It is possible to compare an essay describing long term goals for MBA students with a personal story of an applicant. What are the main parts of a personal narrative? Right, the description of past, present, and future. The same is in a long term career goals MBA essay.
The important requirement is to make all these experiences/goals/skills linked to the grad school program. So, you can use this formula for writing a winning MBA essay:
One more necessary thing is making a linkage between these components. We recommend structuring your essay this way:
Click here to see some essays with long-term goals examples for MBA students published in our blog.
Here is an example of merging and acquisition long term career goals essay MBA by one of the students who applied for the grad program this year.
“My ultimate goal is to finance the expansion of renewable energy sources as a stable and dominant power source for American energy security. There is a huge need for renewable energy sources in the US, and the deregulation of the energy market and potential of offshore wind power are great opportunities if tens of billions USD investment can be realized. I’ll lead this movement as a leader in Atlantic Capital, bringing together the government, power companies and international financial institutions into a global business consortium financing and bringing leading-edge technology to plants.
I’ve gained finance and corporate management skills through 10-years of experience and now I need to learn how to lead a diverse international team bringing finance and technology innovation to American energy industry.
Through my own experience in the Berkeley short program “Leading High-Impact Teams”, I was impressed with how strongly participants (competent leaders from all over the world) concentrated on how to make the team’s atmosphere collaborative and positive to make a difference. From this I learned that in the Berkeley MBA I can best foster such a collaborative leadership style through intense communication with peers under the collaborative culture the this program respects.
I am convinced that combined with my professional experience in finance, the Berkeley 1-year opportunities are crucial for my goals as it offers the chance to build the collaborative leadership style needed to unify different organizations, a global perspective and eye for creating and harnessing innovation.”
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Let’s analyze this essay to find out why it works. First of all, the author clearly defines the motivation and sets up an ambitious goal to grab the attention of the committee: “My ultimate goal is to finance the expansion of renewable energy sources as a stable and dominant power source for American energy security.”
Next, the applicant highlights the central long term goal: “I’ll lead this movement as a leader in Atlantic Capital, bringing together the government, power companies and international financial institutions into a global business consortium financing and bringing leading-edge technology to plants.”
Finally, the student mentions the correlation between long term goals and the MBA program: “I am convinced that combined with my professional experience in finance, the Berkeley 1-year opportunities are crucial for my goals as it offers the chance to build the collaborative leadership style needed to unify different organizations, a global perspective and eye for creating and harnessing innovation.”
Hence, the writer followed all the necessary steps to write an MBA essay that clarifies career goals.
Apart from long term goals examples for MBA students, it will be useful to use several tips for writing a perfect essay. Here are the main ones:
As is mentioned above, explaining the scholarship’s importance for your career is a prior aim of the MBA essay. Thus, focus on their linkage to persuade the admission committee that you are the fitting candidate.
Of course, it’s great to include Plan B. But, if you are writing about multiple goals, emphasize the long term goal you suppose is the central one in your long term career plan.
While describing past experiences, you need to show problems themselves and your ability to overcome various challenges on your professional path.
The events should be put in chronological order. Make sure that the sentences and paragraphs are logically connected. For this purpose, proofread the text several times.
Here are several questions that can help you define your career goals in a long term goals for MBA students essay.
If you have no idea what to write in each paragraph, ask yourself the question from this list. This way, you will maintain the logical flow of the sentences in each paragraph of your long term goals MBA essay.
Look through this outline for a long-term goals MBA essay sample, which demonstrates the typical structure of this admission paper.
1. Introduction.
2. Main Body.
3. Conclusion.
To conclude, your MBA career goals essay is a chance to apply for your dream university. That’s why you need to put all effort you can to write a perfect sample MBA essay on long term career goals. Here are the main recommendations discussed in this review to achieve this aim:
In case you still have some questions related to admission essays, you can search for more information on our blog .
Applying for MBA makes sense only if you have a clear career plan and know how this degree can help you achieve your goal. When we do MBA application essay editing, we always pay attention to how students’ career goals are described. Are you sure you sound convincing enough? Let us revise your paper, and we’ll answer you.
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Accepted Admissions Blog
Everything you need to know to get Accepted
February 29, 2024
Check out all the blog posts in this series:
Your career goals essay demands a laser-like focus. A personal statement, by contrast, allows for some flexibility in its content, though you can – and often should – discuss your career goals. But a career goals essay has a particular and packed agenda. In fact, the prompt for a career goals essay could actually include multiple questions, and in such cases, you want to make sure you address each of them.
For example, in 2022, Kellogg asked applicants to its one-year program to respond to the following prompt: “Please discuss your post-MBA career goal, the current experience you will leverage to support the transition, and the Kellogg 1Y opportunities that will help you reach this goal.”
This prompt has three parts: (1) What do you want to do post-MBA ? (2) Why is the 1Y program appropriate for you? And (3) what experience has so far prepared you to succeed in your target role?
So, always pay close attention to your target school’s prompt to ensure that you answer all the questions within its “single” question.
In addition to having a distinct theme , your career goals essay should achieve the following:
It’s a very tall order to achieve all this.
Let’s take a look at a sample MBA Goals Essay and see how these three key elements are incorporated.
You should be able to easily recognize why the writer’s opening is attention-getting for all the right reasons. The writer introduces herself as the supremely busy executive she visualizes becoming in the future. She trades large amounts of stock, rushes off to a Zoom conference, hurries downstairs, flags down a taxi, then hops on a plane. As she describes this whirlwind of activity, we can practically feel her heart pumping.
