Exercise 1: What are your overall goals and needs?

Being aware of your personal and career goals is important in determining for what sort of position you apply.

Step 1

Take a few minutes to think about what your long and short-term goals are at the moment.

Keep in mind that effective goals should be:

realistic, i.e. they should be challenging but achievable
as specific as possible
clearly expressed.

Career/job goals are likely to be successfully achieved if they are linked to your personal goals, so it is recommended that you begin with your personal goals.

Our personal and career goals do change at different points in our lives; remember that what you're considering is what your goals are at present.

Below is an example of what might be considered as short-term and long-term goals.

Example

Short-Term Goals (e.g. 1 - 5 years)

Personal Goals

(relationships, family, financial, health, leisure, education, personal development, travel, etc.)

Career Goals

Take a stress management course.
No more Saturday overtime!
Enrol in TAFE courses to complete my mature-age TEE.
Save up for trip to the USA.

Get experience or training to be a committee secretary.
Develop my general written communication skills.
Obtain some experience in a different job either in a different department or another university, preferably admin/secretarial.

Long-term Goals (e.g. 5 - 20 years)

Personal Goals (relationships, family, financial, health, leisure, education, personal development, travel, etc.)	Career Goals
Make more time for myself. Provide a caring and supportive environment for my family. Pay off the mortgage. Take 3 overseas trips. Get my B.A.	Have a stimulating, challenging job that leaves me with time and energy for my personal goals. Attain a position at a tertiary institution in an administrative capacity, say level 6-7, where I will have a lot of autonomy; area not important, but would like to have contact with students.

Step 2

Now write your short and long-term goals down using the form provided. You can do this by copying the form over to your word processing package, or by printing the form out.

Try to list between 2 to 6 goals in each box.

Short-Term Goals (e.g. 1 - 5 years)

Personal Goals
(relationships, family, financial, health, leisure, education, personal development, travel, etc.)
Career Goals

Long-term Goals (e.g. 5 - 20 years)

Personal Goals
(relationships, family, financial, health, leisure, education, personal development, travel, etc.)
Career Goals

You now have a written record which you can use to help you:

determine if a vacancy you're interested in meets your goals and is therefore worthwhile applying for;

periodically monitor which goals you have achieved and which goals still have to be achieved or reviewed.

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The University of Western Australia, Centre for Staff Development

Contact: Claire Webb, cwebb@csd.uwa.edu.au
Last Update: 7 March 1996
URL: http://www.csd.uwa.edu.au/job/guide/ex_1.htm