What is your long term career goal: Long-Term Career Goals: How to Set & Achieve Them

Long-Term Career Goals: How to Set & Achieve Them

A long-term career goal is a milestone that someone spends years or even decades working toward. An example of a long-term goal within the professional world may include moving up to a managerial role, breaking into a new industry or earning a higher salary. Regardless of the specific benchmark, long-term career goals help people articulate what they want out of their careers and can influence what career paths they explore.

What Is a Long-Term Career Goal?

Long-term career goals are benchmarks that you strive to achieve in your professional life, taking anywhere from a few years to decades to complete. From earning a promotion to publishing a book, long-term goals come in many forms and serve as a guiding force for one’s career path and trajectory.

If you have trouble pinning down your long-term career goals, don’t worry — you’re in good company. Ravs Kaur, who became chief technology officer at Uplevel in 2019, once struggled to imagine what her future career would look like.

“When people would ask me early on in my career where I want to be in five years, I never had a great answer,” Kaur said.

Indeed, most people aren’t accustomed to setting long-term career goals with the sort of reflection and intentionality the exercise often requires. Some try to do it on a yearly basis as part of their performance review cycles. But that can be tough to do — sometimes trying to imagine where you’ll be five years in the future can feel too abstract.

Long-term career goals don’t have to be set in stone though. They are flexible and can change based on new jobs and experiences. The purpose of setting long-term goals is primarily to help guide employees’ short-term plans to be realistic and reflect the work experiences they really want to pursue.

Why It’s Important to Set Long-Term Career Goals

Long-term goals can fulfill a range of personal and professional needs. They provide a sense of direction, helping someone narrow down their focus to specific benchmarks they can strive for and attain. Professionals often gain more motivation by creating long-term career goals — and receive a boost of self-esteem once they achieve them.

Benefits of Long-Term Career Goals

• Stronger sense of direction.
• Improved motivation and self-esteem.
• Expanded skill sets.
• Greater desire to explore different roles and career paths.

Setting long-term goals can also give employees a chance to learn critical skills. In the fast-paced tech industry, for instance, long-term goals can motivate employees to stay on top of new technologies in order to earn a high-level technical position in the future. Employers also benefit from having a motivated employee base.

While reflecting on long-term goals works wonders for professionals of all backgrounds, it can have a lasting impact on those who are navigating the early years of their careers.

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Use Long-Term Goals Early in Your Career to Explore Your Options

It’s normal to struggle with creating a five-year plan — especially if you’re just starting out. People earlier in their careers naturally have a tougher time because they don’t yet know what they like or even what types of work are possible.

It’s easy to set your next long-term career goal as simply reaching the next rung in the corporate ladder, but that can be a mistake. Long-term goal setting is an opportunity to think deeply about what you actually want from your career.

“Early on in my career, I used to think of my goals as very much a vertical ladder,” Kaur said. “My short-term and long-term goals were, ‘I need to climb this corporate ladder, I need to get to senior, I need to get to principal’ — and it was very much influenced by the requirements of that next level. ”

“Over time, I’ve started thinking of my career as more of a skills belt, as opposed to a vertical ladder.”

Eventually, Kaur realized that taking her blinders off and getting a broader view before pursuing specific long-term goals could be beneficial. So while holding a role as a tester at her company’s software engineering team, Kaur dabbled in UX design and product management. She deepened her technical software testing skills and also sampled other types of work to see what she enjoyed.

“Over time, I’ve started thinking of my career as more of a skills belt, as opposed to a vertical ladder,” Kaur said. “I focus more now on just getting different experiences and learning new skills.”

This investigatory period is important. Trying out different roles and responsibilities can help people understand their strengths and weaknesses, and prevent them from pursuing long-term goals they later realize aren’t actually what they want.

“It’s a little bit like when you enter college and you don’t quite know which specialty to get into,” Kaur said. “You’re exposed to a lot of different things and find your activities. I feel like those early years also serve that purpose.”

Long-Term Career Goals Examples

Long-term career goals can take many different forms. The best long-term goals always take into account an individual’s ambitions and interests in the current moment and use that to build forward into the future. That’s not to say long-term goals should be stagnant — they should change and reflect new aspirations as employees grow.

One example of a long-term goal is to achieve a certain job title in the future. Thinking about the kind of role you’d like to pursue in the future can help guide you when deciding what skills you should learn, because different skills are needed for highly technical roles, say, when compared with managerial roles.