After establishing her voice and personality in this opening, she offers context for her MBA goal. Notice that in writing about her work as an accountant for a major firm, she provides relevant details, including how many years she has been in the field, her bilingualism, and her specialty area as an auditor. This information is her springboard to explain why she is pursuing an MBA: she’s bursting out of her limited role as an accountant. Her eyes and ambition are set on a larger playing field as an international investment manager.
Outstanding career goals essays are not lists of an applicant’s roles and achievements. Instead, they have a narrative flow and arc that convey the candidate’s palpable excitement about their career choice. This writer’s enthusiastic, dreamy first paragraph achieves this, and she returns to that image at the end, where she paints her idealized (if frantically busy) future. She also proves her seriousness by noting that she registered for the CFA exam.
Many essay questions, especially those for MBA programs , will ask why you have chosen the school you’re applying to. Be prepared to respond knowledgeably and enthusiastically. And the only way to become knowledgeable – and enthusiastic – is by visiting campus in-person or virtually, attending student recruitment meetings, participating in forums, reading student blogs, watching videos of students speaking about their experiences, communicating directly with students and/or recent alumni, and otherwise doing your homework. As part of your research, make sure you have familiarized yourself with the courses and specializations that are relevant to your goals.
Summary Tips
In the next post in this series , we’ll explain how to take all this advice and apply it to create an exemplary first draft.
Work one-on-one with an expert who will walk you through the process of creating a slam-dunk application. Check out our full catalog of application services . Our admissions consultants have read thousands of essays and know the exact ingredients of an outstanding essay.
By Judy Gruen, former Accepted admissions consultant. Judy holds a master’s in journalism from Northwestern University. She is also the co-author of Accepted’s first full-length book, MBA Admission for Smarties: The No-Nonsense Guide to Acceptance at Top Business Schools . Want an admissions expert help you get accepted? Click here to get in touch!
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Y our MBA application essays are your best opportunity to share meaningful life experiences that hide in the “white spaces” of the resume and to tell admissions officers not only “what” you have achieved but also “why” those achievements are meaningful to you.
Your MBA application essays are going to be crucial if you are competing for a spot at one of the world’s top business schools.
These resources will show you how to excel in the rigorous MBA essay writing challenges ahead of you, provide you with the guidance to create MBA essays that will impress admissions officers, and share MBA essay examples that illustrate our advice in action.
Second, we survey the five most frequently asked MBA essay questions. We preview video essay questions and link to detailed guidance on how to tackle this emerging class of application essays.
Third, we will teach you how to choose topics and stories for your essays and share a story-outlining technique to help you tell those stories.
There are two primary forms that MBA application essays take: persuasive essays and narrative essays. In a persuasive essay, you must persuade your reader that your argument is a sound one. An op-ed column in a newspaper is one example of a persuasive essay.
The classic “What Will You Contribute to the Class?” question is an excellent example of a persuasive essay question that MBA programs like to ask. The essay you write must persuade the admissions committee that you will enrich next year’s class. You will generally present evidence from past experiences and achievements to support your claims about what you can offer the MBA community.
The other style of essay you’ll encounter in your MBA applications is the narrative essay. Certain MBA essay questions don’t sound like questions at all; they are, in fact, an invitation for you to tell a story. We refer to these as narrative essays – but others call them behavioral essays or expository essays.
The Leadership Story Essay is a perfect example of a narrative essay. It’s one thing to claim to be a leader – but it’s quite another to show the admissions committee that you’re a leader by telling a captivating leadership story in which you played the starring role.
While MBA essays often fall into these two categories, the actual prompts will differ from school to school. Let’s discuss the five most frequently asked MBA essay questions. ↑ To the Top
Every business school application requires you to answer one or more MBA essay questions. Although the essay prompts differ from application to application, we identified five types of MBA application essay questions that appear again and again.
A career goals essay question regularly appears in one form or another on just about every MBA application. Even if you aren’t required to write this type of essay, you will almost certainly be asked about your post-MBA career goals during an admissions interview.
Admissions committees ask about your career plans because they want to understand what you aspire to do after your MBA and how the MBA degree fits into your career plan. As it turns out, a strong career goals essay is one of the best tools in your application to stand out from MBA candidates who don’t have a compelling career vision or haven’t effectively articulated their professional goals in their MBA application essays.
Leadership essays are your absolute best opportunity to convince MBA admissions committees of your leadership abilities. Remember that MBA admissions officers will be interested in your leadership achievements both inside and outside of work.
You probably won’t be asked directly, “Are you a leader?” Instead, you’ll be asked to tell stories about your leadership achievements. When given the opportunity, you need to supply evidence that you can rally other people and motivate them to work together to achieve an important shared vision or goal. Therein lies the objective of a great leadership essay.
The “Why MBA? Why Our School?” essay is your chance to convince admissions officers that their school is the perfect fit for what you need from an MBA program. The best answers to these types of questions are both personal and specific. You need to effectively convey what you are looking for in an MBA program and tell the admissions committee why their school will best satisfy your learning goals and help you achieve your career development objectives.
The “What Will You Contribute?” essay presents you with an opportunity to tell the MBA Admissions Committee why you would be a valuable addition to their incoming class. The schools are looking for candidates who can put in just as much as they take out. One critical thing to understand when preparing to answer these questions is that concrete and tailored answers about what you can contribute to each MBA program are crucial.
