Dream big, write easily: a guide to writing a 'career goals essay'

Studying at the university is just the first step on the way to professional self-realization. During the studies, young people have to make considerable efforts to meet deadlines and perform all kinds of academic papers, which requires diligence and strong motivation. And of course, they are often asked to write an essay on personal and career goals. Such tasks allow students to understand their own aspirations and ambitions. Or sometimes young people are required to write the career objective essay for graduate school in order to decide which professional and scientific direction they are interested in the most. This assignment may seem complicated, but if you clearly set the goals you strive for, you will successfully reach the desired result.

The concept of career goals

Let’s consider the process of setting personal career goals in more detail. According to the experts’ definition, such goals are primarily related to personal development, while high position and salary are also in the foreground. Writing the essay on career development, you should remember that in most cases, a person wants to get a particular position in order to achieve his or her personal goals and fulfill ambitions.

And if you struggle to understand what career path to choose, it’s useful to draw a “goal tree” that includes the final and intermediate stages. You may wonder what this concept actually means. As an example, some of these common aspects could be mentioned in your career goals essay outline:

• to engage in activity which boosts self-esteem and provides moral satisfaction;
• to get a position to develop the acquired skills;
• to have a creative job;
• to achieve a certain level of independence;
• to have a job that is well-paid or allows one to make extra income.

Of course, all these concepts are quite broad. In your goal setting essay, they should be expressed in the form of specific ideas: to pass some professional training, find a better job, or create your own business.

Individual career planning

Individual planning of a business career usually includes a number of steps:

1. Think about your dreams, values, interests, abilities, and inclinations.
2. Evaluate your aspirations and opportunities to achieve high professional status in a particular company.
3. Set personal career goals.
4. Develop strategies, plans, and behavior which can help you to achieve the stated goals.

Of course, it is difficult to talk about the distant future while studying at university. However, working on a career development essay by yourself is important because it’s an approximate plan designed to inspire you to strive for academic excellence.

Questions that you should ask yourself

First of all, it’s a common fact that many students don’t understand how to write a career essay. The problem is that young people have to solve many issues in the present, so there is simply no time to think what life would be like in 5-10 years.

If you do not understand how to write a scholarship essay about career goals as well, we recommend asking yourself the questions listed below. Turn the imagination on and assume that you already have all the qualities of a person you would like to become. Consider not only career and financial issues; it’s not a secret that our job influences all spheres of our life. Finally, ask yourself the following questions:

• Do I have a clear picture of my dream job?
• Does my work help me in achieving my life goals?
• What are my tasks for development and progress in the professional sphere?
• What kind of work do I want to do during the next 10 years?
• Do I feel excitement and motivation?
• Do I have a personal development plan? How can I develop my motivation and state of mind?
• What factors contribute to the achievement of my life goals, and which hinder this process?
• What are the most critical points in achieving my life goals? What can I do in this regard?

So here the question that will help you in the course of writing an essay about career goals. Consider all of them, and you will create a top-notch paper.

Setting goals

At the next stage of creating the career research essay outline, you will formulate personal tasks and activity plans that contribute to the achievement of life goals. This step is critically important as well because, in order to develop a career effectively, you have to learn to set specific tasks and achieve them.

At the present time, many organizations are involved in the process of individual career planning, providing students with information about vacancies, job requirements and ratings, common approaches to assessing personal qualities, and so on.

In addition, experts have developed special exercises which help to understand one’s own expectations and plans at any moment (not only at the beginning of the career). We invite you to get acquainted with an algorithm that helps to visualize and comprehend the career paths and prospects easily. It’s a powerful tool for your career goals and objectives essay.

1. Draw a horizontal line that depicts past, present, and future of your career. Mark the place where you are at the moment.
2. Determine the events that gave you a genuine sense of satisfaction and self-expression. They will relate to the left part of the line, which represents the past.
3. Analyze these events and determine the specific factors that made you feel that way. Define if any particular trend has emerged, whether you succeed when acting alone or together with other people.
4. The right part of the line represents the future. Identify career-related events that will bring you the feeling of fulfillment and satisfaction. You should imagine these factors as clearly as possible. Identify the levels that you need to go through to realize career goals and the timing of their passage.
5. After these events associated with the future career are identified, they must be ranked from the most to the least important.
6. Return to point 3 and rank the events mentioned there from the highest to the lowest in terms of the actual sense of satisfaction, which was received. Compare the two lists. Do they contradict each other? If the answer is yes, think why.
7. Discuss the results with the people you trust and whose opinions you appreciate.

Self-evaluation from the career point of view

Before writing an essay about career choice, you should pass the preparatory stage, collecting and analyzing information. First of all, we are talking about self-assessment and work orientation.