Another example of a long-term goal is finding a job at a specific type of work environment you’d enjoy. Some software developers, for example, like to work on small teams in fast-paced environments, while others crave the formal support structures and training available at larger companies. Those preferences can dictate whether developers should work at startups or big organizations, and can even influence the type of industry employees join. Individuals setting long-term goals are able to make choices that set themselves up for working in those environments in the future.

Here are some long-term goal examples to inspire you:

• Move from a technical to a non-technical role (or the reverse).
• Work within a specific industry or sector.
• Move into a leadership position.
• Work with a specific technology that excites you.
• Work at a small startup (or a large corporation).
• Aim for a job that has work of interest to you.
• Find a role that allows for mentorship opportunities.

How to Set Long-Term Career Goals

Coming up with long-term career goals can be an extensive process, sometimes one that requires a little soul-searching. Professionals should begin by asking themselves what they want to achieve in their careers and how they want to go about it. While there are plenty of frameworks for goal setting, a popular option is the SMART goals strategy:

• Specific
• Measurable
• Achievable
• Relevant
• Time-bound

Setting long-term goals involves more than brainstorming ideas in a lonely room. Many professionals often turn to more experienced workers for advice on how to get started with long-term career goals. From envisioning one’s retired self to leveraging professional connections, these strategies encourage people to take advantage of both self-reflection and their support systems when planning long-term goals.

How to Set Long-Term Career Goals

• Learn from other people’s long-term goals.
• Develop a long-term vision and work backwards.
• Figure out the ‘why’ of long-term goals.
• Discuss long-term career goals with your manager.
• Use different methods to stay motivated and complete long-term goals.

Investigate People’s Long-Term Goals and Career Paths

Another way to expand your horizons is by doing research into other people’s career paths.

Kyle Elliott, a software development career coach based in San Francisco, said researching other people’s career paths can spark ideas for those who don’t yet have any definite long-term career goals. Elliott tells his clients to look up people with jobs that seem interesting, and consider the paths they took to get there.

“That doesn’t mean you have to follow it,” he said. “But it can give you a blueprint, an idea of how they got there.”

Real career paths can give insight into the diversity of people’s experiences. Developers, for instance, can gain inspiration by looking at people’s job titles, the companies they work for, and also the types of projects they worked on and certifications they have collected.

Perhaps pursuing similar projects or certifications would be helpful for broadening or deepening your learning. Activities such as volunteer work can build leadership skills and ongoing education can stretch and enhance your understanding of an industry, and allow you to contribute in new ways at your company.

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Cast a Long-Term Vision and Work Backwards

Elliott uses an interesting exercise when discussing long-term goals with clients. Instead of asking them to think five or even ten years into the future, he tells them to imagine themselves well into retirement. How would that version of themselves think back on their life?

“Let’s imagine your 80-year-old self is on the phone,” Elliott said. “What advice is she giving you now? What does her life look like? How do we get there?”

This technique helps his clients consider whether the long-term career goals they are currently pursuing feel worthwhile. For those who pull long hours in pursuit of a focused set of long-term goals, the exercise can help them step back and evaluate whether those long-term goals still make sense for them.

“Let’s imagine your 80-year-old self is on the phone. What advice is she giving you now?”

It’s a holistic way of thinking about long-term career goals, not just as ends unto themselves, but as useful tools that can help you build a meaningful and satisfying life.

The exercise can help people consider what they don’t want from their careers as well. Whether you prefer working on close-knit teams or for specific industries, factoring your preferences into long-term goals can affect whether you get to do that.

Taking this view of long-term career goals promotes balance. It gives people a chance to think about how their jobs affect other areas, such as their families and their health. Are there any negative impacts on their lives from their careers? And how would that affect that 80-year-old self?

Figure Out the ‘Why’ of Your Long-Term Goals

One of the most important things Elliott emphasizes to his clients about long-term career goals is to always dig into the “why. ” What’s the real reason they are pursuing their long-term goals in the first place?

“People often just have this idea of what they should be doing next, because that’s what career chronology looks like, when often that’s not what everyone wants or needs,” Elliott said.

Kaur has seen this often when software developers talk to her about their desire to move into management roles.

“A lot of times, people just think that is the only way to grow in their careers,” Kaur said. “That there isn’t another technical option. That’s not true, for the record.”

