappointment.
Let me elaborate a little.
My dreams are none of an interviewer's bloody business. I'm here to work not share the things that give me hope in my darkest moments or the aspirations that shaped my adulthood. I find this question very creepy and extremely unprofessional.
I could maybe figure out a "lesser dream" to share, but then what's the point of this question? To find out the most intimate thing that I'd be willing to share?
Where I see myself in ten years is a meaningless question to ask after I've had, what, fifteen minutes of exposure to a company's culture? Maybe I'm the kind of person who sees themselves in management over ten years, but you've got such an amazing working culture that you could convince the most ambitious career builder to stick to engineering instead. Or vice-versa. Or do you really want to hire the kind of people who get an idea in their head, and then do it, even if it takes them ten years and it's really, really, really bad idea?
I've heard all sorts of ways to justify these things. That it's a way to see if a candidate can relate to you and evaluate their empathy -- if anything, this will say more about an interviewer's biases than about anything else. To see if a candidate can communicate about abstract matters -- as if there are not countless questions about ethics, aesthetics and epistemology in our profession that you need to start prying into personal things. That it's a way to see if they're "career-oriented", whatever that means, as if someone who writes amazing code but wouldn't hustle for a promotion is a bad hire.
I see these types of questions as the sign of an inexperienced interviewer. Given how many inexperienced interviewers one can see interviewing at tech companies, I would call that a chartreuse flag at best due to lack of signal.
Props to both of you for the lovely synonyms for "greenish" :-)
(And as for the substance: agreed, and a capable interviewee should know how to work around those questions and similarly silly ones, like "what's your greatest weakness?". It's a two-way street. And while it's not a positive datapoint, it's hardly a KO-criterion. (viridescent? aquamarine? turquoise? :) )
"Where do you see yourself in 10 years" is a simple way of asking how you expect your career to advance and what they should expect of you in the future - It's totally reasonable for a company to be interested in an employee's personal growth plans and yes, your long-term commitments to yourself
If you don't have any work-safe dreams, you might want to see a psychiatrist. Again, though, you've misinterpreted the question - They're looking for you to express your spark of passion. It doesn't even have to be for the job. People like people who can talk about something passionately.
They're looking for you to express your spark of passion
That's the charitable reading. The adversarial reading is that they're looking for the emotional buttons to push to maximize your output while minimizing their investment in you.
"what are your dreams" or "where do you see yourself in 10 years"
To me these are two entirely different classes of questions. The first is open ended and meaningless, while the second is directly connected to your career and thus highly relevant for both you and the company. I know where I want to be in 10 years career wise and thus I want to know if this job can help me get there. Equally the company probably knows where it wants to be in 10 years and as such wants to know if you can help it get there.
I ask a variation of this question. It is along the lines of "how would you like your career to progress over the next 3-5 years?". I am it because I don't want to hire someone for whom the organisation doesn't have a career path for. Any answer is fine. I'm not looking for a particular answer just an honest one.
How so? I'm having an open conversion. The goal is to align expectations. It makes little difference to me on a personal level what their answer is. I'm representing the company and they are representing themselves so they have way more skin in the game. It's my moral perogative to have this open conversation with them. I don't want to hire them if the lack of career opportunity/progression makes them unhappy but if they still want the job even after it becomes evident that they may have difficulty reaching their goals in this organisation I'll still extend the offer. I'll only ask this question to people I've already decided to try hire.
Let me elaborate a little.
My dreams are none of an interviewer's bloody business. I'm here to work not share the things that give me hope in my darkest moments or the aspirations that shaped my adulthood. I find this question very creepy and extremely unprofessional.
I could maybe figure out a "lesser dream" to share, but then what's the point of this question? To find out the most intimate thing that I'd be willing to share?
Where I see myself in ten years is a meaningless question to ask after I've had, what, fifteen minutes of exposure to a company's culture? Maybe I'm the kind of person who sees themselves in management over ten years, but you've got such an amazing working culture that you could convince the most ambitious career builder to stick to engineering instead. Or vice-versa. Or do you really want to hire the kind of people who get an idea in their head, and then do it, even if it takes them ten years and it's really, really, really bad idea?
I've heard all sorts of ways to justify these things. That it's a way to see if a candidate can relate to you and evaluate their empathy -- if anything, this will say more about an interviewer's biases than about anything else. To see if a candidate can communicate about abstract matters -- as if there are not countless questions about ethics, aesthetics and epistemology in our profession that you need to start prying into personal things. That it's a way to see if they're "career-oriented", whatever that means, as if someone who writes amazing code but wouldn't hustle for a promotion is a bad hire.
So far, it hasn't turned out to be a bad idea.