The One Question I Stopped Asking in Thailand

For years, I asked the same question in almost every job interview.

It is a classic. A staple. The sort of question found in every management handbook, somewhere between “Tell me about yourself” and “What is your greatest weakness?”

Where do you see yourself in five years?

It’s a sensible question. It reveals something about ambition, and it tells you whether the person across the table has given serious thought to the direction of their life, or is simply hoping that things will somehow work out.

Sometimes they have thought about it and have an answer; sometimes they haven’t.

I stopped asking the question in Thailand.

It remains a good question. Yet in Thailand, it often produces a response you may not expect: a pause, a slight tilt of the head, then a warm and genuine smile carrying the distinct impression that you have just asked something ever so slightly mad.

The expression seems to say: I am not entirely sure what I am having for lunch.

There is no doubt that the candidates I have interviewed possess ambition, intelligence and the ability to plan ahead. Yet they seem to have a different relationship with time: a faith that the future, when it arrives, will be dealt with then and that carrying it around in advance merely adds unnecessary weight.

Perhaps Thailand was, and remains, ahead of the curve.

Many young Westerners today seem to have arrived at a similar conclusion. Hiring managers may struggle to understand them, but perhaps that is partly because they continue to ask questions shaped by a world that no longer exists.

Ask a twenty-three-year-old in Zurich, London or New York where they see themselves in five years, and you may receive something not entirely different from what I kept hearing in Krabi. A pause. A shrug. A look suggesting that the question belongs to another era.

The difference, perhaps, is how they arrived there.

Many young Westerners have grown accustomed to uncertainty. They have come of age amid economic instability, rapid technological change and a news cycle that makes long-term certainty feel almost quaint. The career paths their parents followed no longer exist in the same form, while the skills valued five years from now may bear little resemblance to those valued today.

Being agile, adaptable and ready to reinvent yourself at short notice has become its own kind of ambition. In the end, a clear five-year plan may matter less than the ability to change it when life takes an unexpected turn.

Thais seem to have reached a similar place by an altogether different road.

Life asks plenty of them too. But there’s an instinct here against letting tomorrow colonise today. To deal with what’s in front of you. To do what can be done now. And to trust that what comes next will be met when it comes.

Worrying about tomorrow doesn’t get you any more ready for it. People here seem to know that.

So yes, I have stopped asking people where they see themselves in five years.

I will not pretend I do not miss the question occasionally. It served me well for a long time. It sounded responsible. Serious. Managerial.

But I still think about those interviews. The pause. The polite smile. The faint suggestion that I had asked something slightly beside the point.

I used to think they simply did not understand the question.

I am no longer sure they were not the ones who understood it better.

About Gracious Culture:

Gracious Culture is an invitation to make life a little more enjoyable for yourself and those around you. Inspired by Thai culture and traditions, Buddhist reflections, and nearly two decades in Thai hospitality, this newsletter explores nine qualities of gracious living through stories, reflections, and everyday experiences.

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About me:

Hi, I’m Urs, a Swiss hotelier who has spent almost two decades running resorts in southern Thailand, after working in hospitality across three continents. I'm not the larger-than-life GM you might picture. More the sort who leads through steady dedication than sheer charisma, an introvert who somehow ended up in a very extroverted industry. Gracious Culture is where I write down what the unique Thai culture and amazing Thai people have taught me along the way.