Blog ▸ Candidates ▸ Tips in Setting Career Goals For 2020

Tips for Setting Career Goals For 2020

January 2020

By Vahid Haghzare, Director Silicon Valley Associates Recruitment &

Victor Chen, Senior Recruiter, Silicon Valley Associates Recruitment

One of the top IT Recruitment Agencies in Hong Kong, Shenzhen, Shanghai, Japan, Singapore, and Dubai, SVA Recruitment is an IT and employment agency that provides jobs, executive search, and recruitment services.

It's a fresh year and a fresh decade, and at Silicon Valley Associates, we are raring to go!

Our consultants know that this is a common time for our clients and candidates alike to set themselves career goals for the year ahead - and the next 5-10 years.

Perhaps you dream of moving into a new tech job in Hong Kong or finding a specialist IT role overseas in the broader Asian market. Perhaps your language skills position you well for a developer role in a US firm entering HK and you're keen to bag your dream role. Maybe you're ready to build the tech team that will take your product offer and company off the ground?

Whatever your goal, here are some tips to ensure you translate your dreams into reality.

1. Get SMART

Always translate your goals into SMART objectives, so that your ambition is defined in a Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Time-bound way.

2. Treat yourself like a business

In the same way that you review your business and your performance on a regular basis, check in with yourself about your goals on a monthly basis. Forward diary some time to review where you're at and to confirm that your goals are still relevant. It's amazing how often we fail to spend time focusing on ourselves and our own dreams - especially compared to the amount of time we spend on low-value daily admin jobs and general procrastination!

3. Revisit your values

Are your goals falling by the wayside? Maybe they don't actually reflect who you are and who you want to be. Always thought of yourself as a back-room IT specialist, but actually finding yourself drawn to tech sales? Always imagined yourself as a creative developer but actually more drawn to big data? Perhaps you actually dream of training others or managing a team? Really think about what drives you and don't be afraid to step back from your career 'progress' if you may actually be gearing up for a pivot.

4. Get fit. Get well.

It's all too easy to become unhealthy, tired, and caught up in poor lifestyle habits and these have a dramatic impact on your ability to achieve and succeed. Smoking, eating junk, failing to exercise, relying too much on caffeine, and sleeping too little... these habits all accumulate and negatively affect your performance over time. Commit to making small and incremental improvements this year that focus on your health and wellbeing. As you get fitter, stronger, and lose that mental fuzzy feeling, you may well find that your confidence grows to a point where you upwardly revise your ambitions.

5. Get on top of your finances

It may seem unrelated but all too often our dreams of that perfect job in Hong Kong get put on hold because of our personal financial situation. For example, we might resist retraining for another job, or taking a side-step on less pay, because we have debts that need paying or a lack of savings that will allow us to take a risk. If you sense that a career 'risk' might be a good one, work at putting your financial safety cushion in place now.

6. Get some professional help

The team at Silicon Valley Associates is hugely experienced in IT and tech recruitment in Hong Kong and the wider Asian region. We work with high-profile clients and thousands of candidates every year. Our industry knowledge, insights, and expertise make us perfectly placed to offer advice on strategic career moves that will help you to achieve your ultimate ambitions. Why not contact us for a no-obligation chat about where you want to go next? Make 2020 the year that really matters!

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Silicon Valley Associates is ideally positioned to support the continual demand from tech companies and IT Departments looking to hire in Hong Kong, Asia, and Worldwide. Please let us know if you would further advise on the above topic or your hiring needs