Five Tips for Advancing Your Engineering Career
Candidates
It’s always a good time to be thinking about the next steps in your career. Of course, gaining experience is crucial and it helps to be patient, but you need to consciously map out your career in order to put yourself in a position to be promoted and be successful. Consider having a master’s degree, developing your soft skills and growing your network.
Set career goals
If you don’t know where you want your career to be, you’ll never know if you’re on the right path to get there. Haphazard career planning leaves a lot to random chance. Take the time every few months to reflect on where your career is and where you want it to be. Work backwards and figure out what the intermediate stages look like.
Get an advanced degree
A master’s degree is becoming increasingly essential to advance an engineering career. Technology is advancing, but bachelor’s degree requirements are not, so in order to keep up with updates and new demands, additional education is necessary. Even if a master’s degree might not help you in your specific line of engineering, you should always continue to learn new technical skills to make yourself more marketable and able to hang with the competition when it’s time for promotion. Even the playing field as much as you can!
Develop your soft skills
One of the most important soft skills is communication. Who says engineers only do numbers and not words? If you want to be promoted in the engineering world, you need to be able to express yourself effectively, hear what people are saying and get along with all kinds of people.
Network
Reach out to your peers and find mentors who will help you set goals and advise you in ways to grow your role. Join professional groups that are specific to your career and even more generalized professional or commerce groups. Aside from interacting with as many colleagues as you can, you should attend conferences, seminars and lectures. By developing these relationships and frequenting these events, you can gain advice about growth and learn about opportunities.
Be bold and ask for opportunities!
Stay alert for new projects and responsibilities and don’t be afraid to try something new. Even if your boss denies you, you’re showing him that you’re eager and ambitious and ready for new challenges.
For more tips on how to advance your career and achieve engineering success, contact CulverCareers today.