"What are your career goals?" for placements and graduate schemes

What recruiters look for

• A direction that fits. Your goals should make sense for this programme and employer.
• Realism. Ambitious is good; "CEO in five years" isn't convincing.
• Commitment. Signs you'd stay and grow, such as interest in qualifications or the graduate route.
• Self-awareness. You know what you enjoy and what you still need to learn.

A structure to follow

1. The kind of work you want to do, in one sentence.
2. Why, based on something you've done or enjoyed.
3. How this role helps, such as training, rotations or qualifications.
4. One early goal, something you'd like to achieve in the first year.

If the scheme leads to a professional qualification (for example chartered status in engineering or accountancy), it's worth mentioning if that's genuinely what you want.

Example answer

Sam is a fictional second-year mechanical engineering student. The details are invented to show the shape of a good answer. Use your own.

In five years I want to be a test and validation engineer working towards Chartered Engineer status. I enjoy proving whether something works, and test engineering rewards habits I already have: careful set-up, clear records and honest results. This placement is the first step because it gives me structured mentoring and real test campaigns to learn from. In the short term, I want to finish the year able to plan a test on my own and write a report an engineer would sign off. After graduating, I'd like to apply for your graduate scheme and specialise in structural or combustion testing.

About 100 words.

Common mistakes

• No real direction. "I want to gain experience and see where it takes me."
• Goals that point elsewhere. Saying you want a career in a different sector.
• Over-precise plans. A rigid timeline can sound unrealistic.
• Only talking about yourself. Show how your goals fit what the employer offers.
• A generic answer. The same goals pasted into every application won't match each role.

FAQs