When you ask a candidate where they hope to see themselves in five years, you gather a lot more information about this candidate’s needs, challenges, and ambitions. It also gives you an opportunity to offer concrete examples of ways your company can meet the candidate’s needs and support their aspirations. You may even learn that a candidate is a better fit for a different role than the one they’re interviewing for.

Take the example of candidate “Alyssa.” Alyssa says she is looking to join an organization to gain more leadership skills and practice more independent decision-making. This gives your company’s hiring representative an opportunity to show her how your training and mentorship programs give her a structured path to move up the company ranks. You can share written and video testimonials of employees who joined with similar interests and were able to lead projects more independently.

Take a different candidate, “Ben.” Ben says he values a company that prioritizes work-life balance. This gives your company a chance to share your generous PTO policy and flexible work schedule, and to cite examples of how the company encourages its members not to respond to work emails and phone calls after hours and on weekends. Maybe you mention a few leaders at the company who take this very seriously, to show that the culture of prioritizing work-life balance comes from the top down.