Q: Why should you dominate a niche in your engineering field?
Welcome to Episode #16 of Engineering Career TV. The topic for this episode is Why You Should Dominate a Niche In Your Engineering Field.
I will spend most of the Engineering Career TV episodes answering questions that have been submitted from engineers around the world on how to rapidly advance their careers and live the lives they want to live.
You can submit questions for the show by clicking here.
Let’s jump into today’s topic, Why You Should Dominate a Niche In Your Engineering Field, which is based on a question from Swagat, who asks the following:
Q: Swagat says: I want to make a big impact in the world. Here is what Larry Page (co-founder of Google) recommends in regards to preparation. You should have a pretty broad engineering and scientific background.
You should have some leadership training and a bit of MBA training or knowledge of how to run things, organize stuff, and raise money. I don’t think most people are doing that and that’s a big problem. Engineers are usually trained in a very fixed area. When you’re able to think about all of these disciplines together. You think differently and can dream of much crazier things of how they might work.
I think that’s a really important thing for the world. That’s how we make progress. I am a business student at a university and have all the necessary education except for broad engineering and scientific background. What’s the best way to acquire this background? Should I just watch science videos?
A: The full answer can be seen in the video above, but here are a few of the main points:
- Select a niche in your engineering field or firm and dominate it.
- Select a very specific discipline in engineering and focus all of your efforts on becoming the expert in that field.
- Those engineers that are niche experts are the ones that are going to get hired for very specific problems.
- Don’t fall for the notion that you have to be broad, because in my opinion when you try to serve too many people, you’re serving no one.
Resources mentioned in today’s Engineering Career TV:
Ask a Question
The Engineering Mastermind
I hope you found this episode of Engineering Career TV helpful.
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What questions do you have about dominating a niche in your engineering field?
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To your success,
Anthony Fasano, PE, LEED AP
Engineering Management Institute
Author of Engineer Your Own Success