The professional experience essay is an executive summary of your career thus far. A resume is a record of jobs and achievements — a Professional Experience Essay provides the connections and interrelationships between those jobs and brings your resume to life. An effective Professional Experience essay will give the admissions committee a sense of the career decisions you’ve made, your major achievements in each step of your career, and the skills and knowledge you’ve acquired along the way.
MBA admissions committees are increasingly relying on technology to help them evaluate and manage their growing applicant pools. MBA application video essays are becoming a popular tool, as MBA programs can use them to learn far more about candidates than the traditional application permits. In recent years, leading MBA programs including Kellogg Northwestern , MIT Sloan , and Chicago Booth have incorporated a video component into their evaluation process. Video essays are excellent screening tools that allow admissions officers to assess candidates’ professional presence and communication skills.
Please enter your email below to gain 30 days of free access to our MBA Essay Writing course. Learn about the five most frequently asked MBA application essay questions and access our brainstorming tools and sample essays.
No matter which type of MBA essay question you are tackling, your primary objective is to provide evidence that proves you possess the qualities that admissions committees value most. By doing so, you will move one step closer to an acceptance letter from a top business school.
Now that you have a better picture of the classic MBA essay questions you’re likely to face, let’s cover selecting the strongest stories to present in your MBA application essays.
Story selection is something all MBA applicants wrestle with. When you first read the MBA application essay questions, it may be hard to figure out which topics to cover or which of your stories to tell. We’ll explain how to go step-by-step to choose your best stories. Here are the steps:
Categorize the question.
To choose your best stories, you need to know what qualities MBA programs truly value when evaluating applicants. You want to tell stories that prove to the admissions officers that you possess the attributes they seek in MBA candidates. We refer to these as the school’s Fit Qualities . You might think of them as the highest-common denominators among the candidates who are accepted.
Early in your MBA essay writing process is the time to make some strategic choices about which qualities and strengths you will put front and center in your MBA essays. If you attempt to feature all of your strengths, you run the risk that admissions officers will finish your essays with no clear idea of any of them. Instead, select three or four of the qualities that your research tells you the school you are applying to prizes most of all.
Second, study the essay question to determine if it falls into one of the five essay categories discussed earlier in this article.
By categorizing each question, you’ll have a better idea of what the admissions committee will be looking for in your response. You’ll know the criteria for scoring top marks in that essay style, which will guide your application essay design decisions.
Third, you are ready to start brainstorming potential topics and stories. Remember that your central objective is to find opportunities to feature the key elements of your application strategy .
Here are some questions you can ask yourself to help you to choose your best topic or story:
With very few exceptions, you need to write stories where you play the starring role. Don’t make the mistake some applicants make of writing a thrilling story about their parents’ hardships and triumphs, leaving little room for their own.
It is usually best to choose stories that happened within the last three years. If an older story is incredibly compelling, then keep it on your list. However, bear in mind that admissions officers are rarely interested in reading about your high school glory days.
Review your topic ideas objectively and ask yourself if they exemplify the school’s Fit Qualities. Because you’ll be limited to telling only a few stories, you’ll want to choose the ones that feature a few different Fit Qualities if at all possible.
Once you have selected your best stories, it is time to create an outline to organize your thoughts before jumping into the writing process. ↑ To the Top
The persuasive essay writing style is prevalent in university and work settings, so it may have been some time since you were asked to write a story. For that reason, we want to share a powerful outlining technique called the STAR framework that will help with the “story-telling” essays you may be asked to write in your MBA application.
The STAR framework is designed to help you tell a concise story with a beginning, middle, and end.
The “S” in STAR stands for Situation .
The Situation is the time, place, and context of the story; you can think of it as the setting, but it might also include the broader challenge or conflict you or your organization faced. In essence, this is the set-up of the story.
“T” in the STAR acronym stands for Task . The Task is your role and goal in the story. What were you expected to accomplish by the end of the story? An effective story has built-in conflicts and complications.
The Action of the story is what admissions officers are really interested in because this is their chance to see your strengths and qualities in action. While it won’t be necessary to write down every step you took at the outlining stage, you’ll want to jot down the highlights.
Below is an MBA essay example told using the STAR framework. It outlines a story written by a candidate who served as a donation chair for a fundraising event for a non-profit organization.
Task: Assigning specific jobs to committee members, checking on their progress, helping teammates meet agreed-upon deadlines for obtaining the donations, and offering other assistance
Action: Motivated my team by having them meet Literacy Now children. Assigned tasks and checked in regularly. Successfully mediated team disputes. Visited 20 restaurants and called 12 wineries. Ensured deadlines were met.
MBA Prep School’s guide is replete with essay writing tips, and we do provide excerpts from sample essays to illustrate the most common MBA essay categories. However, while you will find page-after-page of helpful advice and building blocks for constructing your own original MBA essays and stories, we don’t publish an extensive catalog of MBA essays written by MBA Prep School’s past clients.
The problem with collections of sample MBA application essays is that they can mislead you into thinking that if you can just replicate one of those sample essays, you’ve got your golden ticket into business school. Unfortunately, the opposite can be true. The reason those essays “succeeded” is because they were an integral part of a complete story about an impressive human being whom the admission committee concluded belonged at their business school.
