Advance Your Engineering Career With These Ten Tips
If you have been an engineer for a while, then you’ll eventually come across a period where your career appears to stagnate. This can happen to any engineer – from someone who has just entered to industry to a veteran engineer. There could be several reasons why your career seems to slow down as well. Upward mobility at the company you work for could be limited, or you could find yourself stuck doing reports.
Have a look at these crucial pointers to assist you advance in your career if you think you’re stagnating:
1. Create A Career Plan
Most engineers don’t take the time out to actually plan their careers. Evaluate your development at least two times a year. Write down your career goals and actively work on reaching them. If you don’t know what you’re goals are, you won’t know what your targets are.
Reevaluate your objectives periodically to see how near you are to achieving them.
2. Create A Great Resume
In your career, you’ll probably find yourself changing jobs, moving on to better opportunities. Every time this happens, you should update your resume. If you complete new courses and gain new skills, these should go into your resume as well. Your resume should be capable of standing out against your competition, and to do this, you’ll need to showcase your skills and experience.
3. Do What Others Don’t Want To
There will be some tasks that others refuse to do, perhaps because it is too challenging. Take advantage of these opportunities to do those tasks yourself, and prove how capable you are. You’ll be able to develop a reputation for yourself as the ‘go to’ engineer when something challenging comes up.
4. Keep Learning
When you know your trade in and out, you’ll be more capable of doing any task that your employer asks you to do. Even if you reach a high level in your career, you’ll still need to learn new things to stay relevant in the industry. You’ll need to keep reading literature relevant to your industry, from books to articles to industry reports.
5. Strive For More
Upskilling is crucial in any industry. Every time you perfect a new ability, you might learn that there’s another skill that you need to learn. Be hungry for information and knowledge, and this can help you be relevant in your industry. Engineering is a rapidly developing industry and staying on top of latest developments is a full time job in itself.
6. Improving Conversational Skills
As an engineering professional, you ought to be able to express your thoughts as well. Learn how to control as well as direct the conversation. If there are questions that you don’t want to answer, then know how to deflect that into another question. Know how to simply express your thoughts to clients as well. If they have questions for you, then answer these such that your clients can understand what you’re saying.
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7. Keep Experimenting
Employers are especially happy about working with engineers who keep experimenting with what they learn. From developing software to creating widgets that you can carry with you to interviews, experiment outside of work.
8. Get A Mentor
Having a mentor can be extremely helpful. They can guide you towards how you can advance in your career. If you feel you’re stagnating, they’ll know how to get you out of your rut. Look for someone in your professional network who can be your mentor.
9. Pursue Higher Education
You can show that you’re an expert in your field by pursuing higher education. You can get new licenses, such as a professional engineer license. You can also pursue additional degrees from a University. Even short term courses designed to improve your technical skills can help you get ahead.
10. Share Expertise Through Social Media
You should also have a solid online presence, and almost all social media websites can assist you to realise this. Utilize social media websites like LinkedIn or Facebook to interact with like-minded industry professionals. Share your thoughts as well as your expertise, and develop a strong online reputation. You can write articles as well, and share them online. From creating podcasts to videos, use social media to share your content.
Conclusion
If you want to keep experiencing success in your career, then you’ll need to keep growing as an engineer. There are a considerable number of ways to boost your career. This guide takes you through ten tips that can aid you in advancing and growing in your career.
