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Now that you have identified your work values and are able to describe your skills, you have to make some preliminary decisions. The most important weapon in your job search arsenal is your goals. If you do not have a good idea of what type of job you want and what type of organization you want to work for, you will have a much harder time of finding a job. Employers want employees who have specific goals in mind.

These four elements should be used to produce effective goal statements: being specific, realistic, observable and involvement-based.

1. Are your goals measurable? Compare this statement, "I will get a better job," to "I will get a job that pays at least $20,000 with good insurance and a retirement plan". Your goals must have obvious markers to tell you when you have reached that goal.
2. Your goals must be realistic. For example, how realistic is "I will get a great job in 2 months"? More obtainable would be "I will contact 3 individuals/businesses in the next 3 weeks to research those businesses."
3. Make sure it’s a personal goal about your desired changes. There must an ‘I’ in the subject of your goal: ‘I will’, not the ‘department will’ or ‘my boss will’.

It’s not easy to set up those long distance goals, the ones that seem to be so far down the road, so start with tiny steps, a goal for the next 2 weeks, for 6 months, a year, and then jump to 3, 5 and 10 years. Or dream big: what sounds like heaven to you? Then decide what is possible for you to do to reach heaven or some place close to it. Work your way back from that ultimate good thing.

One example would be Dan who wants to get a job with a Fortune 500 company making $100,000 or more a year. Dan, however, has only a high school diploma and is presently taking programming classes. He is married and working a $25,000 job and has 2 kids and a wife with a $18,000 a year job as a secretary. Some investigation would reveal a college degree might be the first requirement for Dan . Well, Dan can’t go to college right now. He might be able to when the kids get older. So his ten-year goal could be college. In order to get enough money and enough good experience behind him, his 5-year goal could be a job in sales at $35,000 a year. To get that, he would have to research local businesses to see what organizations and what fields would offer that level salary. His 3-year goal could be that. His more immediate goals are to finish his diploma program and get a job in the computer industry. Lately though, he just wants to be able to get enough time to get over to school so he can work on his Intro to Basic course. His present goal could be to sit down with his wife and kids this weekend to make a family decision about his at-home schedule and chores.

Employers want you to have specific, realistic goals in mind and this is one possible question you might face in an interview. This shows you know how to evaluate job opportunities and, hopefully, will then make better choices. The better choices one makes, the more satisfied one becomes. A satisfied employee is a happy, productive employer.

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