And the scary truth is that reading MBA essay examples might even harm your chance of admission for several reasons:
1. They might stunt your creativity and ability to express yourself. If you are trying to mimic someone else’s essays – the content, the style, or the approach – your story and voice are likely to get lost in the process. Admissions committees want to be impressed – but they want to be impressed by you. Feature the traits and tell the stories that depict “you” at your best.
2. Sample MBA essays can undermine your confidence in your MBA candidacy. The essays that get published as samples are often truly eye-catching, dramatic, and sensational – stories of exceptional accomplishment, rare feats, or extreme obstacles. It may seem, in comparison, that none of your stories stack up. The good news is that the whole package is what matters, not a single defining moment in a candidate’s life.
The last thing you need is to doubt your abilities or have a crisis of confidence when you’re trying to put pen to paper (or finger to keyboard). Trust in your own experiences and tell stories about what you – and only you – will bring to the MBA program.
3. Admissions officers can tell when you’ve “sampled” from sample MBA essays. The pesky thing about MBA admissions committees is that they’re filled with brilliant people who know how this game is played and what resources are available. They can spot themes and clichéd stories inspired by sample essay collections. More importantly, they can sense when you’re telling someone else’s story or when the story doesn’t ring true to your MBA application’s other elements. Don’t give an admissions officer reason to doubt your authenticity by risking even the appearance that you “sampled” from MBA sample essays that are swirling around on the Internet.
At MBA Prep School, we work with clients we believe in and help them tell their stories, not someone else’s. Remember that the MBA application process is not a storytelling contest; even if it were, the winners would be chosen based on the authenticity, originality, and integrity of the stories they tell!
Critics of MBA essays often wonder if they still have a place in the application process when admissions committees can rely on quantitative data points to choose among applicants. However, your transcripts, test scores, and resume are historical documents that only tell a fraction of the story. Your MBA essays represent a powerful opportunity to communicate your goals, strengths, reasons for applying, and potential contributions to the class.
The process of writing MBA essays provides you with a rare opportunity for self-examination and self-expression. Many applicants value the introspection required of them in the MBA essay-writing process and find they can better articulate their strengths and goals during their subsequent MBA interviews as a result. By putting ample thought and effort into brainstorming and writing your MBA essays, you will almost certainly increase your odds of being accepted to a top MBA program.
© 2024 Prep School Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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Sudarshan Somanathan
Head of Content
September 1, 2024
If you want to be happy, set a goal that commands your thoughts, liberates your energy, and inspires your hopes.
Knock, knock! Quickly checking in—what was the name of the business book you planned to start this weekend? Or the graduate school application you promised to write this month? Or that personal essay you wanted to publish on Medium?
If you’re struggling to recall, you’re not alone because constant distractions in our personal and professional life, like doomscrolling on social media platforms, can easily derail us from our goals and priorities.
Recent research found that employees who set goals are 14 times more likely to feel inspired at work. That’s not all. Writing goal statements also leads to a 90% boost in performance and persistence.
This highlights the power of goal-setting, goal-tracking, and self-accountability in reaching your objectives. It also reinforces the age-old wisdom: reading, writing, and consistent reflection on our goals are key to building habits and staying on track.
So, let’s dive directly into how you can construct effective goal statements and make those goals a reality. 🎯
The importance of a career goal statement, the role of goal setting in crafting an effective goal statement, using the smart method to create goal statements, tips for writing a goal statement, implementation, effective business goal statements, effective personal goal statements, periodically tracking and updating your goal statement, learning from successful real-world examples, being flexible and adaptable with your goal statement.
A goal statement is a concise outline of your goal or goals for the future, including your vision, mission, and values.
You can use a goal or mission statement for various purposes—like career objectives, personal development, and even long-term life planning.
A professional goal statement not only outlines your career direction but also acts as a personal development blueprint. It breaks down the steps needed to achieve your strategic objectives, ensuring steady progress toward your aspirations.
More importantly, it gives clarity and purpose to your actions, keeping you aligned with your future ambitions and enabling personal growth along the way. A strong goal statement points you in the right direction, but more than that, it gives you a clear path forward, whether you’re aiming for a promotion, switching careers, or picking up new skills.
It acts as a roadmap, breaking down the steps you need to take while keeping you accountable along the way. A personal statement can consistently remind you of what you’re working toward and fuel your motivation to stay committed until you achieve your desired result.
The influential self-development expert, Brian Tracy, said in an interview :
I always say there are two things to be successful. The first is to decide exactly what you want–set your goals–and then determine how you will achieve them (what skills you will have to learn, what actions will you have to take). And these are totally under your control. These are not dependent upon anyone else.
Thus, goal statements prove to be invaluable in personal and professional life.
In your career, they help you with:
When it comes to your personal life, goal statements can help with:
Setting up an actionable objective is the first step in achieving success.
According to research, employees in goal-oriented organizations are about 7 times more likely to feel proud of their workplace and just as likely to recommend it as a great place to work.
Writing down your goals turns them into something tangible, making them easier to focus on and achieve. Here are some solid reasons as to why a goal statement is essential when it comes to your career:
Simply thinking about your goals isn’t enough to achieve them. To increase your chances of success, it’s important to write down your goal statements and, if you can, share your progress with people you trust.
Before you begin writing your first goal statement, understand that the key is to outline exactly what you want to accomplish, how you plan to do it, and what the timeline for it is.
