Are Certain Consulting Engineers Destined for an Unfulfilled Engineering Career?

May 17, 2012 By 2 Comments

The other day I was speaking with one of my clients who owns a small consulting engineering company.  In his line of work, he is often called on when his clients are in trouble with a municipality or building department.  For example, a client may call him when a building permit has been revoked, therefore his job is to figure out why and help his client to restore the building permit to good standing so that the project may proceed.

My client tells me that in this scenario, the owner (or his client) is always angry because of the situation they are in, which they often caused themselves.  They never want to pay the engineer because they feel that the municipality is wrong and they are just causing them to waste money.  Ultimately, they see the consulting engineer in this case simply as an expense; and they can’t wait to cut that expense.

Doing this type of work can really weigh you down and present a lot of negative energy because your clients may constantly make you feel like the bad guy.  Clients in these situations rarely view you as someone who is coming to save the day, because they don’t agree with what the municipality thinks needs saving. [Read more...]

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5 Tips to Help Recent Engineering Graduates Land Their First Job

May 7, 2012 By Leave a Comment

I have received requests from so many soon to be engineering graduates for recommendations on how to land their first job that I thought I would write this post to share some recommendations for all:

  1. Tailor your resume specifically to the job you are applying for.  I recently spoke at a conference where a hiring manager shared some very interesting with the conference attendees. He said that when he reviews applicant resumes, if he sees one that is customized to his company specifically he is much more inclined to interview them. I always tell recent engineering graduates, if you are applying to 10 different employers, you should have 10 different resumes.
  2. Focus on the presentation of your resume not just the content.  In today’s job market most recruiters and human resource professionals’ look at a resume for 10 seconds or less due to the number of resumes they get bombarded with.  In those 10 seconds, the one thing they are certainly going to notice is the presentation of the resume.  How neat it is, and how professional it looks.  Bold important activities so that they jump out at first glance. [Read more...]
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The Importance of Surrounding Yourself With Positive, Motivated People in Your Engineering Career

May 3, 2012 By 2 Comments

I am writing this post because I feel that many engineers and other professionals fail to realize the impact that the people around them have on the success of their engineering career and their life.  The people you work with and talk to on a regular basis play a huge role in your growth and development.

Early on in my engineering career, before I became an executive coach, I regularly dealt with very negative people at the company I worked for.  I was always a very positive person, but working with negative people on a regular basis, really brought my energy down.  When I would get excited about a new idea or project, they would say something like, “Just another project where the client is going to be a pain in the but and we are going to lose money.”  That wasn’t the mental approach that I wanted to take to start a new project, but them repeatedly saying it affected my mentality.

When I went to executive coaching school in 2009, everything changed.  [Read more...]

Filed Under: Engineering Career Development, Professional Development Tagged With: , , ,

The Importance of Computer Technology in Your Engineering Career

April 26, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Featured Guest Blogger: Nancy Evans

One might think that computers and engineering are distinct technological pursuits, as people often equate engineering with large macroscopic projects while computers are seen as producing effects that are contained on microscopic chips. However, since the 90s we have increasingly seen a merger of the two fields, which is not only resulting in a rise in software engineering jobs but in the widespread adoption of computer-aided technologies into traditional engineering fields. As a result, engineers are seeing a significant expansion of options in how they can pursue work. Here are a few different ways young engineers can integrate computer technology into their careers: [Read more...]

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Letting People Win At Times Can Actually Help You in Your Engineering Career and Life

April 21, 2012 By Leave a Comment

In talking with engineering professionals through my coaching and consulting work, I often see rifts that occur within an office or a team. What drives me crazy is that these rifts often start due to an argument over a non-important issue. Whether it’s an argument over what color to make a specific layer in a CAD drawing or the fact that a few co-workers went out to lunch and left someone out; rifts starts for many different reasons.

When we let these things bother us and refuse to let them go, they can have a very harmful effect on our career and our lives. If you feel that your losing an argument or giving in to another person will compromise the quality of the work being done or jeopardize one of your projects, then of course you should stand up for what you believe and ‘go down fighting.’ However, if you are arguing with someone over something that, in the long run, has little importance or impact on your goals, projects, clients, etc – just give in. Yes that’s right, you are just wasting your time and energy fighting with someone over something that doesn’t really matter. [Read more...]

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At The End of Your Engineering Career Will You Say I Wish I Hadn’t Worked so Hard

April 12, 2012 By Leave a Comment

An engineer that I met during one of my speaking engagements in Chicago recently sent me the link to an article entitled Top Five Regrets of the Dying.  He thought I would find it interesting and he was right!

The article is based on a book where a nurse reveals the top regrets that her dying patients have shared with her about their lives and careers.  I believe that all five of the top regrets are tied into your career in some way, shape or form and it was one them that really hit home for me:

I wish I hadn’t worked so hard.

