How To Express Your Career Goals

Career Goals

Understanding your career goals is key to understanding what to look for in a job, and it helps interviewers understand what you can bring to the table for their company. Whether an interviewer is directly asking you “What are your career goals?” or you’re just trying to set career goals for yourself, follow these tips for thinking about your career development.

What Are Career Goals?

A career goal is simply an end goal. something you want to achieve in your professional life. Whether this goal is to own your own business, assume a leadership role or even learn new skills that will help you in your personal and professional life, these goals are an important part of why you’re even searching for a job in the first place. Although you might want to create these goals to better answer questions in a job interview, an action plan to achieve career goals can be beneficial even outside of the interview.

Elements To Consider When Setting Your Career Goals

When you’re thinking about your career goals, what do you need to be thinking about? The question “What are your career goals?” is a clean slate that needs to be answered in your own words. Each job candidate will set their own career goals. Here are a few things to consider when thinking out your own career goals:

In short, you need to think about not only what a happy life looks like to you but also what you’re actually good at doing. This can help you create smart goals. Many people want to change the world, but not everyone should put “build homes in underserved nations” on their career goals. Think about specific goals that are attainable and utilize your existing skill set.

How To Express Your Career Goals in a Resume or Interview

Expressing your career goals to yourself will be different than explaining them to a job interviewer. When you’re trying to answer “What are your career goals?”, you need to be prepared with different ways to phrase these goals. Here are five elements that are important when discussing your career goals with like a hiring manager:

Above all, your career goals need to be achievable and measurable. You need to make sure your goal is something that you’ll know you’ve achieved when you’ve done it. Although one of your personal goals may be “to feel fulfilled,” this isn’t something that works well for your professional goals because it’s too general. You need specific milestones that will showcase your personal development.

It’s also a good idea to have both short-term career goals and long-term career goals. Your ultimate goal is an important one to have in mind, but in some cases, it may take some time before you reach it. If you have some short-term goals that you can achieve in the meantime, it’ll put you on the right track toward professional development that will help you achieve the long-term goals. Part of the roadmap for the long-term goals should be achieving those short-term goals.