Begin by clearly defining your goal, including what you want to achieve, the timeframe for completion, and the steps needed to reach it.
Make sure your goal answers these essential questions:
What do you want to accomplish?
When do you want to accomplish it?
How will you make it happen?
A well-defined goal should provide clear direction, a realistic timeline, and a practical action plan.
Here’s how you can prioritize your goals and determine where to focus your energy when you’re setting a career objective. Start by asking yourself these key questions:
To craft personal goal statements that foster your vision of personal enrichment, here are some guiding questions to consider:
Answering these questions will help you determine the ‘What’ aspect of your personal goal statement. Remember to keep your responses focused, clear, and direct. Here, ClickUp can support you with its array of features. Let’s explore them as we go along.
If you’re feeling overwhelmed by all these questions, ClickUp Docs can help you organize your thoughts and draft clear goal statements.
Start by opening a new ClickUp Doc and jot down your goals. With ClickUp Docs, you can create detailed, customizable documents to outline your career path, set timelines, and align tasks with your objectives.
Once your draft is ready, you can share the document with trusted friends and mentors for feedback, so they can comment directly within the doc. This feature keeps everything organized and ensures your goals are clearly defined and actionable.
Next, let’s address the ‘How’ and ‘When’ by applying the SMART method. This step requires in-depth research into what’s needed to achieve your SMART goals by creating achievable and measurable objectives .
Using the SMART framework helps clarify your goals, track progress, ensure feasibility, and monitor achievement within a set timeframe.
Here’s how SMART goals are set:
💡 Example: If you’re aiming for a promotion that requires certifications, research the necessary courses, understand the time commitment, and plan your timeline accordingly. This approach ensures your goals are realistic and grounded in actionable steps.
It can be challenging to juggle all the elements of goal-setting while also creating realistic, relevant goals. That’s where ClickUp’s SMART Goals template comes in.
ClickUp’s SMART Goals template simplifies the process by helping you break down large objectives into manageable steps, track your progress, and stay motivated.
Here’s what ClickUp’s SMART Goals template offers:
In addition to the strategies mentioned, here are some extra tips to help you craft a strong personal or career goal statement:
Tips & tricks
Review it regularly: Regularly review and adjust your goals as needed to reflect progress and changes
Set a timeline: Create a timeline with milestones for both short-term and long-term goals to stay motivated and on track
Request feedback: Share your goals with trusted individuals for honest feedback on your timeline and goal achievement, increasing your accountability
⚡ Template Archive: Need more SMART goal templates that can help you define and achieve your goals efficiently? Check out our library of free SMART goal templates that are easy to use, adaptable, and seamless to track and update.
Writing your goal statements is just the beginning; implementing them is where the real work begins. Break down your career goals into smaller, actionable steps.
💡 Example: If you aim to land a leadership role, start by taking on smaller team projects to build your management skills. Prioritize these steps and establish a timeline.
Track your progress regularly and adjust as needed. Share your goals with a mentor or colleague for accountability and feedback. Celebrate small victories, like completing a course or receiving positive feedback, to stay motivated.
A flexible system is essential for successful goal implementation, and ClickUp Goals can help you effortlessly track, edit, and adjust your goals.
ClickUp Goals is a powerful tool for creating, tracking, adjusting, and setting project goals or personal goals with ease. It offers flexible goal-setting with customizable targets, deadlines, and tracking methods tailored to fit your needs, making it easier to stay on track and achieve success.
You can break down larger goals into manageable milestones, ensuring steady progress. Visual tools like charts and progress bars help you monitor your progress, keeping you and your team motivated.
Collaboration is also enhanced by sharing goals with your team, aligning efforts, and exchanging valuable feedback.
Additionally, ClickUp Goals ensures that individual goals align with broader company objectives by grouping them into folders. It also automatically updates progress based on task completion, keeping everything up to date.
Now that we understand the theory behind writing effective career goal statements, let’s explore some practical short and long-goal examples to inspire your personal and business goals.
Business goal statements can be complex, as they require detailed planning to outline your career objectives and the steps to achieve them. Professional goal statements may range from ongoing tasks to a specific one-time project.
A well-defined business or professional goal statement serves as both—a motivation booster and a roadmap for your career. It also enhances your resume by highlighting your career direction, aspirations, and self-awareness to potential employers.
An effective professional goal statement is clear, specific, and measurable. It provides clarity on what you want to achieve, how you’ll achieve it, and by when you expect to attain it.
Here’s an example: Increase market share in North America by 20% by the end of Q4 2025 through increased ad campaign spending and sales team training
This professional goal statement is precise and quantifiable and includes all key elements: the desired outcome, location, strategy, and timeline.
Other examples include:
This goal is focused and measurable, with a clear method for achieving the target.
This goal follows the SMART framework, outlining a clear path for career advancement.
For organizational goals, it’s crucial to have tools like ClickUp Goals or OKR Templates to track and monitor progress across the company, department, and team levels.
By crafting clear and actionable goal statements, you set yourself and your business up for success, ensuring every objective is aligned with a strategic plan and has a defined timeline for achievement.
ClickUp’s Company OKRs and Goals template is a powerful tool for aligning your team with your company’s vision and values.
It simplifies the process of setting and tracking objectives, standardizes performance measurement, and ensures that individual goals support your organization’s overall objectives.
By maintaining alignment and cohesion, this template not only streamlines goal management but also boosts team morale and productivity.
