Professional Development - Powerful Purpose Associates

The Importance of Surrounding Yourself With Positive, Motivated People in Your Engineering Career

May 3, 2012 By Anthony Fasano 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...]

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

April 12, 2012 By Anthony Fasano 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...]

Filed Under: Engineering Career Development, Positive Attitude, Professional Development Tagged With: engineering career development, Engineering Career Inspiration, how to become a successful engineer

How Belonging to a Professional Society Can Energize Your Engineering Career

April 1, 2012 By Anthony Fasano 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...]

Filed Under: Professional Development Tagged With: engineering career development, engineering societies, how to become a successful engineer

Maintaining a Professional Image Throughout Your Career

December 28, 2011 By Anthony Fasano Leave a Comment

Featured Guest Blogger: Gavin Redelman of RedStarResume

Congratulations on securing your job. You have been selected above and beyond the other job applicants because of all the wonderful factors that made you the best fit for the job. Now that you have the job there are many tips to keeping your position and maintaining a professional image.

Understand Your Role and Expectations

You may feel as though you are doing a fantastic job, but if your expectations differ from those of your manager or boss, there is going to be conflict. Be sure to always have a good understanding of what is expected of you. If you feel that the expectations are unrealistic, then you should approach your boss and explain the situation. One of the most important aspects of maintaining a professional image is being a good team player and contributing fairly to the team objectives. No one likes a colleague who does not do his or her fair share of the work.

Expand Your Role and Keep on Learning

Be a team player and look to get involved in more areas of the business. Be willing to share your expertise, but also be willing to learn new skills. If your company offers training courses, put your hand up to get involved. If your company doesn’t offer training courses, you can still take the initiative and invest in your own growth and knowledge by paying for these courses yourself. After all, it is your career! [Read more...]

Filed Under: Career Development, Positive Attitude, Professional Development Tagged With: Professional Image

Networking is Critical to Finding Those Post-Graduate Engineering Jobs

November 30, 2011 By Anthony Fasano 2 Comments

Featured Guest Blogger: Nick Jameson

If you’re the average college senior nearing the point where you enter the real world, you have every reason to be worried: the economy is stagnant, the recession appears to have no end in sight, employees aren’t hiring, and Americans in their 20’s are, percentage-wise, the least employed demographic segments. No doubt about it; there’s a lot of concerning data out there, and looking for a job post-graduation may be a more painful process than medical billing or sitting at the DMV.

But if you’re an engineering student about to complete an engineering degree, you may feel a bit better about your chances. You have a highly marketable major, after all, and your parents, friends, and college advisers are probably telling you that engineers have nothing to fear. It’s a growing field, they say. It’s recession-proof.

So, for those of you out there in that situation, what should you believe? Should you expect years of unemployment or a long line of suitors? Are post-grad, entry-level engineers truly weathering the recession as well as some may think?

The answer, as you may expect, lies somewhere in the middle. A few things that are for sure: engineers possess a marketable skill set, demonstrated career potential, and an intended line of work that has certainly been growing in recent decades. On the other hand, though, the recession has still taken its toll on engineering firms. So what does this mean for the post-grad applicant? It probably means job offers and excellent employment opportunities are out there – but you’re going to need to be resourceful in tracking them down. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Networking, Professional Development Tagged With: Engineering Career, Engineering Graduate, engineering school

Big or Small Company – Which is Better for Developing My Engineering Career?

October 25, 2011 By Anthony Fasano 7 Comments

I have been asked by many engineering professionals, especially engineering students and younger engineers, “Is it more beneficial to my career development to work in a small or large engineering company?” This is an excellent question, but unfortunately one that doesn’t have a straightforward answer because it really depends on so many different things. First and foremost it will depend on your career goals and which situation will put you in the best position to achieve them. It also depends specifically on which companies you are looking at as not every small or large company offers the same benefits or drawbacks.

That being said, in this post I will offer some advice from my own experience as well as some information I recently received from an executive at a large (the largest) engineering company.

I spent most of my career working at small to mid-sized engineering companies. When I graduated, I worked for a company that had about 5 employees total. This was a great experience because it allowed me to get involved with every aspect of a project including fieldwork, office work, and team/client coordination. I learned so much about the engineering industry in this position. One of the major drawbacks was that the benefits were not as good as those at a mid-size or larger firm. For example, there was no reimbursement available for graduate school or other courses that I wanted to take. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Career Development, Professional Development

Engineers: Remember, It’s Your Own Success

August 2, 2011 By Anthony Fasano 2 Comments

Featured Guest Blogger: Charles J. Gervasi

Staying independent is key to engineering success. Engineers are independent by nature. An engineer who spends too much time focused on someone else’s goals can become resentful. Pursuing only your own goals is not as simple as it sounds. Many years ago I had a supervisor say, “If you’re dedicated to being a top engineer, you should apply for a job with title XYZ in the group ABC within our company.” The contra positive of that is that if I did not jump through their hoops, I was not a dedicated engineer. I had signed up to solve this manager’s engineering problems and I wanted to accept the things he said, but I realized this particular premise was wrong. A manager, even a more experienced one, cannot set my goals for me. If I had gone along with my employer’s program, I would have felt resentful every time something did not go my way. I might have felt like I turned over my professional development to them and they mismanaged it. If I had done that

I would share some of the blame because it’s impossible to turn over responsibility for my life to someone else.

