Follow The Smart Framework
When setting goals, use the SMART framework, which stands for:
Specific – be as detailed as you can about your goals.
Measurable – have some way to measure your progress towards your goal.
Attainable – a goal needs to be something that you can reasonably attain.
Relevant – career goals should be directly related to your career path.
Timely – set a deadline so you know when you will accomplish your goal.
Figuring Out Your Long
The long-term future can feel awfully far away. If youre still figuring things out , thats okay. Right now, you just need a long-term goal thats ambitious, relevant, and realistic. To help you clarify your current long-term goals, consider the following:
- What are you passionate about?
- What do you hope to learn one day?
- Which skills do you wish you had?
- What do you most enjoy doing?
Take some notes and do some research. Network. Do informational interviews. Write everything down. As certain skills, areas, or items appear multiple times, highlight them. When you start to notice recurrent themes, youll have your answerat least for now.
What The Interviewer Really Wants To Know
Interviewers want to know whether you plan to stay at the company for a while, or if you’re likely to leave at the first opportunity. Asking future-focused questions during interviews is very common. For employers, this tactic helps reveal if you have any long-term visions or plans.
It is expensive to hire and train an employee. The interviewer wants to make sure that you intend to stay a while at the company. However, the interviewer also wants to make sure you have ambition and goals for your future.
5 Tips for Answering Questions About Career Goals
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How To Set Career Goals
When it comes to setting your own career aspirations, its important to look first at the big picture. Then, focus on the smaller steps youll need to accomplish to achieve that end result. That means looking at the long-term and then the short-term.
First, identify exactly what you ultimately want to achieve with your career. Is it a management position? Leadership role? CEO? Now is the time to think BIG!
Next, start outlining what youll need to do to achieve this ultimate goal. These are your short-term supporting goals and should include:
- Learning more about what it takes to achieve your long-term goal
- Getting the education and training you need
- Gaining the experience and developing the associated skills related to your long-term goal
- Making the connections and networking with the people in your chosen field who can help you achieve your goal
Of course, career goals dont have to be limited to just one final end result. Its perfectly acceptable to have multiple long-term goals for work. The important thing is to have a reasonable, actionable plan of attack that will help you achieve those goals.
Dont Be Too Eccentric
Id love to be CEO in five years. Then again, Id also love to be touring with my band if that takes off.
You can come across as flaky if you seem to have a million different ideas about what you want to do or if you have zero clear ideas about your future. In reality, many good candidates are exploring different options or are still trying to figure it out.
However, a job interview is not a session with your career coach. You want to give the impression that you are focused and have a plan .
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A Few Examples Of Long Term Career Goals:
- Switch careers from sales to web design and land a full-time job.
- Get promoted to Head of Customer Success.
- Grow my UX design blog newsletter to 20,000 subscribers.
Notice anything familiar about these long-term career goals? They map exactly to the short-term career goal examples above. None of these long-term goals are going to be achievable in a short time, but with focus, discipline, and the right short-term goals, they’re super achievable.
Sample Career Aspirations Answers That Can Help You Win A Job
Speaking about your career aspirations can be challenging, particularly if youre still examining different career choices. In your job interview, remain focused on how youll profit from the job and vice versa. This is your unique opportunity to show the interviewer how this job will help you accomplish your career goals and aspirations and where you view yourself in the future.
Below are remarkable sample career aspirations answers that may ease your own response.
Example 1. Im seeking a way to transfer my public relations, writing, event planning skills, and media relations expertise to a position in healthcare tech. Im intrigued by the bearings in healthcare and hold a family and educational background in medicine. The possibility of working on a product that can help save lives feels very fulfilling to me. Eventually, I have excitement in operating as a communications expert and really influence how people see this amazing industry.
Example 2. Ive often loved sales and flourished on the thrill of landing new clients for my company and competing with my rivals. Your position is charming as it would present the opening for me to intensify relationships with prevailing major clients while further pursuing new clients. I desire to remain in sales for the foreseeable tomorrow. My goal will be to emerge as one of the chief account managers in your administrators, referred to as a product specialist with a powerful track record of satisfying clients.
