"Where do you see yourself in 10 years?" has a bad reputation because most candidates have heard terrible advice about it. You don't need to have a precise 10-year plan to answer this well. You need to give an honest, plausible answer that connects your ambitions to the role you're interviewing for, without either underselling your ambition or sounding delusional.
What this question is really asking
The interviewer has two real questions beneath this one. First: is this person ambitious enough to grow in this role? Second: does their trajectory make sense with what this company can offer? If you want to be a founder in two years and this is a large corporation with a slow promotion track, that's a mismatch worth surfacing. If your ambitions align with where this role could take you, that's worth saying.
They're also checking commitment. If you frame your 10-year plan around skills you want to build and experiences you want to have that are clearly available in this sector, they'll hear someone who sees this role as meaningful progress. If your plan is clearly elsewhere, they'll wonder why you're here.
How to answer it well
You don't need a detailed 10-year plan. Talk about where you want to go in terms of skills, contribution, and type of work, not necessarily a specific title. Anchor it in something honest. Make a clear connection between where you want to be and how this role fits in that direction.
- Where I want to develop: [skills or capabilities you want to build]
- What kind of impact I want to have: [at team, company, or industry level]
- How this role connects to that: [specifically how this role develops those things]
Sample answers by career stage
Early career
"In 10 years I want to be someone who leads and builds high-performing teams in a commercial or product function. Right now I want to build depth in the day-to-day: understanding how to drive real results, developing my analytical skills, and learning how to influence without authority. I see this role as a great environment to develop those foundations. If I do the work, I think the progression will follow."
Mid-career
"In 10 years I'd like to be running a function or leading a significant business unit. I've spent the last several years building deep expertise in [area] and I feel the next phase is developing the breadth to make decisions across the whole business, not just my area. I see this role as that step: it's broader than my current role and it'll push me in the areas I need to develop. I'm genuinely excited about what that growth looks like here."
What to avoid
- "Doing your job." If you're interviewing for a marketing role and you say you want to be the CMO in 10 years, that's not aspirational, it's just naming your interviewer's boss.
- "I just want to make a difference." Too vague to mean anything.
- A plan that's clearly not possible at this company. If you want to run a startup but this is a corporate, your answer will raise questions about commitment.
- "Honestly, I don't know." You might genuinely not know, but the answer needs more than that. At least give the direction and type of work you want to be doing.