Plan to Job-Jump

Thirty years ago job-jumping was looked down upon. In today’s word, changing jobs every couple years, especially for a beginning engineer, is perfectly normal. The most important reason to plan for job-jumping is that when you get into a situation where something at your job is not working for you, it is easy to respond dispassionately. It is much easier to maintain a positive attitude toward your colleagues if you do not feel trapped. They may be doing something you think is completely asinine, but you can stay positive and open to working on future projects in areas where you do agree.

Another side-benefit to job-jumping is that most companies give annual raises of 3% to 6% but pay 15% to 20% over someone’s current pay to entice them to switch. It does not matter whether you’re currently toward the bottom or top of typical engineering salary, you can move up in pay much faster by job-jumping. Once a new employer wants you, there’s nothing wrong with negotiating. If you’re up for a raise next month and new employer is offering you a 12% raise to switch, point out that this is only a 7% raise over your pay as of next month. If you currently get more vacation time, a new employer will sometimes match what you currently get and find it easier to negotiate on vacation time than on salary.

Keep in mind the raises are just a side benefit. The main benefit of job-jumping is to learn more technology, meet more people, and be exposed to new ways of doing things. That will bring far more money than manipulating corporate payscale systems. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Career Development, Professional Development Tagged With: Career Success, inspirational

The Importance of the Non-Technical Professional Component of Engineering Education

July 24, 2011 By Anthony Fasano 4 Comments

Featured Guest Blogger:

Merlin Kirschenman, P.E., CPC, M.ASCE, M. AIC

The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) has been a leader in “raising the bar” for the education of civil engineers. In 2001, ASCE established the Task Committee on Academic Prerequisites for Professional Practice. During a decade of work on raising the requirements for a professional engineer, this committee accomplished a lot, and in 2008 it published the Body Of Knowledge Second edition (BOK-2). This establishes the education requirement of a master’s degree in engineering, or equivalent, to qualify to be a licensed professional engineer. The BOK-2 addresses the necessary non-technical topics, but it lacked emphasis or depth of knowledge in the non-technical, professional areas of the education phase; which is necessary to prepare the graduate engineer to function as a master builder and meet the requirements for ASCE’s Vision 2025. The 5^th year of the BOK-2 is dedicated to technical knowledge topics; making it similar to a current advanced technical engineering degree.

Many engineers believe the “raise the bar” effort for engineering education should include significantly more professional preparation especially in leadership, management, business, communication and public policy. During the preparation of the ASCE BOK reports, some of the committee members with industry backgrounds tried to get more professionalism into the 5^th year of the CE curriculum. They proposed that the 5^th year should be a professional engineering degree instead of more technical knowledge. However, they were not successful in obtaining this level of professionalism in the BOK reports.

The following are a few comments and suggestions on how the concerns of those who want more professional aspects in the education process can be addressed while still addressing the concerns of those who want the primary emphasis to be on the technical aspects. This debate has been going on for quite some time and it doesn’t appear like a resolution of the differences is forthcoming. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Career Development, Leadership, Professional Development Tagged With: Engineering Degree or MBA, Engineering Master's Degree, Master's in Engineering

How to Lead a High-Performance Team Without Creating Stress

July 8, 2011 By Anthony Fasano 3 Comments

Featured Guest Blogger: Jeff Goodling

Historically political leaders have held power though the use of fear, either the fear of the despot (Stalin, Duvalier, Amin, etc.), or by offering protection from those that are feared (providing sanctuary within the castle walls). Many of today’s business leaders continue to believe that fear is an appropriate tool to motivate their employees. These leaders will state that the company can’t stay ahead of its competitors unless productivity increases, that the employee can be replaced by someone who will work harder or cheaper, or creating competition between two employees for a promotion.

I don’t think anyone wants to admit that they are living in fear, but we make decisions based upon fear daily, and many of those fear based decisions (i.e. jumping out of the way of a speeding car) are sensible. I think it’s healthy to acknowledge our fears, and also to acknowledge that stress is only a more acceptable term for fear. Frankly, without any stress in my life I’m not sure I’d get out of bed every morning.

I also recognize that stress can temporarily motivate employees. However the medical profession is convinced that it is not a sustainable state, and in my experience creating a stressful work environment causes your best employees (those with the most options) to be the first to leave.

This leads us to the crux of the issue — how do you lead without creating stress? [Read more...]

Filed Under: Leadership, Professional Development, Uncategorized Tagged With: stressful boss

Anthony Fasano

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