Mentoring Blog

16 Ways to Start Your Engineering Career on the Right Foot

Here are some helpful suggestions edited from Career Success in Engineering by Bernard Berson, P.E., F.NSPE, former NSPE president and Douglas Benner P.E., F.NSPE. The tips are focused on the new employee, but there is something here for all of us.

1. Be early to work; be prompt in the work environment. At college, if you violated these rules, you merely got behind the eight ball and had to play catch-up. On the job, violations of these rules can have more serious consequences.
2. Focus on the quality of your work. Even though there may not be time to be absolutely perfect, avoid mistakes as much as you reasonably can.
3. Hard work has multiple rewards: from your peers, your employer, and your clients. Other employees quickly note your energy level as well as your rate of learning. Don't wait to be spoon fed. Show lots of initiative. Show lots of interest. Make your manager a success.
4. Expect difficult, complicated, and multidisciplinary problems.
5. Make a concerted effort to understand how your work impacts the overall product or project. This will instill a strong feeling of the importance of your efforts. It also gives you insights into how you can expand the scope of your work.
6. Learn to be business oriented. Learn the economics of your organization. Learn about your organization's competition.
7. Define your short-term and long-term career goals, but don't assume every assignment must be strongly supportive of those goals. When an assignment is not strongly supportive, consider it to be a stepping stone on your career path. What are your career goals? How will you attain them?
8. Continuously analyze and understand your personal SWOTs. What are your STRENGTHS? What are your WEAKNESSES? What are the best OPPORTUNITIES to enhance your career? What—and possibly who—are THREATS to your career advancement, and how will you deal with these?
9. Develop your personal vision; this is very important. What is your future goal, i.e. management or technical? What can you do to attain that goal? What do you want to do with your life? What do you want to be doing in 10, 20, or 30 years?
10. You are your own career manager; ask for regular feedback. The practice of your employer working with you to map out a career plan is over. You are the CEO of your career. You need to assume this responsibility starting on day one of your new job. Learn to work and network in the new multicultural and multinational environment.
11. Be open to ideas from everywhere. Think of your brain like a sponge, and absorb as much as you can as fast as you can. Learn to network with as many people and resources as possible.
12. Learn to be a team player, especially where the team must deal with conflict and team members seem to have different agendas.
13. Have unyielding integrity. Ethics in the engineering environment is very important to you and to your company. Many companies now have a code of conduct. Be familiar with the Engineers’ Creed.
14. Support your technical society and your university. Your technical society is a great resource for networking. Also, you need to give back to your university and to your profession.
15. Seek a mentoring relationship. You need to take a proactive role in seeking a mentor, which often is described as a trusted counselor or teacher, especially in occupational settings. This is normally not your current supervisor, who is responsible for your work or a trainer who is responsible to teach you specific skills.
16. Have fun! Find outlet activities that supplement and complement your career interests.