How to Get out of an Engineering Job that’s not Moving you Towards your Life Goals
Q: How can I get out of an engineering job that’s not moving me towards my goals?
Welcome to episode #37 of Engineering Career TV. The theme for today’s episode is: How to Get out of an Engineering Job that’s not Moving you Towards your Life Goals.
I spend almost all of the Engineering Career TV episodes answering questions that have been submitted by engineers around the world. The questions are typically focused on professional development for engineering professionals, especially relevant to practicing engineers.
You can submit questions for the show by clicking here.
Let’s jump into today’s topic: How to Get out of an Engineering Job that’s not Moving you Towards your Life Goals. This topic is based on a question from Yiannis, who asks the following:
Q: Hello I graduated from Cardiff University in the UK as a structural engineer and for the past two years I have been working in Bahrain as a site engineer. Although I want to work as a Structural Engineer, the only reason that I followed this opportunity in Bahrain was because I believed that with site experience I could easily eventually work as a structural engineer. What do you think about this and what steps should I do in order to follow my dream and become a structural engineer?
A: The full answer can be seen in the Engineering Career TV video above, but here are a few of the main points:
- Sometimes finding another job isn’t that easy and the more jobs you get, the more harmful to your resume, because hopping around doesn’t look good to recruiters or HR managers and that could pose a problem down the road for your career.
- If you get a job that is not helping you towards your goals, try to stay as long as possible and learn from that job everything you can that will help you eventually reach your goals.
- It is always important to move towards your goals, but sometimes not at the expense of jumping around from job to job in the first few years of your career.
- There’s nothing wrong with looking for another job in the meantime.
- Get the most you can out of this job and if you find another job, make sure that the second job has long-term potential if you’re going to make that move.
Resources mentioned in today’s Engineering Career TV:
Ask a Question
The Engineering Mastermind
The Engineering Management Accelerator
I hope you found this episode of Engineering Career TV helpful.
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What questions do you have about getting out of an engineering job that’s not moving you towards your goals?
To your success,
Anthony Fasano, PE, LEED AP
Engineering Management Institute
Author of Engineer Your Own Success
