What If I Am Not Sure of My Job Target

Article on frequently asked resume question "What If I Am Not Sure of My Job Target"

Whether you are a recent college graduate with no job experience or an esteemed applicant with years and years of career experience; you may be struggling to determine in which direction you’d like to move your career. The best way to examine this is by defining your job target. What is a job target and do you need one? Most simply, a job target refers to a specific direction in which a person is setting his/her short and long term career goals towards. This manifests itself in three main areas in which a career can be characterized: geography, industry, and job position.

The first area in which a job target is defined by is the geography in which a person wishes to work and further their career. Of course, some people know where they will work and where they will not; while others are flexible to relocation to other parts of the world, should their career opportunities call for it. While few people consider the significance of knowing what their geographical restraints are minimal; it is actually necessary to having an effective job target, which subsequently offers direction, which in turn offers a higher likelihood of landing a job of your dreams. It also makes the searching for a position a lot easier. Take the online search engines dedicated to career searching for example; they all ask for a geographical location in which you would like to work. This way, the search doesn’t have to be so large that it is overwhelming, and the options are narrowed down to what is available in that specific area.

So, how do you go about brainstorming where you might want to work and what you might like to do-for establishing a successful job target? First, it is helpful to begin with some short and long term goals. Ask yourself what is more important in short and long term of your career-geography, job position, or industry. Is it most important to you that you live and work in Florida for example? Or is it more crucial to you that you work in the advertising industry? Moreover, are you more concerned with having a certain job title-such as Advertising Executive for a Pharmaceutical company? Begin by listing your priorities as regards your life to determine what is the right first step, middle steps, and final steps for the successful career of your choice.

Of course, you won’t necessarily know all the answers to making your life a successful one through career, just through brainstorming-but this is just a beginning plan. As we all know-no matter what our place in life-that one choice leads to another which leads to another, which may then cause us to change paths, and so on. As we grow and make choices in our career and life, we are given different experiences and perspectives which foster new choices and paths; but we must always be thinking of what the next step might be to making ourselves happier in our careers and lives-so that we have direction.