If you don’t have a plan to achieve them, New Year’s resolutions are just pretty words on a page. In fact, studies show 80% of people fail their New Year’s resolutions, with most losing steam by mid-February. It’s easy to say you’ll change, but actually putting those words into practice is incredibly difficult.

One way to succeed with resolutions for your job search is making sure all your goals are S.M.A.R.T. S.M.A.R.T is an acronym created by George Doran, Arthur Miller, and James Cunningham in a 1981 article titled “There’s a S.M.A.R.T. Way to Write Management Goals and objectives.” The letters stand for specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-based. Here’s how to make sure your resolutions fit the S.M.A.R.T. criteria. (more…)