I've done the 'looking forward' thing a few months ago with vacation position applications. Think up something about how I see my career progressing within said company... something 'good', that a reviewer would like to hear. I think I did alright...
"...As time goes on I would be more and more able to help newer members of Deloitte to achieve their best. Eventually, as a partner in Deloitte I would have a much broader responsibility for our operations and equivalently a much greater ability to shape the direction of the company.
..."
Problem is, I hadn't really spent much time looking forward, not like that. I thought thinking about where I would like to work, and why and how much I would like to work there was enough! So the result - well it may have been technically sufficient, even good enough to impress a reviewer - it was a little plastic. A little puppy-dog career-grunt.
Yes, career-grunt. Just because your career involves ascention of the chain of management doesn't mean you aren't a grunt.
Well, I'm rewriting my resume now for graduate applications - introducing a 'career goals' section as a method of orienting the resume towards the future rather than the past - and as these applications actually matter I put a bit more thought into it. And I thought...?
I don't care about 'career progression'. Do I want to be partner/manager/CEO? No! Not specifically, not particularly. Of course, if my career takes me that way I will take my opportunities, I will enjoy the positions, I will make the best of it. But such career progression is only useful in terms of career goals that actually mean something to me, rather than the accepted notion of what a grunt in a career should be doing.
What brings me to this point? Well, I worked out a set of goals which actually means something to me. And this is what I got:
Short-Medium Term
- Secure a graduate position within a company that allows
- Ongoing development of my skills and abilities
- Contribution to the community
- Develop confidence with my role
- Developing the skills to be an asset within the company and for our clients
- Also gaining the broader knowledge required to understand how to best use these skills
Long Term
- Contributing to my family's financial security
- My parents entering retirement, my sister starting work and my own family should I start one
- Investment in terms both of money and my professional value
- a valuable role within the company
- Community contribution
- Revising and developing methods of conducting business, increasing productivity to benefit clients, community projects and the community at large
- Never sitting still
- Being exposed to ongoing challenges – and overcoming them
- Continual professional development
- Avoiding complacency within my career and objectives
- Retaining my vision
- Not loosing sight of my goals
- Being aware of the goals which are assumed for my position, yet not necessarily personally important
(Yes, the original formatting made that a little clearer.)
Well? Is that a daffy list of goals to list on my resume, or do you think it will strike a chord?
I'm torn between believing it will engage a recruiter and worrying it will scare them away.
