How to set career goals for the new year

As we ring in the new year, it's time to shake off the holiday haze and gear yourself up to keep striving and thriving in your career.

Whether you're aiming for higher grades at uni or preparing to enter the world of work, setting goals is key for starting your new year off right.

Going straight from the holiday season into New Year's resolutions is always a tricky transition, so it helps to ease yourself in.

Start by reflecting on what you've accomplished in the previous year of your career, whether it was passing your modules, landing an internship or joining societies.

Ask yourself the following questions:

• What are you most proud of doing last year?
• What challenges did you face?
• What would you have done differently?

The answers to these questions will help you notice what you value and what you want to focus on next. Let's say you're proud of pushing yourself out of your comfort zone and attending career events. What's the next step? Perhaps this year, it's about drawing on the contacts you made at those events to try and secure some work experience.

You don't have to decide your goals straight away. There might be hundreds of things you'd like to achieve, so give each idea a chance. Try writing down a big list of everything you'd like to have done by next year – even the goals that seem big and audacious.

Once you've got everything down on paper, you can start to notice trends in your aims. Are all your goals to do with performing well academically? If so, you might want to think about how you can go the extra mile to secure a first on more of your assignments.

Alongside those large and ambitious goals, think of small successes you'd like to achieve. Examples of small successes include:

• Grow your network of connections on LinkedIn
• Figure out the best revision method for you
• Nail the personal profile on your CV
• Keep a record of all feedback given to you (positive or constructive)
• Develop one of your existing soft skills, like communication

SMART goals are designed to be real and achievable – giving you a better chance of hitting them. Choosing around three to give SMART goals is a good place to start for your New Year career resolutions.

SMART stands for:

• Specific. What exactly do you want to achieve?
• Measurable. How will you track the progress of your goal and whether you've met it?
• Achievable. Is the goal realistic while also giving you a healthy challenge?
• Relevant. Does the goal align with your longer-term career aspirations?
• Time-bound. Does your goal fit within the deadline of a year?

Think of it just like a New Year's resolution. Saying you want to 'be healthier' is not necessarily easy to measure or achieve. Instead, you need to keep things SMART. Aiming to walk a certain number of steps a day is a lot more specific and measurable.

Here are some more examples of how to make common career goals 'SMART':

• 'Get more work experience' becomes 'Secure an industry-related internship to complete in summer 2025'
• 'Improve my commercial awareness' becomes 'Find and subscribe to three industry trade publications and read a round-up of newsletters every Sunday'
• 'Get better at teamwork' becomes 'Volunteer for and participate in at least one group project before the spring holidays'
• 'Be more organised' becomes 'Research and test popular to-do list systems to decide a method that works for me by reading week'

The next stage is to break down each SMART career goal into actionable steps. Let's use the example of getting a summer internship. Your step-by-step plan should give you a guideline for how to achieve the goal you've set:

• Update my CV and request feedback on it from my university's career service department
• Research companies hiring for relevant roles in my industry
• Find and attend at least three career events
• Practise common interview questions
• Apply for five carefully selected internship opportunities

This way, you can make progress bit by bit – which is much less intimidating than going all-in straight away!

The key to achieving your goal is not just to write it down at the start of the year and forget about it. Instead, alongside each sub-step of your SMART goals, add a deadline that makes sense for what you're trying to achieve.

It's easy to lose track of the bigger picture when you're in the swing of university life and juggling assignments. That's why we recommend using your calendar or setting reminders on your phone to check in on your goals each month or every few weeks.

If you know you have a tendency to procrastinate, block out events in your calendar for completing particular tasks. Treat those events as non-negotiable to make sure you hold yourself accountable.

You may need to move deadlines around and reprioritise depending on everything else that comes up in life – and that's okay. Unexpected changes happen, and it makes sense for you to update your goals as you go if you need to. The point of your goals is to keep you striving for success throughout your year. If they do that, then you're on the right track, even if you have to reshuffle some things.

Having career goals is all about keeping yourself motivated and consistently challenging yourself. If you manage to keep up a regular cadence of time spent working towards your goals, then you're already halfway there.

Happy New Year from Bright Network – we can't wait to see what you achieve this year!