Here’s what the ClickUp’s Company OKRs and Goals template offers:
⚡ Template Archive: Looking for more goal-setting templates to ensure you’re on the right track? Check out these free goal-setting and tracking templates that will level up your goal-setting strategy .
While we’ve focused on career goals, achieving them is near impossible without taking care of your personal well-being.
Personal goals reflect who you are, what you want, and where you’re headed. Not only do they guide your journey, but they also make a strong impression on potential employers or educational institutions.
Balance your goals by focusing on areas such as relationships, physical health, spirituality, and personal growth to prevent burnout and boost overall satisfaction.
Use goal-tracking apps to organize and prioritize your goals effectively. Set reminders, break down larger goals into smaller tasks, and regularly review your progress to stay on track and maintain a healthy work-life balance.
When crafting personal goal statements, it’s essential to be specific about what you want to achieve, how you’ll achieve it, and the timeframe for completion.
Here are some examples that follow the What, How, and When structure:
Reconnect with old friends: before the end of the month, schedule a coffee date with a friend you haven’t seen enough of lately
Learn Spanish: Dedicate 30 minutes daily to language lessons for 6 months to be at least semi-fluent by next summer
Complete a 10K run: Follow a 12-week structured training plan to boost fitness and mental resilience
These examples illustrate how clear, actionable personal statements of goals can lead to tangible outcomes, whether they involve personal enrichment, health, or career development.
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, French writer and pilot said, “A goal without a plan is just a wish.”
Now that you’ve written down your goals, it’s time to turn them into reality.
Here’s how to make it happen:
Track and update your goals regularly to keep them aligned with your growth. Goals should be as dynamic and evolving as you are. Don’t let them collect dust—instead, review and adjust them consistently.
Consider using goal-setting software to set reminders, track progress, and make adjustments so that your goals remain relevant and attainable as you evolve. When you achieve a goal or hit a milestone, take a moment to celebrate your success. Recognizing your progress keeps you motivated and reinforces positive behavior.
And if you miss a deadline or fall short, don’t be too hard on yourself. Instead, analyze what went wrong, learn from it, and adjust your approach to avoid repeating the same mistakes.
By staying engaged with your goals and adapting as needed, you can ensure continuous progress and maintain the momentum needed to achieve them.
Real-world success stories offer valuable lessons and inspiration. For example, Elon Musk’s approach to goal-setting is a powerful model.
His goal with SpaceX is to colonize Mars, and with Tesla, it’s to drive the world toward sustainable energy. What sets Musk apart is his ability to break these enormous goals into manageable steps, steadily working toward each milestone.
This shows the importance of setting bold goals while maintaining a practical, step-by-step approach. But you don’t have to look only at famous figures. You can also learn from those around you, like mentors or family members.
Observe their strategies, seek guidance, and apply those habits to your journey. Their experiences can provide valuable insights to help you reach your goals more effectively.
If your original plan no longer feels right, don’t hesitate to adjust your goals, resources, or timeline. Flexibility is key to staying on track. Regularly reassess your goals to ensure they still align with your current situation and aspirations.
Embrace changes as opportunities for growth. Sometimes, a shift in direction can lead to better outcomes than you initially imagined. Stay open to new possibilities and be ready to pivot when necessary.
This adaptability will help you navigate challenges and seize opportunities as they arise.
Personal and career goals are crucial for success—they outline your path, keep you motivated, and showcase your potential to employers.
But with a busy life, managing these goals can be challenging. That’s where ClickUp steps in.
With multiple goal creation, sharing, review, and execution features and a variety of goal-oriented templates, it does all the heavy lifting for you, so you have more time to achieve your goals and dream big.
Sign up for free today and start turning your aspirations into reality, one goal at a time!
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The former president and his backers aim to strengthen the power of the White House and limit the independence of federal agencies.
Donald J. Trump intends to bring independent regulatory agencies under direct presidential control. Credit... Doug Mills/The New York Times
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By Jonathan Swan Charlie Savage and Maggie Haberman
Donald J. Trump and his allies are planning a sweeping expansion of presidential power over the machinery of government if voters return him to the White House in 2025, reshaping the structure of the executive branch to concentrate far greater authority directly in his hands.
Their plans to centralize more power in the Oval Office stretch far beyond the former president’s recent remarks that he would order a criminal investigation into his political rival, President Biden, signaling his intent to end the post-Watergate norm of Justice Department independence from White House political control.
Mr. Trump and his associates have a broader goal: to alter the balance of power by increasing the president’s authority over every part of the federal government that now operates, by either law or tradition, with any measure of independence from political interference by the White House, according to a review of his campaign policy proposals and interviews with people close to him.
Mr. Trump intends to bring independent agencies — like the Federal Communications Commission, which makes and enforces rules for television and internet companies, and the Federal Trade Commission, which enforces various antitrust and other consumer protection rules against businesses — under direct presidential control.
He wants to revive the practice of “impounding” funds, refusing to spend money Congress has appropriated for programs a president doesn’t like — a tactic that lawmakers banned under President Richard Nixon.
He intends to strip employment protections from tens of thousands of career civil servants, making it easier to replace them if they are deemed obstacles to his agenda. And he plans to scour the intelligence agencies, the State Department and the defense bureaucracies to remove officials he has vilified as “the sick political class that hates our country.”
