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I know there is already How to handle the "Where do you see yourself in 5 years?" question but this is different. I had an interview for a junior role as "service desk support". The interviewer asked me where I see my self in 5 years, but also added "for example would you be more into IT, dev, systems admin or business analyst?"

Is this how the question is normally to be interpreted, is it actually asking which direction of advancement you would like? I always assumed it was more generic than answering with a position title.

I strongly believe that titles are a bit arbitrary and what one company would call "IT support" would be totally different than what another company would. For my answer I said "I know different companies use titles differently but I can tell you what I like and would be looking for." Was this rude? I wasn't expecting a service desk support position to directly lead to a dev position but the interviewer said it did.

The interview was for a service desk support position for multiple branches. I assumed this would mean I would be answering a lot of phone calls but she said it included going around to people's desk to fix problems and set up workstations. This got me thinking that the company uses position titles different than I thought and that's why I gave such an answer. Aside from google searching, is there a resource that gives descriptions of what job titles usually mean?

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    I don't understand why your situation is different from the linked question, can you clarify why this is the case? I honestly think this answer is exactly the type of information they were looking for when they asked you that question.
    – enderland
    Commented Apr 13, 2017 at 18:27
  • I thought it was different as I'm asking how to interpret the question, not how to answer it. It seemed like the interviewer was expecting the answer to be a job title, is this what most people expect when asking the question?
    – user63507
    Commented Apr 13, 2017 at 19:31
  • Your response wasn't rude, it's disingenuous - yes, they're offering potential roles to guide your answer, you simply provide the same answer you would as if they hadn't mentioned them - "yeah, I'd love to become a software developer", or "network administration looks an interesting field and I'd like to get there somehow". So, yes, this is a duplicate and you overthought the interviewers question
    – HorusKol
    Commented Apr 13, 2017 at 21:48
  • @HorusKol in what sense was my answer disingenuous? I genuinely am interested in those jobs.
    – user63507
    Commented Apr 14, 2017 at 0:27

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