Short-term career goals are attempts to improve one’s performance and skills within a specific organization in order to improve the marketability of qualifications in that particular business arena. These objectives may include improving one’s understanding of how the organization operates as well as one’s inside knowledge and education in the field. Externally, short-term career goals include a focus on financial stability in order to prepare for long-term transitions to different work environments. This entails not only putting money aside for possible periods of unemployment, but also determining which applications of one’s expertise would be the most lucrative, as well as which areas are likely to experience strong job growth in the future.
Short-term career goals should be achieved first, according to career counselors, before focusing on long-term goals. Entry-level positions are viewed as a stepping stone to a long-term career goal of evaluating rival companies, other industries in which one’s qualifications would apply, or higher positions within one’s current company. While this is understandable, setting career goals frequently has the opposite effect. Before one can achieve any short-term career goals, one must first define a long-term career path.
Long-term career planning is a good starting point for achieving short-term career goals, but it’s no guarantee that it will pay off. Low-wage, low-skilled, and underemployed workers, particularly those with advanced degrees and extensive experience in a field, are frequently branded as “drifters” who have failed to set long-term career goals. Faulty career planning cannot be entirely blamed; however, because industries change rapidly in the modern industrialized world, career aspirations that took years to prepare for may become obsolete by the time someone is ready to enter the job market in that field.
Work and career objectives are frequently pushed to extremes. Long-term career goals are portrayed in an overly optimistic light, with the possibility of rising to great heights in an organization’s hierarchy or acquiring expert skills simply by “putting in one’s time” with an employer. Short-term career goals, on the other hand, are frequently viewed pessimistically as necessary “hard work” to get to where one truly desires to be.
Employment does not have to be a means to an end or a means of survival in the short term, or an unattainable fantasy in the long term. Successful career planning, according to savvy career counselors, considers short-term career goals as just one point on a spectrum that also includes long-term life goals. Choosing a career path based on one’s interests rather than job titles and responsibilities allows for more flexibility in real-world situations. Fitting one’s career goals to a variety of related industries, corporate structures, and job definitions, including freelance and self-employment opportunities, allows one to view work as a variety of options. Instead of many years of drudgery, steps in a career can be a rewarding journey all the way through, rewarded near the end with the ideal job.