Interview Questions – ‘What is your dream job?’

For Service-leavers who haven’t got recent interview experience, the prospect can seem daunting. Here, we dissect another of the more common but no less difficult interview questions so that you can show your best side to interviewers and land your next post-Services role.

‘What is your dream job?’

This is not the tough part of the interview
Treat the question politely but lightly. Dreams tend to be unattainable to most of us and the question is really in the realm of the hypothetical. 

Keep it relevant
Don’t let your answer take you too far off topic, instead, link your answer to the job description.

Don’t mistake your dream job for your ambitions.

Don’t say ‘This one’
First, that would be quite a coincidence and secondly, nobody is going to buy it.

If this is your dream job, perhaps your dreams aren’t big enough. A person who reaches their dream might cynically be viewed as lacking ambition or imagination. Employers aren’t looking for a candidate who feels like they’ve ‘topped out’. They’re looking for somebody who has something to work hard for such as that next point of career development or promotion. 

Is this a stepping stone?
While the employer wants you to retain ambitions, they don’t want to hire somebody who is using this role to provide them with three months experience to qualify them for a job with another organisation – especially a competitor. 

The interviewer will be primed to weed out churners – and they will also be on the lookout for people who are going after the ‘wrong job’. Again, if you describe your dream job as one that has little relevance to the one you’re being interviewed for, it could be game over – and indeed, you may need to go back to the drawing board and start to think about what you really want. 

Don’t say ‘Centre forward for City’ (or United or even Rovers). 
If they believe it, they’ll think you’re empty headed. 

Give a general description, not a specific job title
In other words, dial down the imagination, dial up the reality of how well you’d do your dream job. 

Talk about a role where you’d get to use your key skills and values (matching them to the job description).

This is a question about what you are passionate about and what motivates you. A good employee will always need to find motivation within the role they’re taking on. Make sure you can explain how and why to the interviewer.