Engineering Management Institute

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Career Goals and Challenges

Focus on Getting Better at Your Engineering Job Every Day

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Focus on Getting Better at Your Engineering Job Every Day is a guest blog by Holly Welles

Focus Engineering Job

Whether you’re starting an engineering management role for the first time or you’re a more seasoned professional, your energy is likely to wane after a few months of focusing at getting better at your engineering job. You’ve settled in and learned the ropes, after all. It becomes easier to do what needs to get done without pushing yourself to keep advancing your skills, service and expertise.

At this stage, it’s important to keep up your motivation. Engineering management professionals can do themselves, their teams and their clients a huge favor by focusing on getting better at their jobs every day. While it seems like a tall order, continual improvement is actually pretty easy to bake into your everyday routine.

You can focus on improving your priorities, mindset and knowledge with just a little effort each day. Here’s how to get started: [Read more…] about Focus on Getting Better at Your Engineering Job Every Day

How to Make Yourself an Always Demanded Engineering Professional

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How to Make Yourself an Always Demanded Engineering Professional is a guest blog by Jim Hughes

Demanded Engineering Professional
Regardless of your job, industry, or position in the company you work for, it is always important to stay in the competition and be an in-demand professional. By being a demanded engineering professional, you’ll always have options and opportunities to grow and take on bigger roles. If your boss gives you more responsibilities, it is likely because you are doing your job very well and he or she sees you as a skilled and dependable person. Getting your superiors’ attention goes a long way in enhancing your odds of getting a promotion or a salary increase. Though the competition may be tough for you, there are many ways to make yourself a highly demanded engineering professional. Here are some of the most effective ways in increasing your value as a professional. [Read more…] about How to Make Yourself an Always Demanded Engineering Professional

How to Use Your Fear to Build Your Self-Confidence as an Engineering Professional

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This is a guest blog by Nader Mowlaee

Self-Confidence
Building self-confidence is not easy. For many engineering professionals, comfort is a function of routine. We establish a set of sequences that we enjoy, that we know we succeed at, that will make us feel good, and that’s the end of it. But, to build true self-confidence, we need to break our routines. [Read more…] about How to Use Your Fear to Build Your Self-Confidence as an Engineering Professional

Young Engineers Moving into Management Positions

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This is a guest blog by Kyle K. Cheerangie, P.E.

Engineering Management

So, what is Engineering Management? Is it preparing budgets, scheduling, resource allocation and earned value management? These skills are the barometers of monitoring projects and work groups. But management principles are more defined than you’d think. Specifically: [Read more…] about Young Engineers Moving into Management Positions

Why Engineers Might Consider Opportunities in Construction Fields

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This is a guest blog by Holly Welles

Construction Fields

The automotive, aeronautical and electronics industries are all popular among engineering graduates, however, as a recent graduate, it’s essential to explore the full spectrum of possibilities. While you likely have preferences and priorities, you shouldn’t limit yourself by your expectations. There’s no set path you need to follow.

With this in mind, you should consider seeking opportunities within the construction field. It’s an excellent field for engineers, and there’s always demand for professionals with a specific set of skills and abilities. More than that, the necessity of construction ensures its value far into the future.

Presently, you might be curious about what engineering in construction fields entails. I’ll tell you everything you need to know about the subject, touching on three reasons why you should research the industry and review your options. Consider the following…

[Read more…] about Why Engineers Might Consider Opportunities in Construction Fields

Good Engineers Practice: Skills to Advance Your Career

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This is a guest post by Kyle K. Cheerangie, P.E.
Practice

As a younger engineer I occasionally spent time doing the wrong things. My eagerness caused me to accept tasks and work with unconfirmed assumptions. This lead to repeat work and disappointment from my mangers. My focus was on activity, not results.

Keeping a journal helped me learned that I was spending much of my time doing tasks that did not contribute to my team. The best engineers perform the necessary tasks and delegate or eliminate the unnecessary.

Practice

For example, spending weeks to create a report with multiple iterations for comments and changes, when a simple technical memorandum would suffice. Young engineers typically experience challenges like this one and most managers don’t have the heart to say, “No! This is not what I want.”

Learn and practice these skills to improve: 

[Read more…] about Good Engineers Practice: Skills to Advance Your Career

5 Key Skills You Can Build to Manage Conflict in the Workplace

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5 Key Skills You Can Build to Manage Conflict in the Workplace
is a guest blog by Walter Bodell

Manage Conflict

Conflict is an inevitable part of life. People with the healthiest relationships, both personally and professionally, understand and recognize this fact. Rather than trying to simply avoid conflict, they learn to manage conflict and work through it. Developing good conflict resolution skills for the workplace is possibly one of the most important things you can do to create a healthy working environment both for yourself and for others. By learning to manage and resolve conflict in the workplace, you can make yourself an invaluable part of almost any team. Here are 5 critical elements to you can use to manage conflict in the workplace.

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3 Things You Need to Know to Engineer Resolution

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Engineer ResolutionOne thing that is certain to happen in your engineering career is conflict.  This isn’t because the engineering profession is more prone to conflict than accounting or that engineers tend to be a contentious lot.  It’s because, as in any profession, you’ll find people.  Wherever there are people you will find conflict.  Because of this, it’s important to develop a basic understanding of the three things you need to know to engineer resolution.

[Read more…] about 3 Things You Need to Know to Engineer Resolution

Are you Focused on Moving your Engineering Career Forward, Every Day?

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Are you Focused on Moving your Engineering Career Forward, Every Day?

Engineering Career ForwardOdds are if you’re like most engineers, you show up at work each day, solve problems, go home, and then come back the next day and repeat that process.  Obviously, I am simplifying things here.  Within that, ‘solve problems’ generalization, lie thousands of amazing projects, inventions, and solutions that move our world forward.  Engineers create extraordinary things. But what career-related items do you partake in outside of your engineering projects, and how you do you decide when or why to execute them and move your engineering career forward?

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Can You Explain Your Engineering Career Goals While Standing On One Leg?

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Can You Explain Your Engineering Career Goals While Standing On One Leg?Career Goals

As we begin another calendar year, I would urge you to think deeply about your professional career goals for the upcoming year, but also beyond that.  What do you want to accomplish in your engineering career?  What does your career look like from a big picture perspective?  Could you explain it succinctly if I asked you to?

There are several fables around the idea of being able to describe something while standing on one leg, basically suggesting that this would force you to be concise and focus on the most important aspects of the thing you are attempting to explain.

Therefore, I want to challenge you to do this in your own engineering career.

[Read more…] about Can You Explain Your Engineering Career Goals While Standing On One Leg?