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Read A Good Book A Short
This can be work-related there are lots of great self-help/business books out there. Some real classics. They may be sales-related, marketing-related, wellbeing-related or just general business-related. Books like:
- The art of war
- The seven habits of highly effective people
- How to win friends and influence people
And lots more they dont have to be self-help for example, just read a classic novel or the latest best-seller its all a form of wellbeing, taking some time for yourself, without the noise of everyday life.
Other Similar Questions: How They Are Different
Other variations of the “Where do you see yourself in five years?” career objectives question may also crop up in your interview. At first glance, these questions might appear to be asking the same thing. Sometimes they are but sometimes they can be subtly different, and it’s important to know how.
Variations of this question which ask the same thing include:
- What are your long-term career goals?
- Where do you want to be in five/ten years time?
- Do you have a long-term career goal?
- How will this job help you achieve your long-term career goals?
Similar variations of the five years time question which are subtly different include:
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What Are Your Career Goals
You could say What are your career goals? is the adult version of What do you want to be when you grow up?
You probably even had a better idea of what to answer when you were 6.
You should channel that same level of confidence when talking about your career goals to an interviewer.
Easier said than done, right? Especially if youre uncertain about what your goals are or what they should look like in the first place.
We know that struggle! To help you figure out your career goals , we compiled this guide.
- What is a Career Goal and Why is It Important to Have One
- The 4 Most Common Types of Career Goals
- Tips for Answering What are Your Career Goals and things to avoid saying
- 3+ Examples of How Your Answer Should and Should Not Look Like
So, lets get started:
So What Are The Recruiters Really Asking
Interviewers arenât asking you this question to stress you out â honest. They are primarily asking it to find out whether the job and the employer will help you to get where you want to be. They want to be sure that they will be a good fit for you because, if they are, youâll be more likely to stay with them for the long term. Thatâs why interviewers often follow up this question with ââ¦and how will working with us in this role help you to achieve your goals?â and, even if they donât, you should tackle the topic in your answer.
An additional reason for asking the question may be to find out how much you know about the sector you are applying for, how much research you have done into the employer and how committed you are to your future career. This is particularly the case if the career will require a lot of your time and energy: for example, if you will need to study for professional qualifications or be required to work long or unpredictable hours.
This question covers similar territory to the classic âWhere do you see yourself in five yearsâ time?â and it is likely that you will be asked either one question or the other but not both. However, the career goals question is broader in scope, potentially allowing the interviewers to get to know you better.
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Best Answers To What Are Your Goals Interview Question
A career goal is a statement of your career aspirations and future plans, it states what you want to achieve in your job, and it helps guide decisions about who to work for. A good interview answer to What are your goals? will show you are a good fit for the company and that youre serious about their job long-term. When a prospective employer asks about your goals, they are asking for assurance that you will be reliable, motivated, and will remain committed to the company in the long run.
Lets dive right into some example answers, and later look at some tips and mistakes to avoid with this job interview question.
How Ambitious Are You
Most likely the main reason you are going to be asked this question is to see how ambitious you are. Certain roles do require ambitious people, others not so much. So, if theyre looking to take on a new sales manager, they will probably want someone ambitious, who wants to smash targets and become sales director at some point.
How ambitious are you, really? Give it some detailed thought prior to the interview, make sure this is the role for you and if it is, make sure the interviewer knows that. Make it clear, and show your focus on your career.
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How To Answer Questions On Career Aspiration During An Interview
To answer any interview question on career aspiration and career development during an interview, you need to understand exactly what the interviewer is asking.
After all, its a question that remains popular, including careers in traditional paths, when hiring short-term contract workers, or even when getting interviewed for leadership positions.
Align Your Answer With The Position And The Company
Knowing about the company and position is very crucial as you prepare to answer, What are your career goals?.
Talking about your professional plans that align with the position you are interviewing for reflects that you have included working there in your career goals.
It also makes you a better fit as hiring you will seem like a better decision if your goals match the company visions.