Talk to Your Manager About Long-Term Career Goals

Sometimes, the long-term goals you set don’t seem possible to achieve at your current company. In those cases, it’s best to talk to your managers about your long-term career goals because chances are they might be able to support you in ways you may not have considered, Elliott said.

Companies like to keep good employees because it’s costly to recruit and train new hires. They are often willing to work with employees and help them develop new skills.

“And I think oftentimes employees forget that their boss is also an employee who has their own goals,” Elliott said. “Their boss is a human who will often be on board with it.”

Companies might allow employees to take time to work on passion projects or attend classes. Employees can also look for opportunities to grow outside of the office, such as volunteering or extracurriculars.

Kaur said an employee’s current company is actually the best place to try new things and experiment with different types of career paths. The employee is already familiar with the company and the business, so compared with starting fresh, working in a new role at a familiar place can help employees bring value to their employer faster.

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Employ Different Methods to Motivate Yourself to Complete Long-Term Goals

One of the most difficult aspects of long-term goal setting is that it’s hard to stay motivated over long periods of time. Sometimes it’s hard to tell if you’re making progress toward your long-term career goals at all.

Kaur said the trick is to make long-term career goals as specific as possible. She brought up an example of long-term goal setting in her personal life, when she wanted to develop a deeper bond with her children. But setting that as a long-term goal is vague, because it’s hard to determine what constitutes a “deeper bond.” Instead, Kaur made the long-term goal measurable by basing it on the types of conversations they had.

“A potential measurement was how many times they would come to me with a problem or challenge, as opposed to me probing,” she said.

It can also help to break big long-term goals into smaller ones. A technique that worked for Elliott’s clients was crafting long-term goals so they fit into two-week sprints, and only tackling the ones that can be accomplished within that time.

Elliott also encourages clients to take stock of all their long-term goals and figure out which ones are dependent on others. Starting with easier ones can be a good technique to gain momentum, but first tackling the ones that other long-term goals are dependent on is a good strategy as well.

It can also be helpful to talk to others about long-term career goals. Mentors and colleagues can check in every once in a while to help with accountability and make sure things are still on track.

Elliott said it’s important to celebrate reaching long-term goals successfully as well. Apart from enjoying the sense of accomplishment, it can also be a good barometer to gauge whether your long-term goals are still right for you. If you’ve achieved something but don’t feel any pride or satisfaction, it may be time to recalibrate.

“It’s so important to enjoy the ride,” Elliot said, “so you don’t get to 80 years old, and then you’re like, ‘What was the point of all this if I wasn’t having fun along the way?’”

Answering ‘What Are Your Long-Term Career Goals?’

Understanding how to answer, ‘What are your long-term career goals?’ at an interview

At an interview, you’re likely to be asked, ‘What are your long-term career goals?’ Typically, employers ask this question to find out whether a candidate is ambitious, goal-oriented, and suitable for the position. Learning about this interview question and how to answer it competently can help you make a great impression on the hiring manager. Read this article to find out why you should set long-term professional goals, get steps for answering a question about them, learn tips for improving the effectiveness of your answer, and see example answers.

Discover real interview questions asked for thousands of job titles

Why do employers ask, ‘What are your long-term career goals?

Employers usually ask, ‘What are your long-term career goals?’ because they want to find out whether a job applicant can work toward goals, learn about the person’s ambitions, and evaluate whether these aspirations complement opportunities within the company or their corporate values. An employer is likely to prefer a professional who provides evidence of setting realistic professional targets because this is an indication of a suitable work ethic and motivation toward career development. Answering this question effectively can boost your interview performance by showing the hiring manager your determination to succeed.

Why is it important to have long-term career goals?

Having long-term career goals, or milestones for progressing in your career, is important for several reasons such as:

• It can orient you toward career development. Setting long-term career objectives can make you pay attention to where you want to be professionally in the future. Once you articulate these targets, you are more likely to consider them as you work or make career-related decisions.
• You can develop plans for achieving each goal. By setting professional targets that are achievable over a long period of time, you can easily identify the things you need to do to achieve each one. For example, the activities for achieving a long-term career goal can include getting a professional credential, training in a particular skill area, or gaining industry experience in a specific job responsibility.
• It can demonstrate your suitability for a job. At an interview, you can use the long-term career goals you developed to show an employer how you complement corporate values or expectations. For example, if you aim to develop computer applications that change the way in which people work, an employer who is committed to developing innovative software for corporations is likely to see you as a good fit for a position in programming or management.
• It can communicate positive personal traits. Most employers prefer workers with specific personality traits because each job requires specific soft skills. By developing long-term professional goals, you can use them to demonstrate that you have key soft skills in relation to being goal-oriented, motivated, organized, and determined to succeed.

