We all know that goal setting is important. If you want to develop your career or land the job of your dreams you certainly need a good plan and a list of achievable aims to get you there. One mistake many job seekers make, however, is not applying a goal setting strategy to their application process.
The truth is that a CV is only truly effective when it is tailored to a specific goal.
Understanding your goals will:
- Allow you to pick the right jobs to help develop your career.
- Stop you wasting time on the wrong or speculative job applications.
- Give you the chance to re-evaluate your job search strategy at any time.
- Develop the perfect CV statement or LinkedIn summary that hits the mark.
- Tailor your CV content to give you a better than average chance of being invited to interview.
- Help you stay in control of long term aims and short term, day to day job hunting activities.
- Provide you with the motivation to move your career forward.
A strong set of goals means that you can, at any time, examine your current position and review what is working and what is not. A focus on what you want to achieve is vital in many aspects of life and getting it right is the challenge that we all face.
Searching for a job is challenging. If you’re sending out countless CVs and not reaching your goals, it’s high time you changed your approach. Think of goal setting as a ladder building tool that helps you get closer to your desired career objective. The easier the steps are to climb, the quicker you’ll get there.
What Good Goals Look Like
The first thing you need to focus on is achievable goals. It’s no use setting a wildly improbable end point such as being the CEO of a major corporation. There’s no problem in having that as your life’s aim, but breaking things down into easily manageable and achievable chunks is key.
Most people still use the SMART analysis for setting goals, and despite all the advances in technology, this time-honoured approach remains a very useful tool. SMART stands for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Timely and any good goal should have these five components.
- Specific means that you can easily identify what you need to do.
- Measurable ensures that you know when the goal has been achieved.
- Any goal needs to be achievable, so you need to possess the ability and attributes to reach it.
- You should be realistic about what you are doing. It’s no use applying to be an airline pilot If you’ve never flown and are working on a help desk.
- You should be able to achieve your goal in a decent amount of time. If you are spending hours every day trying to take a small step up the career ladder, the chances are you’re not getting a good return on investment for your efforts.
Goals can be large or small. Big goals can be broken down into smaller steps. But the key is to have goals when you start job hunting that define how you are going to move forward.
At ABCV Solutions, we can work with you to set the right goals for your job hunt and give you a head start by helping to write that all-important CV. If you want to secure that next interview, a professionally written CV can make all the difference. Contact us today to find out more.
