Be Careful of What You Wish for...

....in your Engineering Career.

This a guest blog post by Anthony Fasano, P.E. Anthony is a civil engineer, engineering career coach, best-selling author and founder of Powerful Purpose Associates.

Anthony is giving away a special webinar for Starting up an Engine[er] readers on his Powerful Purpose Associates website. Read until the end of the post to find out how to get it.

So without further ado, please take it away Anthony!

Engine[er]

For my entire life, I have always wanted a pet Siberian Husky yet to this day I still don’t have one. Why you might ask? Because every time the thought of getting one creeps into my head, I immediately consider all of the consequences and responsibilities that will come along with the dog. These consequences and responsibilities would not allow me to achieve my career and personal goals which include traveling and therefore I pass on getting a dog – every time.

Now let me give you an analogous example of a situation as it relates to your engineering career development. You’re a hard-working engineer struggling to achieve work-family balance in your life because of the amount of work responsibilities you have and hours you work in a week.

However, the reason you are working so many hours is because you desperately want to become a partner in your engineering firm. Why?

So that you can make more money and possibly work on some more interesting projects, and of course work more hours! Do you see the problem here? You are working so hard to achieve something that is going to put you further away from the balance you want to have in your life. The reason engineers do this is because they have no measuring stick or system in place to tell them whether or not a decision they are making or a position they are pursuing is right for them. That measuring stick or that system is very simply your CAREER GOALS.

Your career goals act as destinations for where you are headed in both your engineering career and your life overall, giving you a target to move towards. I always like to use the following analogy to describe this idea best. Let’s say you get into your car to drive to a project site that you have never been before; you need one critical piece of information to get there – the address!

Without the address you’d be driving in circles for a long-time, however with the address you can easily use your GPS or google maps to quickly find the best route to your destination. Think of your career goals as these addresses. To take this analogy one step further, when you come to intersections in the road, the decision whether to turn right or left is much easier when you know where you are going. These intersections represent decisions that you have to make in your career every day. Questions like: should I get an engineering master’s degree or an MBA, should I work for a smaller engineering company or large one, etc. When you have clear career goals, you will be able to confidently answer these questions because you will know which route will lead to your goals the fastest.

Your goals should act as a foundation for every single decision you make in your engineering career and life. Engineers of all experience levels should have clearly defined career goals and should revisit their goals a few times per year.

So how do you set clearly defined goals?

You must start with a brainstorming process where you list your values, including everything that is important to you in your career and life. Once
you have done this, you should go through a series of questions that will include where you want to be in your engineering career, WHY you want to be there, and of course - how do I get there? This is an in-depth process and too much for me to cover in this post, which is why I am going to give all Starting up an Engine[er] readers a free copy of a webinar I recently gave for my Institute for Engineering Career Development that details the entire goal setting process including detailed steps and examples. Please watch this webinar in its entirety as it could change your engineering career and life forever!

My goal is to travel around the world and help engineers develop their careers, which is why I am not quite ready yet to get my Siberian Husky. My goals make it easy to remember this every time I get the doggy urge. I ask you to please consider setting your career goals today so that you don’t end up chasing something in your career that brings you more hours of work, more responsibility, maybe even more money, yet it doesn’t bring you any closer to your true goals.

As mentioned above Anthony Fasano P.E., is giving away a copy of his previously recorded webinar entitled Goal Setting for Engineers: Setting Yourself Up for Continued Success in Your Engineering Career just for Starting up an Engine[er] readers which provides a step-by-step process and examples for setting clear career goals. Get it at PowerfulPurpose.com. The steps in this webinar will help you to ensure that you set goals that are in alignment with your true desires to help you create an exciting and extraordinary engineering career.

Concrete Angels

Bored? Read this document. This an annual online PDF report published by EngineeringUK, aimed at summarising the state of engineering in the UK.

Don't worry they do mention civil and structural engineers :)

It's a fantastic read, and it highlights that EngineeringUK are committed to the pursuit of two important strategic goals:

• Improve the perception of engineering, engineers and technology in the UK.

• To improve the supply of engineers.

It says so, on page 1. So you had better believe it!

How do they intend on tackling these age old problems? With age old, tried [tired] and tested techniques of course. Are you beginning to understand why our industry has not really moved on for the last 30 years or so now?

The report is a very large one, and deserves a great deal more attention than I am about to afford it. Many apologies in advance to the documents authors [co authors etc.], I will be absorbing it in its entirety for the next few weeks.

