Learning Outcomes
By the end module, you will be able to:
- Create two goals for upcoming WIL using both SMART and PACT strategies
- Anticipate how to achieve goals in upcoming WIL experience
Mapping Out Your Learning Goals for and Beyond Your WIL Experience
With your WIL experience soon approaching, it is important to remain focused on the goals you hope to achieve during this experience and anticipate what you would like to learn (work experiences, like the classroom, is also a learning environment).
Career related goals, even for a short-term work experience, can relate to:
- Developing specific skills and knowledge during the experience
- Gaining experience in the types of work or projects you’d like to do in your career
- Applying educational knowledge and skills sets in a non-academic setting
- Building your network within the field related to your career
- Exploring work environments that best support your needs
- Identifying the kinds of employers that share the values important to your career
- Learning that types of impact your work can have within your field
In this module, you will be introduced to a couple of strategies for setting goals during your WIL experience. A well-designed goal has a built-in plan for how to get where you want to be and to engage in lifelong learning. Rather than focusing solely on what you have learned and why it is important, goal setting helps you synthesize your learning to build a path forward in your career and discover new opportunities of growth.
Goal setting is not just for knowing when you have achieved something, it is for knowing when you are off course and how to pivot. The key factor that separates a regular goal from an effective goal is the ability to measure or track progress (i.e., smaller wins along the way).
Two strategies for effective goal setting include SMART goals (Haughey, 2014) which is outcome-oriented, and PACT goals, which is process-oriented. Each of these strategies will help you develop a plan to achieve your goals.
SMART Goals
The SMART goal approach is a tool for planning your goals that require a clear outcome or a specific end date (How to Set Goals in University, 2023). SMART, then, is an outcome-based goal-setting tool because it requires to you select a specific goal that is attainable, quantifiable, and has a deadline. Below are details about SMART goals and some examples of SMART goals.
SMART is as follows:
- Specific: A SMART goal is specific enough that you can tell how to get started. Be very clear on what you want to accomplish.
- Measurable: A SMART goal is measurable so you can track progress and know when you have achieved it. In essence, your goals should be quantifiable.
- Attainable: A SMART goal is attainable. This should not discourage ambitious, long-range goals. Attainable goals are about breaking the ambitious, long-range goals into manageable pieces: stepping-stones. What’s the first step to aim for? Your goals should not be too easy or too hard. Be ambitious, but realistic.
- Relevant: A SMART goal is relevant. This is about investing your focus and energy in non-trivial goals that are genuine priorities for you. Whether your goal is personal or professional, even the dull tasks are easier to stay motivated for when you know why they matter.
- Time-Bound: A SMART goal is time-bound. Ensure your goals are defined within a specific timeframe with a clearly set deadline.
SMART is effective if you need to, for instance, finish a project by a specific deadline and plan out how you will get there. Or SMART can motivate you to complete that resume and cover letter so you can submit it by a deadline you set.
SMART Goal Example
The following is an example of a SMART goal a student may want to accomplish in their WIL experience.
The Goal:By the end of the WIL placement, I will develop advanced Excel skills such as creating Pivot Tables and advanced formulae.
The Goal applied to SMART:
- Specific:I will develop skills in Microsoft Excel outside of coursework to analyze and organize large sets of data
- Measurable:I will be able to use Pivot tables and advanced formulas to organize data effectively.
- Attainable:This will be attainable because many projects I work on use Excel, and I can take a free LinkedIn Learning course related to some advanced functions and formulas.
- Relevant:I am noticing that most post-grad jobs I’m interested in are asking for Excel skills for quantitative analysis, so it is important I gain experience related to it.
- Time-Bound:I will achieve this knowledge by the end of my WIL placement.
An effective goal has a built-in plan for how to accomplish it. If you make your goals SMART, you may have more confidence in what you are doing because you know what to do to get started, you can measure your progress, you have the resources you need, you know why the project matters, and you have set a deadline.
PACT Goals
While SMART is focused on an endpoint with an outcome, PACT is focused on continuous learning and processes (Cunff, n.d.). PACT can be useful when you have a goal that doesn’t quite have an end point or a specific deadline that needs to be met, yet you want to be able to track your progress.
This type of goal-setting is appropriate for ongoing career development, such as:
- skills development and upskilling
- career planning like networking or conducting labour market research
- maintaining career satisfaction
- or larger scale project management that does not have a clear deadline but in which you still want to track progress
PACT is as follows:
- Purposeful: The goal should be meaningful to your long-term career, “aligned with your passions and objectives”
- Actionable: your goal is doable right now and is within your control to do so
- Continuous: the “actions you take towards your goal are simple and repeatable…it’s about continuous improvement rather than reaching a supposed end goal”
- Trackable: “Not measurable,” simply a did you do it or not mode of tracking progress
PACT Goal Example
Goal: Build network within the field of communications
- Purposeful: building a network within this field is purposeful because I am early career and new to the field of communications
- Actionable: I can start researching who I would like to connect with, and I will be able to make intentional connections during my WIL experience
- Continuous: I will be able to do this by maintaining connections I make while also building new ones; also while in a workplace, I realize that I am making connections even if some engagements are working within a team instead of a coffee chat.
- Trackable: I can track who I’ve talked to, whether I stick to my schedule of networking a couple times a month, and I can track who else I’d like to meet with.
While “build a network within X field” may be vague and difficult to measure in the SMART sense, PACT acknowledges that “networking” can never have an endpoint because there will always new reasons on why networking may be required and/or beneficial for you and your career. PACT supports in holding you accountable, particularly when asking you how you can make it actionable and can track that you have done it.
Given the continuous nature of PACT, though, the goal may shift over time. For instance, this goal can be revised further on to reflect future career aspirations, such as “network with people who have made the transition from communications to public relations.”
Making a SMART PACT
As you begin setting goals for your experience, you may consider using both goal-setting approaches: SMART for more outcome-focused goals, such as “gain five connections in the field of AI by May 30th 20XX”, and PACT for goals that may not have an end date, such as “maintain work-life balance.”
What are some goals for your upcoming WIL experience that would be appropriate for SMART? Write these down.
And what are some goals for your upcoming WIL experience that would be appropriate for PACT? Write these down.
Implement and adapt your plan
Once you have clarified your goals and action plan using either SMART or PACT, you can begin to implement the actions you identified. As you move forward, refer to your plan often to identify if you are on track or if some adjustments are required. Identify if you need to make any major alterations for the plan to make sense, or if any of your goals need to be changed. If the primary goal remains the same and the process seems to be on track, add more detail to the steps as they become more imminent. If new information or obstacles have emerged, make minor to moderate changes as needed. If your primary goal or direction has drastically changed, you may want to make major revisions to your goals and action plan.