There are various methods and approaches that are used in career counseling: testing and interviewing, analysis of the social and economic situation, etc.

Self-analysis includes independent assessment and consideration of personal traits, a prognosis of behavior in critical situations, as well as an evaluation of the external environment, own possibilities, personal limitations, etc. While compiling a scholarship essay outlines, each person should carry out these activities independently.

Talking about self-esteem, one should gather information on the following points:

• Physical and mental qualities of the individual;
• Available and required level of education and vocational training;
• Motivation;
• Opportunities available on the labor market;
• Professional experience, prosperity, intra-family climate, etc.

Self-analysis should be conducted both at the moment of writing the professional goals essay and making career moves. Including this aspect in your paper will definitely bring you an excellent mark! Of course, each professional goals essay sample is unique due to the personal features of the writer, so you can always make up something original that wasn’t previously touched upon in other papers of this kind.  

You may ask how to write about career goals if you are worried that the future is full of surprises. In addition to personal qualities, it’s worth assessing real opportunities for entering a professional labor market, among which you can specify:

• Professional factors (general and special skills, education, experience, business qualities);
• Financial opportunities (for obtaining the necessary training, licenses, establishing a business);
• Acquaintances and allies;

In short, healthy self-esteem presupposes knowing yourself, identifying your strong and weak sides, as well as developing measures to eliminate shortcomings.

Before writing the scholarship essay on educational and career goals, you can review some relevant literature or consult some of your acquaintances who have experience in setting and achieving professional goals in order to conduct an adequate self-assessment.

Professional orientation and selection of the profession

When learning how to write a career goals essay, first of all, decide what activity is most suitable for you. Studying at university, young people acquire mostly general knowledge. After graduation, many postgraduates do not understand what they really want to do and what their job responsibilities will be. Consider this question in your career goal essay for college and provide some solutions to the problem of professional disorientation. Besides, you may offer some approaches to testing of school or university students in order to define their career goals. Finally, it can become a part of your plans after graduation essay.

Rules for writing the career aspirations essay

Since we are talking about academic paper, you should follow certain rules while writing it. And if you are working on essay on career aspirations for an MBA, you should be especially attentive in order to meet all the requirements.

How to choose the title?

If you do not have a list of career essay titles and you have hard times with choosing the most interesting one, think about your target audience. Options can be different: your professor, commission board, or a potential employer. For example, if an academic goals essay is written for submission to the professor, consider which paper aspects will be evaluated. Moreover, when choosing the topic from the provided list, you should select the one you are well-versed with or the one you are passionate about.

If my career plan after graduation essays are written for the employer, both the title and the content should reflect your best qualities as well as professional skills.

Structure of the essay

The order of writing is usually narrowed to three steps:

1. Introduction

It’s not a secret that all written assignments starting from self-evaluation paper to MBA career goals essay have an introductory part. This part may contain the formulation of the problem and its essence, as well as hook phrase, rhetorical question, or quotation, etc. You may also tell your audience why making right career choice and achieving professional goals are important for you.

It often happens that a person has enough eloquence and the ability to express his or her thoughts in a career goals scholarship essay but can’t begin working on the paper. Of course, it may be quite difficult to write the first lines, and but as soon as you start, you will be inspired by your own ideas and words. 

Use the free writing technique. Its essence is to write down all the thoughts which come to mind without editing them and not following any grammar, punctuation, and style. This is a great way to find an extraordinary idea to start an educational goals essay.

2. The main part

Here, you can bring different points of view on the topic under consideration. Usually, the main part consists of several sub-items. Each of them has three sections: thesis (proposition), justification (arguments used to prove the thesis), and sub-conclusion (partial answer to the main question).

Arguments are judgments expressed in order to convince the reader of a certain point of view. These are different life examples, the opinions of scientists, evidence, etc.

It is necessary to explain why some field of activity was chosen and why you think that you can carry out the tasks described in the short term and long term career goals essay.

3. Conclusion

All the justified conclusions for each thesis presented in the main part are combined here. Based on the given arguments, the reader should be sure that your professional intentions are correct. Moreover, in this part, the purpose of the paper should be re-introduced one more time.

Generally speaking, in the course of writing goals after college essay, anyone will be able to realize what is the profession appropriate to his or her expectations. So if you still struggle to decide what is your real vocation, do not lose heart! You’ll figure it out after finishing the paper.

We hope that this guide will help you to write a really convincing essay. For a better understanding of requirements for such papers, it is recommended to consider the sample of career goals essay for graduate school, which was approved by the professor or employer. You may also refer to the experience of other students and get inspired by their life examples. Good luck in writing your career goals essay!