“Where do you see yourself 10 years from now?” was a question thrown at me by my interviewer during my first job interview. ‘What a stupid question is that?’ was the instantaneous thought that crossed my mind on hearing it. ‘How the hell do I know where I would be 10 years from now?’. But I remained silent, trying desperately to think of something nicer to say. But I couldn’t. Seeing the perplexed look on my face the interviewer rephrased the question and asked me to elaborate on my future plans. But that didn’t ease my situation either. I was still without an answer. But back of the mind I was now thinking, ‘If this is how job interviews are going to be, I don’t think I would ever get a job. Oh my God! 10 years from now, I will be 30 and jobless’

I hate interviews. That’s because they ask weird questions during them, most of which don’t make any sense to me. I mean how did that guy expect me to know (I was barely 20 then) what I would be at 30? Back then, being 30 was like being ‘old’ and I still addresses people in their 30’s as ‘uncle’ and ‘aunty’ (now I don’t think that way though). How would I know how much my life would be messed up in the next decade? And how did it even matter to the interviewer. He was not my insurance agent. The fact was that I had no 10 year plans with me (for that matter I didn’t have a 5 or even 2 year plan either). I had no idea how my future was going to unfold. And I wasn’t an astrologer to make predictions either. Nor was I a kid to say Fireman, Detective, Cop, Doctor, Astronaut, Driver, or Lawyer and get away with it, like I did as a child when was often asked ‘Who do you want to be when you grow up?’. But as the silence in the interview room started getting a little uneasy on both of us, I decided to break it with saying something to the effect of ‘In the future I see myself rising higher in the industry and some blah blah blah,…’. Thankfully the interviewer didn’t probe deeper into my future and we moved on.

For many years, the question on ‘future plans’ remained on the top of my ‘most hated questions’, until I came across what is known as the ‘Elevator Pitch’. When my career counselor at the American B-School told me to prepare a 30 second Elevator Pitch, I was benign enough to display my ignorance and ask her what an ‘Elevator Pitch’ meant. “If you are riding in an elevator with a potential employer or an investor and you have just 30 secs to put forth your proposition, what would you say? That is an elevator pitch” was her reply. I never had a fancy for elevators (I like escalators better). But that day on, I started hating them; and moreover those companies that made such fast elevators.

I could never come up with an elevator pitch. I mean 30 secs is too little a time for me to frame anything, let alone a value proposition to a potential employer/investor. I need my time, and I need my space. I am an elaborate thinker. The only thing that I can say in 30 second in an elevator is a quick prayer for my safety - nothing more than that. I can’t convince anybody of anything is an elevator. Fortunately I have never been in such a situation either, where my opportunity has ‘gone in 30 secs’. (Or maybe it has, just that I was too slow to even notice it vanishing). But I wonder if things really work that way. I wonder how many people have actually got jobs or struck business deals in 30 secs by virtue of their elevator speeches. Nevertheless my American colleagues and my professors and my career counselor were all obsessed with the whole idea of this elevator pitch. I just never had one. (Now that probably explains why guns are so popular in that country. It sure must be a lot easier to drive your point in 30 seconds in an elevator with a gun in hand, than with just words and no gun.)

Well it’s been a long time since that first interview. Yes I did get that job :-) and I did join it too. Although ten years later, I was nowhere close to what I had told the interviewer on where I thought I would be. But even today I dread that question and I really hope that someday when I bump into you in an elevator, I am able to, in 30 secs, paint a perfect picture of where I see myself as a man in his 40’s (that’s when I am old and ‘uncle’ types) -:)