To do this, you must,
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Advance To A Leadership Position
Your specific path toward a leadership role greatly depends on your industry and where youâre starting out, and it can take many years to accomplish. Along the way, you may aim to accomplish some of these goals:
-
Short-term goals: Gain necessary experience with entry- and mid-level positions, attend leadership trainings, set up informational interviews with potential mentors and team leaders, network with cross-functional colleagues
-
Long-term goals: Get a promotion, earn a professional certificate or advanced degree, work toward a specific title
âWhat are your career goals?â sample answer: Currently, Iâm working on a project to unify our internal analytics processes across data analysis, data science, and data engineering departments by liaising with representatives from each department to identify and address pain points. Iâm also attending weekly leadership training sessions to build my managerial skills as I build the skills I need to ultimately become a Director of Analytics.
specialization
Learn at your own pace
Skills you’ll build:
Vision Alignment, Talent Management, Goals and Rewards, Motivate Employees, Leadership, goal setting, Communication, Leadership Development, Onboarding, Coaching, Recruitment, Management, Social Skills, Influencer Marketing, Leadership Dynamics, Team Management, Team Building
Your Career Aspirations Checklist
Figuring out your career aspirations before answering questions about them is essential. Otherwise, youll be memorizing career aspirations sample answers for eternity. This involves personal reflection and taking into consideration what career youd be excited to work on every day. So here are some questions you can ask yourself to reach a safe conclusion:
- What tasks sustain or drain your energy?
- What tasks make you lose track of time?
- What are you talented at?
- Who do you want to help?
- How can you contribute to providing solutions to peoples problems?
- In what industry could you be excelling?
- Do you like team collaborations or solo work?
- Do you have someone you aspire to be?
- Does managing people seem appealing to you?
- What would be considered a success to you?
- What would make your professional life fulfilling? Is it money, recognition, power, learning new things, being innovative, helping others?
Once you answer these questions, think about what companies and job positions combine most of your preferences. For example, if you enjoy interacting with people every day, a manager or a role in customer service might be a good fit for you. On the other hand, if you enjoy working solo and making your own decisions, a freelancing job might be what youre looking for. Finally, if you enjoy helping people, a role in public health or a non-profit organization could offer you a sense of doing what you love.
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Structure Your Answer To Align With Your Experience
To provide an effective answer, consider aligning your goals to your qualities and work experience. Think about your current field and the next steps to take. For example, if you’re in an entry-level position, your career goal may include how you want to advance your career into a leadership role. Considering your career experience shows you’re self-aware of your current career situation and how it relates to your goals.
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What Does Success Mean To You
In contrast to the ‘five years’ question, this one scrutinizes both your long- and short-term career goals, plus your overall work ethic. Make sure you give specific examples to help your answer stand out.
Example:
To me, success is going above and beyond what is expected.
For example, last summer I interned at a commercial law firm. My main responsibility was to carry an independent caseload. However, I also volunteered to compile a client report detailing our work on 150 cases.
I delivered the report before the deadline and received positive client feedback.
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How To Answer Questions About Long
To craft an appropriate response to questions about long-range occupational goals, consider the following steps:
To Know If You Are Likely To Work In The Company For A Long Time
Additionally, career goals interview questions investigate how committed you will be to a company. If you mention that you only see the position as a stepping stone, it will raise some red flags.
Turnover is quite costly, so companies try to avoid it as much as possible. Thats why they ask questions about your long-term goals in the interview. Keep this in mind when you prepare the answer about career objectives for an interview.
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List Of Long Term Career Goals Examples
Lets have discussion examples of long term career goals. Career goals are very important for every person. It is the one who drives you forward and motivates you to improve yourself and grow. Interviewers often ask a question about your long term career goals where they want to know how your career goals will fit in their company culture or how they can perceive your role in their organization. Questions related to long term career goals may seem simple but they often have a deeper meaning. Here it is important for you to understand why interviewers ask this question.
Interviewers always focus to ask questions such as what are your long term and short term career goals. Where do you see yourself after five years? are asked for certain reasons. Here, the interviewer wants to know about your answer which you give for this and with the help of your answer, they want to identify your mindset and look whether you really looking to maintain the position in the long term hence you are just seeking a job.
If somewhere employer finds your goal is not much of matching with the organization then the chance of your job low or Interviewer may not consider further process about you. So lets discuss examples of long term career goals and how to answer the questions regarding career goals.
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