Learn more: Skills to Help You Ace Your Job Interview

How to answer, ‘What are your long-term career goals?’

You can use the following steps to answer, ‘What are your long-term career goals?’:

1. Identify your professional goals. To answer this question effectively, preparation is key. Before the interview, decide on the professional changes you want to enjoy in the next five years. Then, develop clear targets for achieving them. Long-term professional goals can include obtaining a promotion, improving your efficiency rate in project completion by 50%, learning a new skill, or obtaining a professional credential.
2. Research the company and the position. If your targets resonate with the hiring manager, you’re more likely to get the job. Learn about company’s business goals, interests, and values before the interview via press releases, corporate website, employee testimonials, and other online and off-line publications. Additionally, read the job description thoroughly. Then, make a list of the keywords used to describe corporate objectives and employee expectations.
3. Align your professional goals to your employer. Use your company research to choose goals that complement the company to which you’re applying. While you may have several long-term career targets, select a maximum of four objectives, which are likely to best match your employer’s goals and values, for the interview discussion.
4. Communicate goals that are relevant to the job. When asked by the hiring manager to discuss your professional goals, articulate goals that relate to the company and the position you’re applying for by using keywords you found during your research.
5. Summarize a realistic plan for achieving your goals. Inform the recruiter of the things you have already achieved in relation to reaching your targets. Additionally, talk about the steps you intend to take in the future to achieve your aspirations. For example, gaining specific managerial experience can be a step to achieve your goal of getting a promotion. Similarly, being involved in professional associations can be a step in building your professional brand.

Learn more: Common Technical Interview Questions and How to Answer

Tips for answering ‘What are your long-term career goals?’

To answer the, ‘What are your long-term career goals?’ question competently, you can use the following tips:

• Show the hiring manager your drive to achieve goals. Speak enthusiastically about the things you have already achieved that have helped you progress toward your goals. For example, if one of your goals is being a manager in the next five years, you can mention working as a supervisor and going to leadership seminars.
• Write down your answer to the question when preparing for the interview. Writing your answer to the question on your professional goals enables you to correct any linguistic errors and optimize it. This also gives you the opportunity to focus on your delivery during your preparation.
• Keep your answer on career goals concise. Prepare to answer the question on your professional goals briefly. You can do so by editing your written answer to the, ‘What are your long-term career goals?’ question until each goal is brief and clear.
• Memorize your answer to improve interview performance. As a query about your career goals is a standard question at most interviews, committing your answer to memory can help you avoid forgetting your talking points or having awkward pauses during the interview. Once you finish writing your answer, repeat it to yourself until you can communicate it without making any mistakes.
• Practice answering the question before the interview. Use role-play with a friend or face yourself in a mirror to practice responding to this question. Keep practicing until your answer delivery is confident and smooth.

Learn more: 15 Interview Questions You Should Be Prepared to Answer

Example answers to, ‘What are your long-term career goals?’

Consider the following example answers when preparing your own:

Example: Entry-level network engineer

I have been attending leadership seminars and taking leadership roles in team settings to position myself to move into management in the next five years. My on-the-job experience in maintaining complex corporate networks and spearheading transformational computer hardware and software upgrades gives me the technical skills needed to take on an executive role in computer systems administration. Another target is to get my CompTIA Network+ certification, which will complement the A+ credential I already have, because I want to develop my skills in network troubleshooting and security.

Example: Mid-level IT project manager

One of my long-term career goals is gaining more experience in using the Agile project management methodology to complement my expertise in other approaches such as Lean Practices, PRINCE2, PMI’s PMBOK, and SIx Sigma because this can improve my project leadership in projects with non-static requirements. I’m also targeting a 30% improvement in project efficiency over the next year. 

In the next two years, I want to improve my team-building skills because I strongly believe in achieving business goals by engaging and empowering workers. I also want to evaluate and improve the efficacy of my management skills in relation to employee engagement, so I’m planning on developing a research tool, such as a survey, that can collect the feedback of subordinates on my management upon the completion of each project.

