Changing Your Engineering Career Archives - Engineering Management Institute

This is a guest post by Nader Mowlaee

STEP 1: Identify the Outcomes You Want to Create or Contribute To

Align your mission with a company’s mission that motivates you. It is tough to come up with innovative ideas by yourself, especially if you are starting to set new goals or changing your engineering career and you do not know where to start.

If this sounds like you, then you’re not alone. Many engineers have been making career transitions this year and certainly last year in 2020, and I have been there guiding them along the way. I know how it feels to come up short and feel like there is no future for you, and in this article, I want to give you a simple 2-step process to setting powerful goals that can contribute to you successfully changing your engineering career in 2021.

Let’s start by accepting that the world is our playground and we can get to play with our own rules, especially as an engineer. We are a special breed of people who can acquire new skills on demand and can pivot whenever it’s necessary so that we can create better outcomes in our careers and lives. However, you do not have to create your own job from scratch. Just join an existing team, follow their footsteps, and enable them to achieve their grand vision. Then you can branch out later to create your own unique results.

Here is an example: When I decided to leave an engineering career behind and get into technical recruiting, I had no idea what I was getting myself into. All I had was a role model and an attractive staffing company I had just joined. So all the goals I set were fully aligned with that company’s vision and core values.