Your career choices affect your income, financial situation, health, and happiness. But most people are not sure how to plan out their career path and follow it. As a result, they miss out on opportunities and job offers that can help them excel in their career. Taking control of your career by career planning can make you open to more options and increase the probability of you finding your dream job.
What Is a Career Goal?
A career goal is a written statement that explains the profession you wish to pursue throughout your career. It is a well-defined and clear statement that helps you create an effective action plan. As an employee, you need to develop your career goals. If you set unrealistic goals, you will become depressed and disappointed. But that does not mean you should not work on them. Creating career goals helps you stay on track and achieve your dreams.
What Is the Importance of Career Goals?
Career goals are milestones you set to excel in your career. Career goals are created based on your interests and skills. They help you achieve success at your job. For example, if you want to create a website, you can learn how to do so.
Career goals are short terms and long-term objectives you set to encourage yourself as you move forward on your career path. Career goals inspire you to improve and shine your skills.
Setting career goals that have to be achieved within a specific time helps you stay focused and motivated. They make you more productive and better at your job. Setting career goals is an indication of how serious you are about your work and job and how willing you are to excel in it.
How to Set Career Goals
The process of career planning and setting career goals can be broken down into the following steps.
1. Assess Yourself:
- You need to assess yourself and think about your interests, skills, talents, personality, and career values. This will help you narrow down your criteria for the career you seek.
- Fix a meeting with a career coach at your college, in your community, or at your school. Career counselors can help you create a career path you can achieve easily.
- Create a career profile. Review all your past work, including your academic records. Keep in mind all your courses, grades, projects, volunteer work, community work, internships, and jobs, and decide which activities were most interesting for you.
- Make a list of all the activities that you found most satisfying and those that had the greatest impact on you.
- Figure out your top skill. You need to figure out which of your skills are the strongest. They consider which interests make the work successful, interesting, and meaningful. You need to determine which skill brings out the best of you.
- Make a list of all your skills, professional strengths, and interests. This will help you see which career is ideal for you.
2. Look at Different Career Options:
- There are loads of free online career and personality quizzes you can go for that will help you understand which career is ideal for someone with your wants, interests, goals, and qualifications.
- Keep your options open. Research and go through multiple career options and paths you can take. Create a list of options that are worth investing in.
- You can search online for the different career options available. Try to shortlist at least eight careers in which you are willing to invest your time and life.
3. Research Your Career Options:
Once you have short-listed your career options, it is time to research them one by one. In-depth research and knowledge about your shortlisted careers will help you assess their suitability.
- You can try searching “career information software engineer” on Google. You will see that there are many professional groups that provide a lot of career information. You should know the requirements and demands of the field you intend to pursue. Make sure you have completed all the training, educational degrees, and programs required for the degree.
- Talk to people that are already in the field. You should get in touch with professionals, CEOs, and employees in your desired occupation and field. Find and contact CEOs and investors with the help of Leadar.
- During your research, take notes so that at the end of your research, you can narrow down your options. Match your notes with your list of interests, demands, skills, values, and goals.
4. Job Shadowing Can Help You Understand What You Want:
If you are still interested in the field after researching it and speaking to professionals in that field, then the next step is to schedule a job shadow. A job shadow allows you to observe how things work at the company and experience the work environment. This helps you understand whether you want to pursue this field and work or not.
5. Apply For an Internship or Volunteer Program:
Internships can help you gain work experience, an idea of what the job is going to be like, and connections in the field. In order to get an internship, you need to create a resume and apply.
6. Make Your Decision:
Once you have completed the above-mentioned steps, you will be able to make an informed decision. Make a pros and cons list for your shortlisted options on separate sheets and compare the choices. If you still can’t make up your mind, you should seek help from a counselor. A career counselor at your college, school, or online can help you make your decision.
A Final Thought
A career goal helps you turn your dreams into reality. It is all about setting milestones for your career path. Clearly defined career goals help you keep your enthusiasm and ambition alive, and give you the energy to achieve something more as well as a sense of satisfaction with life and your profession. This is even more fruitful when the person shares their career goals with a third party.