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Good morning. KKR became famous in the 1980s as the leveraged buy-out pioneer that acquired RJR Nabisco—a nail-biting drama chronicled in the book Barbarians at the Gate . Today it’s the world’s third-largest alternative asset manager that, as my Fortune colleague Shawn Tully notes, “boasts the industry’s hottest stock and biggest ambitions.” Tully spoke with co-CEOs Joe Bae and Scott Nuttall about their strategy to move beyond a traditional capital-light, fee-based business to a buy-and-hold model more akin to Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway . Shawn’s new story, published today, details how they plan to reach $1 trillion in assets by 2030 and become a much more profitable company along the way.
At their heart, most successful investment firms try to foster what Nuttall calls an “apprenticeship culture” in which leaders teach and test and create a state of constant learning. Bridgewater’s founder Ray Dalio called it “radical transparency;” Berkshire Hathaway’s Charlie Munger talked about being a “learning machine.”
Another way top leaders encourage learning is by making themselves extremely accessible to up-and-comers. While Ken Chenault learned a lot in his 17 years as CEO of American Express , he embraces the freedom he now has to do deeper dives as chairman and managing director of venture firm General Catalyst. “I loved being CEO of Amex but I was scheduled two or three years out,” Chenault says. “The terrific thing now is that I can spend four or five hours with a founder in a way that would have been really hard before.”
Mark Sotir, who runs Equity Group Investments, the investment firm founded by the late Sam Zell, told me earlier this summer that “the environment Sam created was one where you have to grow; you don’t run out of things to learn or things to try. You have to experiment.”
It’s a worthwhile lesson at a time when many are lamenting how to educate the next generation in an age of AI. Some of the greatest insights, of course, come from learning about the experiences of others. We compiled a special digital issue (story links below) that’s out this morning with half a dozen recent and new features that we hope you’ll find instructive.
More news below.
Diane Brady [email protected] Follow on LinkedIn
The best stories of July and August from Fortune , including a radical overhaul at a private equity titan, a crisis for the First Family of poultry, and more.
— KKR’s co-CEOs want to reach $1 trillion in assets by 2030. To do so, they’re willing to make big bets and leave the PE firm’s old ways behind. Read more .
— John Randal Tyson was set up to run his family’s $21 billion chicken empire. His erratic behavior could change that. Read more .
— Jeff Bezos’s famed management rules are slowly unraveling inside Amazon. Read more .
— A 25-year-old crypto whiz kid went from intern to president of Jump Trading’s crypto arm. Then he became the fall guy. Read more .
— An inside look at a secretive investment firm that counts some of the wealthiest Americans as clients and some of Silicon Valley’s most powerful figures as advisors. Read more .
— Can you quit Ozempic and stay thin? These startups say you can—but doctors say that’s an unproven claim. Read more .
Elon Musk defends Telegram founder
Elon Musk is calling for the release of Telegram founder Pavel Durov, who was arrested in France over the weekend and is expected to be charged with failing to moderate illegal activity and commerce on the messaging app. The arrest raises questions as to whether Musk could be next. Fortune
Temu's parent company sinks
The stock of Temu's parent company PDD Holdings fell more than 30% on Monday after the company reported disappointing sales in Q2 and warned that Temu, a discount e-commerce site, could continue to struggle in the future. PDD Holdings officials blamed increased competition from companies like Amazon and scrutiny of Temu's business practices, including safety concerns. Fortune
California considers crackdown on big AI
The California State Senate will vote on a new bill this week that could require AI companies in the U.S. to thoroughly test for safety risks and include a "full shutdown" feature for AI models that cost more than $100 million to train. Silicon Valley-based AI developers like OpenAI say regulation should be controlled on the federal level. Fortune
CEOs are shelling out up to $15,000 for psychedelic mushroom retreats to reinvent their leadership style by Lila MacLellan
Texting your employee after-hours can now get you a nearly $13,000 fine in Australia by Chloe Berger
Donald Trump says Elon Musk can consult for the federal government if he wins reelection by Paolo Confino
Volkswagen adds in-car gaming to certain new models by Chris Morris
More than 40% of full-time U.S. employees aren’t making a living wage by Emma Burleigh
Skepticism and confusion: Inside Elon Musk’s latest promises to X employees by Kali Hays
Luxury footwear CEO took over his first store at just 19 and had to sack all the staff who were stealing. Now he runs $432 million-a-year Kurt Geiger by Orianna Rosa Royle
T his edition of CEO Daily was curated by Joey Abrams.
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Remember the goal of the career goals essay. Demonstrate a passion for a problem, and convince the admissions committee that you are the type of person who can solve it. You can show off that passion in 1,000 words or 250 words. No matter the essay's length, the heart of your approach is the same. The introduction.
Use these steps as a basic guide for writing a career goals essay for your MBA application: 1. Mention your goals in the introduction. Write an introduction where you immediately reference your long-term business goals. Focus on an overarching goal in business, such as establishing a company to solve a social problem.
Sample 1: Leadership-focused MBA application essay. This sample is particularly focused on leadership traits. If your essay is about explaining your leadership quality experience, this sample is right up your alley. The best thing about the essay is that it is written in a simple, engaging, and humorous style. It defines a great experience in a ...
An interview-winning formula. Try to think of the MBA goals essay as a story. The important components of the story are your past, present, and future and how they all connect. Specifically, how they connect should look like this: Past Experience + Present MBA = Future Professional Goals.
