Why did you Take a Job Outside Your Career Path?

Being prepared for interview questions is one of the best ways to make sure that you do well at an interview. One of the ways to do this is to make sure that you have practiced interview questions. Here is one that may leave you tongue tied. Why did you take a job that seems to be outside of your career path?
So what happens when your potential employer is reading through your CV and they come across the job that doesn’t make sense? You have a job in your history that doesn’t fall within the logical progression of jobs in your field. And they want to know why.
What they’re looking for here is at least some thought process, a logical explanation for you having that position. This will help them understand how you think and do your things. It can also help them predict where you are likely to go.
Why did you take that job? What they are afraid of is that you don’t know what you want to do and if they hire you, you might not want to hang around their company very long, either. The hiring process is very expansive and can be disruptive to companies. The want to mitigate their risks and make sure that they get a person that is likely to stick so they can concentrate on making money.
There are actually a lot of valid reasons you could have taken an odd job that don’t reflect badly on you and will make sense to them: Maybe you thought that industry experience was going to be really useful; maybe you thought that you could learn a lot from that boss; maybe you thought that skill set you’d pick up there would be a benefit to you. Going after additional skills is a positive. Or, maybe the truth is that you had no other choice: you needed a good job, and this was one. Sometimes practicality is reason enough. Just explain that you have worked your tail off in that job, but now it’s time to move on to one that more closely fits your skill sets or your desired outcome as far as a career path goes.
They’re looking for you to make them feel better about something that puzzles them. And unless you answer that question where they do feel better about it, you have not done a good job of presenting yourself in the interview. The best way to do this is to put yourself in the HRs shoes and think of what they are looking for.
Just explain to them what they want to know. Basically, are you being thoughtful about your career? Are you making good decisions? Are you just impulsively taking any old job that sounds good? Why did you do this? Most importantly, does that have anything to do with why you want this job? Are you going to be happy in this career long-term?
Tell them why you made that decision, tell them what you learned from it, and then come back around to why you’d be a good fit for this job.

courtesy of CareerpointKenya