Set Your Career Goals
Do you spend more time planning your vacations than your career? What's more important to you? Defining your career goals will help you make necessary steps toward a satisfying work life.
Want to find satisfying work? Start by thinking about your long-term career goal and the short-term activities that will help you achieve it. These pieces will make up your career plan.
What is your long-term career goal?
What are short-term activities to reach this goal?
Sample Career Plan
Long-term career goal: Project Manager
Short-term activities
Learn more: Talk with three people in this career to develop a list of realistic activities within one month.
Develop related skills: Take an online project management software course within six months.
Practice skills: Use the software at work or as a volunteer experience.
Get experience: Ask my boss for a small project that I can manage within six months.
Gain education and training: Finish my degree within two years.
You've set your career goals and defined the steps necessary to achieve them. Now follow your written plan.
What do you need to make your career goals real?
Determine that your career goals are realistic.
Look for careers that match your interests, skill set, and salary requirements. Explore the market and look at lists of growing or in-demand careers.
Set realistic time frames and adjust them as needed.
Make sure your activities are specific and achievable.
Just do it! Make it happen with your time, energy, and money.
How will you reward yourself for achieving even your smallest activities?
Who will support you and help you?.
Don't just write down your plan. Tell people about it and get their feedback and support.
You may run into roadblocks or want to change your mind. Don't be discouraged!
Take a look at your career plan and adjust it as needed.
Change your activities if they aren't working for you.
Take a different path to achieve your goals.
Understand that the world of work changes quickly and so can you
Once you achieve your career goals, reward yourself and rethink your goals. Careers are a life-long journey!
When you are developing career goals that you want to reach, evaluate them to make sure they fit the criteria of a SMART goal. Make any changes necessary to ensure it meets the criteria for a SMART goal.
SPECIFIC: Specifics help clearly define what you want to do. Use action words such as direct, organize, develop, plan, build, etc. Instead of setting a goal to find a job, set a specific goal to search for at least three job openings in a particular field.
MEASURABLE: How will you see when you reach your goal? Establish concrete criteria for measuring progress toward your goal.
ATTAINABLE: It’s good to set goals that stretch you and require a commitment. But if you set goals that are too far outside of your reach, you set yourself up for failure. For example, if you plan to submit your resume to 50 job postings by the end of the day – this may seem overwhelming. However, you may be able to complete a smaller number each day until your reach 50 submissions.
REALISTIC: This is not a synonym for “easy.” Realistic, in this case, means “do-able.” Your goals need to be realistic for you and where you are at the moment. A goal to complete a degree within two years may not be realistic for your situation. Pace yourself but be sure to set goals that you can attain with some effort. Too complicated, and you set the stage for failure, but too easy, and you won’t reach your potential.
TIMELY: Set a timeframe for the goal: for next week, in three months, by the end of the year. Putting an endpoint on your goals gives you a clear target to work towards. your goal gives you a clear target to work towards. Time must be measurable, attainable and realistic.
Develop Your SMART Career Goal By using the following sheet (download it and fill it and reach out to us)
Contact Us
BC-121, Male Students' Section, University of Prince Mugrin, Madinah, Saudi Arabia