Interview Questions. 3. Get Vulnerable. Most MBA admissions essay prompts are written with the goal of getting to know as much about you as possible in the shortest number of words. To do that, you're going to have to share real things from your life — to get personal, intimate, and vulnerable.
At the end of this article, we're also sharing a strong MBA career goals essay example from a past client that really puts our advice into practice. 1) Your Future Should Connect to Your Past. A great place to start when brainstorming your long-term career goals is with your past. Think about situations - whether early in life, in college ...
MBA Career Goals Essay Sample. Our example applicant "Adam" is an investment banker who wants to return to the private equity world post-MBA. As you'll see, by using the content building blocks, he goes beyond answering the "what question" - as in WHAT are your career goals - and answers the "why question" - setting himself ...
2024-2025 Wharton MBA Essay Tips + An Example. Originally published on July 13, 2023. Updated on July 3, 2024. The Wharton MBA essay prompts are confirmed for 2024-2025 and they remain unchanged from last year. The questions are direct and allow enough word count to paint a robust picture of who you are and why Wharton is right for you (and ...
If MBA programs are being measured and ranked on placement, then it should come as no surprise that you will need to demonstrate that your goals are possible for you to achieve. This makes feasibility of MBA career goals the second most important ingredient of your career goals essay. Feasibility hinges on clarity, self-assessment, and research.
Talk to people in careers you want. Talk to people in jobs that appeal to you. Organize informal interviews or email a list of questions to people you know who have positions that you find attractive. While a post-MBA job or career path may seem appealing on paper, you want to ensure you have a full understanding of the positives, negatives ...
Goals Essay. When answering a question about your MBA goals, it is crucial that you are decisive. While no one will hold you to what you write in your MBA applications, you should have a specific post-MBA plan. For most schools, you will want a short-term and a long-term career goal. This goal should be logical for you.
For essays on contributing to the MBA community, be personal, tell a story, and connect your experiences to the community. 5. Consider the Tone You Use While Writing Your Essay. Be genuine in your essay. Admissions committees can tell if you're insincere or just writing what you think they want to hear.
It is critical in the goals essay found in almost every MBA application to show that you have clear direction and purpose based on experience and planning. Business school is not another opportunity to "find yourself." 8:00 AM. July 1, 2030. The 23rd floor of the Bank of China Tower in Hong Kong.
This collection of 50 successful HBS and GSB essays, with smart commentary, can be downloaded for $60. They are two of the most selective schools, routinely rejecting nine or more out of every ten applicants. Last year alone, 16,628 candidates applied to both schools; just 1,520 gained an acceptance, a mere 9.1% admit rate.
In this short essay, you notice how coherently the candidate has established the connection between his passion, goals, why MBA, why a specific school, and Impact (too in just 150 words). This clearly showcases how important it is to have clarity on your post-MBA goals if you want to write a convincing story in your MBA applications.
Breaking Down the MBA Career Goals Essay. ... Instead, create a simple outline that you can fill out to answer the six components of the essay. For example: You should write out the six questions (career analysis, short-term goals, long-term goals, why MBA, why School, why now) and come up with your answers separately. Then, once you have the ...
Here I will dissect an actual successful personal statement essay from a past applicant so you can learn some of the "dos" and "don'ts" in revealing your fit with your target MBA program. One quick note—this sample essay is not meant to be used as a template. I suggest that you use it as a resource, but do not copy it!
Your academic record, GMAT scores, and GPA are important factors in the MBA application process. But, more than that, business schools ultimately care about who you are and whether you would be a good fit for their program. This is where your application essays come in. The goal here is to complete the picture that your scores and stats began ...
MBA career goals essay samples and career goals essay tips for writing a strong career essay for MBA applications at top ranked mba programs.
Here are free career goals essay samples for MBA aspirants in 150 words: Example 1. My long-term goal is to secure the position of a senior (job position) manager in a company that caters to (industry needs). I aspire to create a significant impact in a dynamic and ever-changing industry and to advance the development and growth of such a ...
To conclude, your MBA career goals essay is a chance to apply for your dream university. That's why you need to put all effort you can to write a perfect sample MBA essay on long term career goals. Here are the main recommendations discussed in this review to achieve this aim: Be specific while describing your long term career goals;
Let's take a look at a sample MBA Goals Essay and see how these three key elements are incorporated. You should be able to easily recognize why the writer's opening is attention-getting for all the right reasons. The writer introduces herself as the supremely busy executive she visualizes becoming in the future. She trades large amounts of ...
Feature the traits and tell the stories that depict "you" at your best. 2. Sample MBA essays can undermine your confidence in your MBA candidacy. The essays that get published as samples are often truly eye-catching, dramatic, and sensational - stories of exceptional accomplishment, rare feats, or extreme obstacles.
Particularly noteworthy accomplishments might be worth mentioning in an essay. For example, the Fuqua School of Business at Duke University in North Carolina asks applicants to explain 25 random ...
Learning from successful real-world examples. Real-world success stories offer valuable lessons and inspiration. For example, Elon Musk's approach to goal-setting is a powerful model. His goal with SpaceX is to colonize Mars, and with Tesla, it's to drive the world toward sustainable energy.
Trump Plans to Expand Presidential Power Over Agencies ...
At their heart, most successful investment firms try to foster what Nuttall calls an "apprenticeship culture" in which leaders teach and test and create a state of constant learning.