You want to make the upcoming year AMAZING. New skills, more responsibility, great relationships with your colleagues, promotions, job offers…you want it all.
Whether you want to find a new job in January or progress in your current role, the new year represents a new beginning and a chance to reflect and plan your career success.
In this post, we will share tips on setting career goals for the new year! Ready for a fresh start? Read on!
1. Conduct an audit of your skills
Before you start setting career goals for the new year, it is a good idea to assess your current situation.
Completing an audit of your skills is a good starting point.
Start by writing down all of the skills you have gained or developed over the past year.
As you take an inventory of your current set of skills, you may find yourself thinking about the skills that you would like to gain – jot these down.
2. Identify a gap in your skillset and work on it
Once you have mapped out your skills work out what skills you need to gain or improve in order to progress in his role.
One way to identify gaps in your skillset is to look at a range of job descriptions that are related to your current role and seeing what skills you would benefit from gaining or developing.
You can also determine what skills you need to work on from your annual progress report or feedback from your line manager.
The 70:20:10 model for learning and development
The 70:20:10 model for learning and development suggests a proportional breakdown of how people learn effectively.
Lombardo and Eichinger expressed their rationale behind the model by explaining that development begins with a realisation of current or future need and the motivation to do something about it.
Based on a survey of 200 executives, findings revealed that development is:
- 70% learning on-the-job experiences such as working on problems
- 20% from feedback and insights from others
- 10% from taking courses and reading
Create a career development plan for the new year using this 70:20:10 model.
Answer these questions:
- How can you develop your skills within your current role?
- Are there any opportunities for you to learn more from others in the workplace? Could you attend lunch and learn sessions for example?
- Could you take any online or in-person courses that would help you to develop your skills in a particular area?
Identifying the actions that you can take to develop will help you to set career goals for the new year.
3. List the things you have been unhappy with this year
Has there been something bothering you at work over the past 12 months?
When setting your career goals for the new year, take how you generally feel at work into consideration.
There are many reasons why people feel unhappy at work. They may feel bored. The hours may be too long. Maybe they aren’t getting on with their co-workers. Perhaps the pay is too low.
Think about what you aren’t happy with at work, and note it down. Once it is written down think of a solution and how you could implement the solution in the new year.
The solution might be relatively easy to implement such as setting up a meeting with your boss to discuss how you could more effectively manage your workload and time more effectively. However, the solution might be more challenging such as finding a new role if you simply do not fit the company’s culture.
Check out this quiz to assess whether it is time to get a new job.
4. Set SMART career goals for the new year
After reflecting on your skills and thinking about how you have felt at work over the past 12 months, the next step is to set some SMART goals.
Smart is an acronym that stands for Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic and Timely.
Using this acronym will help you to structure your career goals for the new year.
List your career goals. When writing out your goals make them:
- as specific as possible by including figures where possible
- measurable by including an indication of how you will know when the career goal has been achieved
- attainable and realistic so that it is possible to achieve them
- timely to ensure the goal is achieved within a set period
5. Schedule check-in points to stay accountable
As well as setting smart career goals for the new year, it is a great idea to schedule in some checkpoints to reflect on your goals and to assess your progress. Here are some tips for staying accountable:
- Set aside 20 minutes every month to review your progress
- Tell your family and friends about your goals and ask them to follow up with you
- Commit to regular sessions with a career coach – a coach will help you with goal setting and achieving your career goals
- Take daily notes in a journal or planner
6. Get a career coach
Here at Graduate Coach, we help students, graduates and career changers to land their dream jobs.
If your new year’s resolution is to thrive at work in the right role for you, get in touch with us today.
We can help you to:
- Feel confident in your interviews by offering interview coaching sessions
- Leverage your professional and personal brand online
- Set you up for long term success in the career that is right for you
- Strategically navigate your job search
- Get the promotion that you deserve and negotiate your next salary
The beginning of the year is a great time to invest in your career although, you can start your coaching programme with us at any time. The first step to achieving your goals is to contact us.
Thanks for taking the time to read our post on setting career goals for the new year! We wish you all the best for the upcoming year.
If you enjoyed this post, be sure to check out these posts to help you to land your dream job this year:
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