Have you been to an interview where you answered all the questions brilliantly, and you were about to consider the interview a success, when the person across the table throws out a gem likes this. “Where do you see yourself in 5 years?

Honestly what do they expect us to say? I’ll admit I had a few quips that came to my mind when faced with this question, none of which I’ve said out loud mind you.

1. In 5 years I’d like to be your boss.
2. I definitely wouldn’t want to be stuck here for 5 years.
3. Interviewing candidates to replace me as I’ve been elected President of the World.
4. The earth would have been destroyed by our supreme alien overlords, so it doesn’t really matter what I’ll be doing.

I know you’re supposed to say something that sounds meaningful like “In 5 years I would have made material contributions to take this organization to the next level”. But is this kind of canned BS response really telling you anything about the candidate? It shows she’s prepared (which is good), and full of sh*t (which is bad). At the end of the day it tells me nothing about her skills, qualifications, or personality. I would seriously question the culture of a company that bases their hiring decisions on these “soft” questions. Some other “winners” I’ve been asked during interviews were:

• Why do you want to work here? (Because playing Mario Cart while chugging Mountain Dew doesn’t pay the bills)
• Why should we hire you? (Honestly, you shouldn’t)
• What are your biggest weaknesses? (Stupid questions during interviews)
• Describe the teddy bear of the future. (It can fly, time travel, and shoot lasers out of its eyes. Am I hired yet?)

If you’re looking to flesh out more details about a candidate’s skills and experience, consider asking more relevant open-ended questions based on the candidate’s resume. For example.

1. Can you elaborate on how you were able to increase efficiency in your last role by 30%?
2. In your opinion, what is the best way to engage a team within a matrix organization, with different backgrounds and experience. How would you maximum collaboration?
3. If you were VP of Sales, what strategies or changes would you implement in the first 3 months?
4. What are the top 3 core competencies you value most for your team?
5. What was your most meaningful professional experience, and what was the take-away from that experience?

An interviewer is there to assess not just the qualifications of the candidate, but whether he or she will be a good fit to the company culture. There’s no point in hiring someone who just thinks fast on their feet, or has a canned answer prepared. Interviews should be conducted in a more open way, engaging all levels of the team, not just HR and the hiring manager.

It takes time to dig deeper and truly understand the person in front of us. What they can bring to the table, what interest them, what motivates them? We need to listen and understand, in other words, we need to treat them like a real person.

The Canadian economy has been a benchmark for the rest of the world ever since the Great Recession. We have a strong financial system, an educated worker class, and solid resources & manufacturing base.

However, November jobs data posted the largest job loss in the country since 2009, with unemployment rate jumping to 5.9 percent from 5.5 percent in October. Labour participation rate (the number of working age adults with jobs or actively looking for jobs) has also inched lower to 65.6%.

Coupled with a global slowdown and on-going trade tensions, what does this all mean for job seekers?

It’s yet unclear whether the global macro events will lead to another recession, however it is prudent to prepare in case of such an event.

Here are some common sense suggestions:

1. Top up your reserve fund. The general wisdom is to have 3 months of spending saved up. To be conservative, target 6 months.
2. Find ways to cut spending. Does anyone really need a $15 organic anti-oxidant enriched kale juice? Eat an apple instead.
3. Pay down high-interest debt.
4. Update your resume in case of layoffs.
5. Supplement your income with a side-hustle.

In today’s world, it’s not survival of the fittest, but survival of the most prepared.

The holiday season is upon us, and everyone is busy with shopping, parties and family gatherings. No one is thinking about hiring…or are they?

In fact, studies show that companies hire more people in January and February than any other month of the year. This is usually due to several reasons.

1. Hiring managers receiving their budget for the new year and therefore are able to increase headcounts
2. Employees wait for their Christmas bonus before quitting, hence the rush for exits in January, leading to a subsequent wave of hiring
3. Projects on hold during the holidays are now back in full swing, along with the need for people
4. Backlog of hiring from the previous year as hiring managers and HR personnel return from vacations

All of the above give someone looking for work more reason to pause festivities and start looking for work now. In fact, it is the best time to land a new job. According to Forbes magazine, the top reasons to job hunt in December are:

1. Less competition
2. Hiring managers are thinking about next year’s projects and needs
3. Greater opportunities for networking as most people are gathering for holiday parties
4. Lots of temporary work available around the holidays
5. Let’s face it, people are a bit nicer and feeling a bit more charitable during the holiday season

All the more reason to gear up your job search during the holidays. So what are you waiting for? Start your search now!

I recently watched a documentary on Andrew Carnegie, the U.S. steel tycoon of the late 19th century. It detailed his life as a poor young immigrant from Scotland, who built one of the biggest companies in the world. He’s now largely remembered as being both the wealthiest man of his time and a great philanthropist, whose credits include the prestigious Carnegie Hall and Carnegie Mellon University.

But interestingly there was a dark side to this great man. His company, Carnegie Steel in Pittsburgh, was the setting of one of the bloodiest strikes in U.S. history, the Homestead Strike in 1892, which lasted 143 days, and resulted in the death of ten men. One of the reasons of the strike was the company’s decision to decrease wages when it was making record profits. Benefiting from the industrial revolution, Carnegie and his chairman Henry Clay Frick were both in favor of replacing human workers with machines, saying that machines don’t demand wage increases and never sleep.

The industrial revolution saw the replacement of low-skilled human workers by steam engines and machines. Manufacturing being the first ones to bear the brunt of this change. Now in the age of AI (artificial intelligence), and low-skilled workers are again the first ones being impacted. Wal-mart and other supermarkets are already testing robots used to greet people and check inventory on shelves. Human greeters are replaced with robot counterparts, who amuse children and adults alike. Self checkouts went from an annoying presence in McDonald’s to proliferating within every major retailer.

There are already robotic chefs and baristas being tested. While their hefty price-tags keep most retailers away, it’s only a matter of time before these technology become cheap enough for mass consumption.

The advancements in automation leave low-skilled workers in a tough spot, resulting in an oversupply of labour, stagnating wages for decades, and creating a huge boom in the post-secondary education, as workers scramble to become better educated and more qualified for jobs that are less likely to be replaced by machines.

Politicians like Elizabeth Warran in the U.S. are calling for higher corporate taxes and a new wealth tax in an attempt to shrink the growing wealth gap. While this may appeal to some, in the end corporations and the wealthy will always figure out a loophole. And it’s always better to reward than to punish. Perhaps a dual reward/penalty system could work. For example, for every job that a company cuts, as long as the company is in profit, it should pay a tax equivalent to 5 years salary as compensation for social benefits the now unemployed person will claim. And for every new job a business creates, it can gain a tax incentive equivalent to 5% of the salary for the position, effectively making it cheaper to employ human labour. Hopefully this will help normalize the adjustments needed in a future world driven by A.I.

But with a painting created by A.I. selling for over $430,000 at auction, is any industry truly safe?