“This came from every male patient that I nursed. They missed their [Read more...]

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How Belonging to a Professional Society Can Energize Your Engineering Career

April 1, 2012 By 2 Comments

There are many benefits your engineering career can reap from joining a professional society, however in this post I want to focus on one of them specifically: raising the level of energy in your career.

Last weekend I was at the Engineers Without Borders (EWB) conference in Las Vegas Nevada.  I was scheduled to give my Engineer Your Own Success seminar Saturday morning, however I wanted to attend some other conference sessions Friday so I flew out to Las Vegas from the east coast Thursday morning.  After talking to some people out there I was invited to speak at a newly formed chapter of the American Public Works Association (APWA) in Las Vegas.  This was actually a younger member (YM) group, a new subgroup of the existing local APWA chapter.

To be honest with you, I was having second thoughts about attending, or at least my energy was very low, mainly because of the long day of travel and jet lag.  However the young women, Amy, who had just started this group in January was so excited about having me and so upbeat about the group, I felt impelled to go.  In fact, when I arrived in Las Vegas, I had an e-mail message on my cell phone from Amy that said, “Anthony I hope you are looking forward to seeing the awesomness that is our new YM group tonight!”  While I don’t think awesomeness is an official word, it certainly made me more excited about the event. [Read more...]

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What is the Biggest Challenge in Developing Your Engineering Career?

March 20, 2012 By Leave a Comment

I have been asking this question to engineers all over the country while giving my Engineer Your Own Success seminar.  The reason being is because through my new Institute for Engineering Career Development, I am trying to help engineers overcome the biggest challenges in developing their engineering career.

Here are some of the answers I have already received: [Read more...]

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Selecting an Engineering Company: Does Size Matter?

March 11, 2012 By 2 Comments

Last week I attended the 11th annual ASCE Younger Member CEO forum at Columbia University in New York City. The topic for the evening was: Selecting an Engineering Company: Does Size Matter? There was a panel consisting of high-level executives from some of the largest companies in the world as well as some smaller engineering companies. The panel included: Jack Buchsbaum, Assistant Chief engineer at the Port Authority of NY/NJ (PANYNJ), Neal Forshner. Sr. Vice President at AECOM, Neil Lucy, Senior Vice President at Parsons Brinckerhoff, Joseph Tortorella, Vice President at Robert Silman Associates, and Theodore von Rosenvinge, President at GeoDesign.

The president of the lower Hudson Valley ASCE Chase De Rose started out the night by stressing the importance of finding a mentor in your engineering career. In fact, the word mentor seemed to be a recurring theme throughout the evening in the panel members’ responses. Once the panel began, younger engineers had the opportunity to ask these executives questions about working in big or small engineering companies.  Deciding between a big or small engineering company can be a critical decision in your engineering career development.

One engineer asked the executives to give their opinion on how much harder it may be to stand out in a larger company.  Most of the panel members responded by saying it was up to the individual to engineer their own success in their career.  They’re general response was that regardless of the size of the firm, it’s your career and it’s up to you to take ownership of it and develop it.  They did not think that the size of the firm would greatly affect how much you stood out.  In fact, some of the executives of the larger companies even said that it might be easier to stand out at a larger company because of the magnitude of the projects that you’re going to work on.  This makes sense because while at a smaller engineering company, you may work on a project that’s the biggest project that company has ever seen, however at a larger company you may work on a revolutionary project that may be one of the biggest in the world.  In both cases you have a great opportunity to stand out and build a strong reputation in the engineering industry. [Read more...]

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How to Pass Any Test in Your Engineering Career

February 21, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Featured Guest Blogger: William Merunka, EIT, LEED AP

While we may not like it, we face many tests in our engineering career. These may be exams for specific certifications, a test of your negotiation skills when trying to land a major client, or even your debate skills when trying to convince a town to approve a major construction project that you have spent countless hours on to develop the best environmental and economic design. No matter what kind of test you are faced with, if you are not prepared, your chance of passing will not be that great. In this article I will discuss a few steps that you can take to get prepared. While my examples will relate closely to the Fundamentals of Engineering (FE) exam that I recently passed, these steps can be applied to any kind of test.

Know the rules/guidelines: It is important to know the rules and guidelines that need to be followed. Familiarize yourself with these guidelines so you know exactly what you are expected to do and how you need to do it. What tools/references are you allowed to bring, and which ones are you not allowed to bring. For academic exams, it is important to read admission guidelines. It would be terrible to spend countless hours studying for an 8 hour FE (also referred to as the EIT) exam only to be turned away because you arrived too late or you leave your admission ticket and/or personal identification at home. [Read more...]

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