If You Don’t Engineer Your Own Success in Your Career

There are way too many engineers out there that subscribe to the idea that by going to a good engineering school and then getting a job with a reputable engineering company, he or she will have a great engineering career.

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but that idea is nothing more than an idea and by no means is it a fact. While getting an engineering degree and subsequently an engineering job are critical components of your engineering career development, they are by no means the paths to success, if anything, I would consider them the first steps.

In order to create an extraordinary engineering career, you are going to have to develop skills that you most likely didn't learn in school and won't learn from your employer. You are going to have to:

1. Set clear goals which will provide a destination for where you are headed in your career,

2. Obtain the credentials that will help you to achieve your goals (i.e. licenses, certifications, degrees, awards, etc.),

3. Find a mentor who can guide you towards achieving your goals based on his or her experience and success achieving similar goals,

4. Develop your communication skills, especially your presentation and speaking skills as they will allow you to present your ideas to prospective employers, clients, and colleagues.

5.  Build a professional network by creating solid relationships with others in your industry,

6.  Become extremely productive and efficient to keep up with today’s fast paced world and maintain balance in your life,

7.  Develop your leadership abilities that you do have deep down inside whether you realize it or not.

I wrote this post to do two things: 1) to make it clear to you that it’s up to you to engineer your own success in your engineering career and 2) to give you some of the key skills that you should focus on developing. Now I want to take it one step further. In the paragraph below you’ll find a link to a complimentary webinar that will provide you with detailed strategies that you can use to develop these 7 skills. Don’t think that someone else is going to do it for you – your career is in your hands!

This is a guest post by Anthony Fasano, PE, author of Engineer Your Own Success. Anthony found success as an engineer at a very early age and now writes and podcasts to help other engineers do the same. Visit Anthony’s website atEngineeringCareerCoach.com and subscribe to the top 3 resources Anthony has used to become a partner in a firm at the age of 27.