OOTS #1072 - The Discussion Thread

[Peelee]

But bureaucracies hate unambitious people. If you decline a promotion, they will tend to think there's something wrong with you.

Having dealt with relatively few bureaucracies, I can only say that my experiences so far have not lead me to believe that they dislike unambitious people.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

Having dealt with relatively few bureaucracies, I can only say that my experiences so far have not lead me to believe that they dislike unambitious people.

It is not as pronounced as it once was. During the 90's and a good portion of the 00's, job interviews had a "thing" from trying to select only ambitious people - any indication that you were not there to claw your way up the company ladder was pretty much the death-knell to any chance of surviving the interview process (this is the basis behind the infamous "where do you see yourself in 5 years" interview question).

Recently, that has started to change - or maybe they've gotten a lot better at hiding the question to the point where I can no longer tell they are fishing for that. But I suspect not - I tend to be quite open about not wanting to go into management, and I still have had good success rate in interviews in the last few years.

GW

[Rogar Demonblud]

Part of that is that it's no longer expected you'll spend any real length of time with any one company. Places that still expect you to be there for a term measured in decades do look for people who're going to play the game.

Of course, there are other organizations where if you show yourself unpromotable, they'll put you at the top of the list for the next downsizing. Or just tell you to plan on retirement in the near future, in the case of the military.

[Ruck]

It is not as pronounced as it once was. During the 90's and a good portion of the 00's, job interviews had a "thing" from trying to select only ambitious people - any indication that you were not there to claw your way up the company ladder was pretty much the death-knell to any chance of surviving the interview process (this is the basis behind the infamous "where do you see yourself in 5 years" interview question).

I've always wanted to go to a job interview and give the Mitch Hedberg answer: "Celebrating the five-year anniversary of you asking me this question!"