4 Examples Of Long Term Career Goals

Sometimes you’ll get asked about your long term career goals. How do you come up with them? I’ve shared some examples of long term career goals in this article that can help you decide on your own goals.

Why Long Term Career Goals?

Long term career goals are goals that you set for your career that have something to achieve in the long term. For your career, long term is probably anything over five years.

While it’s easier to set short term career goals (get a promotion, pass an exam, finish a project), long term career goals are harder. They require you to think of where you want to go in your career and what you ultimately want to do.

The reason for setting long term career goals is to define where you want to go in your career. It’s hard to know if your career is successful if you don’t know what success is, in your own terms.

Where To Use Long Term Career Goals

Long term career goals are used in a few places. While short term career goals are used perhaps on your resume (in an Objective statement) or in a cover letter, long term career goals aren’t.

The main place where I think long term career goals can be used is in job interviews. A common question in job interviews is around your long term vision or what you want to do with your career. Have you ever been asked that? I know I have.

If you know what your vision is, your long term goal for your career is, then you can answer this question easier. Knowing what you want to do 5/10/20 years in the future is a good thing.

That’s not to say it needs to stay that way. Long term career goals can change, of course. They are just focused for the long term. My career goal has probably changed twice since I started working in the IT industry.

Another place I see long term career goals being used is in conversations with other people, such as co-workers, bosses, or friends. People can sometimes ask you, “where do you want to go in your career?” or “what’s your career goal?” or something to that effect. Knowing what your long term goal is makes it easier to answer that question.

Think Of What You’re Doing Now and Where You Want To Be

I think the best way to come up with a long term career goal is to think of where you are now in your career, think of where you want to be, and then fill in the gap.

Well, actually, the long term goal is more of the “where you want to be”, and filling in the gap is how to get there, but it can help to think like that to come up with your goal. It can help you decide if that’s what you want to do and how to get there as well.

Examples of Long Term Career Goals

Alright, so now let’s take a look at some examples of long term career goals. I’ve listed in some roles here, which can be substituted for other roles that fit your desires.

“Effective and experienced project manager capable of delivering multi-year projects”. This demonstrates the kind of role you want to move in to, and the level of experience or responsibility needed for it. Multi-year projects are not simple as they take a few years to deliver.

“Team leader for a large team of software developers.” This could be for someone who is a software developer and wishes to move into a team leadership role, focusing on larger teams. Many skills need to be learnt for this transition.

“Become the most knowledgeable and effective Java developer in the area.”Becoming knowledgeable is a good aspiration, and knowing the development language inside and out is a great goal to have, especially for your local area.

“To gain the Expert level ISTQB CTEL certification for software testing.” Getting a certification in your focus area is a common goal, but you also need to determine why you want it. This certification is for software testing, but you can rewrite it for other areas of IT.

So, there’s a few examples of long term career goals that work for the IT industry. You can take those and rewrite them to match your desires. Remember, these are just examples of long term career goals. Goals are quite personal and you should put in your own plans into these goals.