Example: Senior social media manager

A key goal is staying informed on industry developments, innovative strategies, and relevant legislation through my involvement with professional organizations, research on peer-reviewed publications, and attendance in industry events because this is essential for success in this dynamic field.  

Developing my professional brand in the industry is another career goal I’m pursuing because I believe my brand benefits me and my employer. To achieve this, I plan on increasing my contribution to industry journals, managing my online presence, and taking on leading roles in professional events and organizations. My track record in increasing brand preference through social media marketing has inspired me to target becoming a social media consultant in the next five years, so I can provide my expertise in building brands and market share through social media while reducing marketing expenditure. 

What are your career goals? How to answer correctly

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 had a better idea of ​​what to say when you were 6 years old.

You should convey the same level of confidence when you talk about your career goals to an interviewer.

Easier said than done, right? Especially if you’re not sure about your goals or how they should look in the first place. nine0003

We know this fight! To help you set your career goals (and answer that terrible interview question), we’ve put together 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 the question “What are your career goals” and what not to say
• 3+ examples of what your answer should and should not look like

So let’s get started:

What is a career goal

Career goals are goals. Things, positions, situations related to your professional life that you are planning to achieve.

They can be short-term, such as getting a promotion or certification, or long-term, such as running your own successful business or being the CEO of your dream company.

No matter how they sound, they should be some kind of prize that motivates you to start a career. nine0003

Why it’s important to have a career goal (and why interviewers care)

Firstly, in addition to the interview, you should have a career goal simply because it is beneficial for you .

Not to impress the interviewer, your relatives, or your future Tinder date, but to improve yourself.

Having a career goal will keep you focused and not stuck in a cycle where every day looks the same and you forget what you’re working on in the first place. nine0003

It gives you something to strive for, steps to follow, progress to make.

Now back to the interviewer and why he is asking the question. Your answer lets them know about two things:

• How long do you plan to work for them
• What motivates you to work

All interviewers are interested in why you want to work for them and will ask you directly. However, this question tells them that “Why do you want to work for us?” interview question no. nine0003

Your career goal will give them an idea of ​​what kind of employee you will be – long-term or short-term. Will you stay in this position for a while, or is it a temporary stop until a better opportunity arises?

Having a career goal also means you don’t apply for a job just because a job posting happened to come your way and being unemployed you would apply for just about anything, so… there you are. nine0003

If you have a goal that you want to achieve, it means that this interview was not random, and this position really meets your aspirations. This means that you are likely to be more dedicated to work, work harder, and have a great attitude.

An alternative to the question about career goals is the question “Where do you see yourself in 5 years? . In both cases, the interviewers are trying to understand the same point: your future.

4 most common career goals

In addition to the two main types – long-term and short-term – career goals can also be divided into categories depending on their focus.

The four most common ones are:

Career goals

All of these goals are about making you more productive and more efficient; get better and faster at what you do and climb stairs because of it.

Short term example: sales agent increases monthly sales by x%.

Long term example: become a senior partner of a leading law firm.

Objectives focused on promoting leadership

There are many career opportunities when it comes to leadership. These goals aim to improve your management skills and target positions with more responsibility.

nine0002 Short term example: I have worked my way up to being a manager at this restaurant.

Long-term example: working as a manager in company X.

Objectives aimed at the development of education

Whether you are a high school graduate or a professional, there is always something to learn. These goals are to keep you up to date with the latest developments in your field or just to learn something new and different. nine0003

Short term example: learning a new programming language.

Long-term example: graduate from medical school, complete a residency in surgery and successfully obtain a state license to practice medicine in no more than 11 years.

Personal development goals

These goals emphasize self-improvement and skills such as networking or teamwork. Achieving them has a positive effect on your professional life, but it also shows that you are more than just a job, job, job. nine0003

Short term example: Be more active in your company.

Long term example: improving your networking skills.

How to answer – “What are your career goals?”

Actually there is no formula for the correct answer to this question. However, we can give you some tips to make sure your answer fits all the dots.

Be relevant to the company. nine0069

Let’s say one of your current goals is to earn a certificate in an online fiction course. It’s an awesome goal, but if you’re applying for a sales manager position, this certification won’t help you much in an interview.

This means that your answer to this interview question must be related to the position/company you are applying for.

• My goal has always been to become a certified public accountant. In a year, I will finally complete the education and experience requirements required to pass the Unified CPA Exam, which I am very determined to pass. nine0075