Always remember to frame your career goals in a way that is relevant to the company for which you're applying — the hiring manager wants to see if you have a future there and if you envision yourself there.
Next, be prepared to elaborate on how you plan to accomplish or at least work towards your career goals. Many hiring managers are trained to dig deeper during interviews, and after stating your career goals, this may be a follow-up question to help the hiring manager learn more about you and your vision for yourself.
Finally, be prepared to demonstrate flexibility and adaptability by discussing how you are ready to adjust your short-term goals to achieve the long-term ones, as necessary. This is another reason it's important to have clearly defined short-term goals. Changing a single step on a path is easier than building a new road. There is a psychological disconnect with sharing your goals with someone.
Talking about what you plan to do and getting a positive reaction i. The satisfaction that comes from positive feedback on your goal makes you less likely to do the work to accomplish it. Don't waste your time applying to jobs that won't make you happy. Define what you want and go after it. Are you planning to land a new job in the short term? We can help with our professional resume writing services , plus cover letters and LinkedIn profile assistance.
Note: this piece was originally written by Carrie Maldonado and has been updated to include more guidance and information by TopResume contributor Marsha Hebert. How to Describe Yourself in an Interview. Let's stay in touch. Subscribe today to get job tips and career advice that will come in handy. Career advice is on its way. Your information is secure. Please read our privacy policy for more information.
Menu Next Steps Where shall we send your critique? Email Address Get my critique. Thanks for submitting your files Thank you! Your critique is on the way. Read our expert career advice. Uploading your resume What are your career goals? If you decide to go into sales, here's what your SMART goal could look like: Join a Fortune company as an entry-level sales rep within 1 year. S pecific - You want to join a Fortune company.
What weaknesses would you need to overcome to succeed? What strengths would see you thrive? At the end of this step you will have narrowed down your options and identified the one occupation that you ultimately aspire to. From this, you can define what you want to achieve in this chosen profession. Write this goal down so that you can then devise an action plan to achieve it. Writing down your goal gives you a clearer direction and focuses you on the big picture of what you ultimately want to achieve in your professional life.
Our Career Goal Planner contains a template to help you plot this out. Focus on what you need to achieve in the next three to five years or so, specifically in the areas of:. This will highlight any skills or competencies that you need to focus on developing in your current role before you commence your next jobs search. Once these short-term objectives are in place, you need to the next step in career planning involves turning your attention to longer-term planning objectives.
Plot out a realistic career progression pathway that defines the jobs and their increasing level of skills, responsibilities and seniority that will allow you to reach your goal.
This is essentially your roadmap for how you are going to advance your career to get to your ultimate end goal. Before you can chart your course towards your future, most people need to research typical career pathways in their field.
To do this, you can talk to a recruiter to understand the typical career paths for the role you aspire to. You can also reach out to any LinkedIn connections who are on the pathway you aspire to. Your mentor can also provide useful insights, as can a review of relevant job descriptions.
For each job define:. At the end of this step you will have set out the career progression pathway you need to take to get you from where you are today to where you ultimately want to be. Again, our Career Goal Planner contains a template to help you set this out. When formulating your action plan, remember to set clearly defined, short objectives you can work towards. This shows that you have thought these goals through and are clear about what you want in the future.
For example, if your short-term goal is to learn a new programming language, explain how you will achieve that certification or auto-didactic learning and how that improves your work performance does it allow you to work on more projects? Does the company you work for benefit from that? No shocker here. So, when talking about your goals make sure to express how achieving them will also be beneficial to your potential employer.
Think about some short-term and long-term goals, and take the time to practice your answer. If all that talk had you confused, here are 3 examples of answers that illustrate how to turn theory into practice.
Apart from expanding my knowledge and experience in marketing, I also hope to improve my communication and public speaking skills.
I really want to be a proactive and valuable team member. Action plan: Earn more experience and knowledge in marketing and improve communication and public speaking skills. It will come in handy when solving portfolio optimization problems. As far as long-term goals, I would like to become a part-time professor at Y university. I have given some guest lectures there and really enjoyed it. The flexible hours are also very beneficial as they allow me to keep another job as well. Short-term goal: Manage larger game design teams.
Long-term goal: Become project manager. Action plan: Improve leadership skills and gain more experience as game design lead. Does it require resources that are currently available? Timely - A goal should be grounded within a defined time period, both for clarity and to give your action urgency. When do you want to begin? When do you want to complete each step? Skip to content. Sponsored by the U. Department of Labor. A proud partner of the network. Site Search Keywords.
Explore Careers What kind of career will fit you best? How can you get there? Read More Self assessments. Learn about careers. Plan your career. Occupation Profile. Career Tools. Find the education and training resources you need.
Types of training. Pay for training. Find your path. Find Local Training. Occupation, school, or program. Education and Training Tools. Taking the time to make a job search plan will pay off for that next job. Plan your job search. Find jobs. Resumes and applications. Interview and negotiate.
0コメント