Right here, right now though - I am interested in understanding how civil and structural engineering, education, public awareness and training is being dealt with.

Interesting statistics from 'engineering education' sources:

• 47% of educators think that a career in engineering is desirable.
• 21% of students aged 14 to 16, think that a career in engineering is desirable.

Apparently someone has been telling students that you need to be strong in sciences and maths. Both subjects are real crowd pleaser's obviously, so inevitably there will be a tailing off in interest... we shouldn't be surprised of that.

Question. Those few students, who have decided that an average starting salary of £25-26k is a large enough carrot to stomach the maths homework, won't they just be subsequently exposed to an industry which has been rigidly carrying out the same training and education routines for the last 50+ years?


So who cares? The industry is hardly changing, it's just adapting and reacting to loss of students to the financial and insurance sectors. We need a real change. Don't we?

Why do we insist on gambling our futures on 14-16 year old students who are currently still hedging their bets on being discovered as the next X-Factor mega star or the managing director of the next billionaire start-up?

Next on my list of 'DOH!' events is so called green technologies. Don't get me wrong, the construction industry has a massive task in front of them. Clearly designing economically is not good enough nowadays. So we all have our green stamps at the ready; STAMP! Automated, super-pod designed, interchangeable, recyclable materials costing our clients many more thousands of pounds to utilise and construct thier buildings.

Designing economically should be our first and foremost concern. We still have plenty of carbon and economic savings to be had, just there.

What's my contribution to green technologies? I design economically for practical construction and installation, questioning serviceability limits whenever I feel that I can, and I am currently making leaps and bounds towards achieving a paperless office. No applause please. Every little helps.

I have skimmed the EngineeringUK document so far, and have therefore formed a summarised appreciation of the findings. I'm sure there are some hidden gems in there, which I will be exposing over the next few weeks.

My initial thoughts are that we are placing a high level of importance in the following aspects [strategic goals included]:

• Engaging with and courting world leaders, politicians, and hard hitting industry generals. Why? A unified message needs to be delivered.

• What's the message? Push harder. Go in that direction over there. Be better, think more and achieve more. I know what you are thinking... because I'm an engineer too. Isn't that all a bit vague?! We are required to translate the meaning of these high level orders and condense them into a proper battlefield strategy. Micro businesses to multi national engineering powerhouses, we deserve better than that, don't we?

• Education. Get'em young. Spread the word. I am trying hard not to look confused and quizzical as I write this, as is this not code for placing all our eggs in one basket? Invite more recruits into a system that has not changed for years... even I can be more creative than that. I'll show you too.

• Raise the threshold level of theoretical knowledge in university education. This is great, but isn't the industry is crying out for experienced engineers to help them succeed, in an industry [world] writhing with financial and technological challenges.

I need to share some more of my vision with you.

As from today, I'm searching. Searching for a civil engineering graduate [bias in structural engineering - buildings], or a student currently in their final year. I cannot specify exactly what I am looking for yet, but I will know in 5 minutes of meeting them [or indeed reading their CV's] that they are right person for the job.

Paradoxically though, below is a short list of the qualities I'll be looking for:

1. Tech savvy.
2. Outgoing, and interesting to chat to. Hungry for growth.
3. Able to demonstrate practical aptitude as well as theoretical mastery.
4. Wishes to own their own business in the future.
5. Kick-ass hard working attitude and willing to demonstrate that.
6. A sports person. Don't ask me why, but sports people have a certain something about them. They are competitive and tenacious. We need that. 

That's it.

Together we will embark upon securing you 18 months worth of industry beating engineering experience, setting standards to allow others to follow in your footsteps, and build an enviable CV as a result. Thus setting you up for your illustrious tour of duty with the heavy engineering giants [you pick one]. You will quickly move up the ranks, doing a full circle and eventually become your own boss, and industrious leader in your own right.

This is not a normal employment opportunity. It does not come with promises of a comfortable 18 months of engineering servitude. It does however come with a vision.

If you believe that doing something different and pushing the industry in a way that it has never experienced is a worthy cause...then you have simply got to contact me.

"Anything worth having, is worth working for" Andrew Carnegie.

So where does the Concrete Angel thing come in? Well to be regarded as an angel in business you are expected to invest time and [mainly] money to help a chosen businesses to fulfil their dreams.

In this case, the structural engineers engaged to help you on your way to building your career will also be investing both time and money... and that makes them Concrete Angels.

I look forward to the applications. Email me on glen@avatar-engineering.co.uk


Engine[er]