Nader Mowlaee

Let’s Rewrite Your 2019 Career Goals

February 4, 2019 By Anthony Fasano

Let’s Rewrite Your 2019 Career Goals is a guest post by Nader Mowlaee

It’s been five weeks since we returned from the holidays. We went quickly back to our jobs, the same old routines, the same old molds. Some of us have already transitioned to a new job or a new company in January, but some still haven’t achieved what they aimed for regardless of how much they tried. If that sounds like you, then this article is for you. Before we get started though, remember that there is nothing wrong with your big 2019 career goals and dreams, so don’t ever lower your expectations. Lowering the target won’t make it easier to hit if you lack the fundamental skills. Your goals aren’t too big; they are not the problem. If you haven’t achieved them yet consider the possibility that there are still other ways that you can persist and pursue your goals. It’s what you deserve.

Building Real Friendships That Can Get Engineers Hired

November 21, 2018 By Anthony Fasano

This is a guest post by Nader Mowlaee

It might sound contrary to the idea of career professionalism but building real friendships can and will get you hired. In fact, if you’re not making friends when you network, you’re not doing it properly.

Networking is the most powerful job search strategy because it will lead to getting referred in for jobs that aren’t yet advertised, meaning you’ll have much less or no competition going into the interview process.

Building real friendships works extremely well when they’re based on genuine attraction and interest; think about this not as ‘what someone can do for you,’ but rather, ‘what you can do for someone else’ without expecting anything back. That’s how you make a new friend. Help without expecting anything back. Genuine friendships always make sense and feel good when they originate, and they will always pay off in the long run.

Build Real Friendships That Are Genuine

How to Use the PSI Framework to Sell Yourself in a Job Interview

October 31, 2018 By Anthony Fasano

How to Use the PSI Framework is a guest post by Nader Mowlaee

PSI stands for more than just “pounds per square inch” when inflating tires. It also stands for a meaningful way to enhance your value to a potential new or existing employer, especially during job interviews.

The PSI framework is also a great method you can use on the job to sell a project, product or idea to just about anyone. It’s an amazing tool to convince engineering leaders and managers that there is a problem needing to be addressed and that your solution is the best way to fix the issue.

P – Problem

How to Sell Yourself in a Job Interview to Guarantee a Job Offer

October 3, 2018 By Anthony Fasano

How to Sell Yourself in a Job Interview to Guarantee a Job Offer is a guest post by Nader Mowlaee

You’ve sent out your resume and cover letter and gotten that job interview you wanted. Are you ready? Because now it’s time to concentrate and do whatever it takes to get the job you’ve always wanted. Begin by learning everything there is about the company you’re interviewing at, the person you’re be meeting, and the position you’ll be interviewing for.

Go to LinkedIn and search for other people with the same job title, who work at the same company. Go to all their profiles and see what information and data you can gather about their work and projects. Write everything down and take it to the interview with you; and feel free to ask questions based on what you found.

From your first attempt to contact a person and throughout the entire interview process, keep the 7-38-55 Rule Of Communication in mind. This is a communication model by Albert Mehrabian, a professor of psychology at UCLA, which suggests that the word we speak and say out loud is only 7% of what is read and understood by the recipient of our full message. 38% of our message comes from the intonation (pitch) and changes in the volume and speed of our voice, while a whopping 55% is from totally non-verbal cues such as body language, facial impressions, and posture.

Make sure that your body language and tone of voice demonstrate your level of enthusiasm for the job you’re interviewing for. Sit up straight, shoulders back, arms in front of you, not crossed, while keeping eye contact in order to show your confidence with your body in addition to your verbal cues.

Follow these tips to ace every stage of your upcoming interviews and get more job offers than ever before.

1st Job Interview: Ask Questions and Identify Problems

How to Handle Conflict Resolution Questions During Engineering Job Interviews

July 25, 2018 By Anthony Fasano

How to Handle Conflict Resolution Questions During Engineering Job Interviews is a blog post by Nader Mowlaee

In any type of interview, but especially in engineering job interviews, hiring managers ask questions about how you would deal with technical conflict. They want to know about your interpersonal skills and how you would deal with a problem in the office if it should arise, especially if the conflict is of a technical nature.

This is where you must utilize your interpersonal (soft) skills alongside of your technical (hard) skills to find a resolution. What’s also very important is how fast you can come up with a solution, even if it’s a temporary fix, because in many technology-oriented or industrial environments, having a technical problem or conflict could potentially lead to severe damages.

Why Hiring Managers Ask About Conflict

Three Salary Negotiation Tips for a Better Engineering Job Offer

June 13, 2018 By Anthony Fasano

This is a blog post by Nader Mowlaee

Regardless of your job title, or what kind of engineer you are, at some point in your career, you will likely engage in a salary negotiation. Asking for more money or a better job is a daunting prospect. What if your employer says no? What if you lose your job?

Calm down and don’t panic — salary negotiations happen all the time.

Before you ask for a pay increase or talk about your salary expectations in a new job interview, follow these 3 steps. I promise they will significantly boost your chances of success.

1. Timing is Everything

How to Get Ahead in your Engineering Career in 2018

December 5, 2017 By Anthony Fasano

How to Get Ahead in your Engineering Career Today is a blog post by Nader Mowlaee.

Bruce Lee said, “I don’t fear the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks. I fear the man who practiced one kick 10,000 times.”

I won’t say that a few quotes will change your life, but perhaps hearing them can positively impact your mindset and allow you to know how to get ahead in your career. Some quotes will hit you like a bullet, and some will help you perceive life differently and inspire you to change.

Martial arts have been a significant part of my life and have allowed me to learn and understand the benefits of specialization over generalization. I’ve determined that diversification does not always result in a positive outcome. From an early age, while ranking high in Karate, I realized that I had a strong right punch and a powerful left kick; and noticed I naturally didn’t spend much time becoming better in performing many other techniques; instead, I focused primarily on improving my right punch and left kick.

How to be More Effective with your LinkedIn Connections

November 15, 2017 By Anthony Fasano

How to be More Effective with your LinkedIn Connections is a guest post by Nader Mowlaee.

Whether you’re actively seeking a new job, recently graduated and just want any job, or are proactively seeking the right career growth opportunity, growing your LinkedIn connections and knowing how to use LinkedIn is necessary. We know having connections matter and that LinkedIn is the best tool for getting in front of decision makers and having more interviews, but yet, there’s no place lonelier than a LinkedIn profile once it’s cooled off and people stop writing back to you.

In this post, I want to show you how you can get the spark back into your LinkedIn connections and warm up some decent conversations. All you need to get started is to decide what you want, open your eyes, be present and positive, and listen to what I have to say in this article. Then, take action on what I’m going to share with you, and touch base with me if you need more help.

There happens to be particular differences between how big your LinkedIn network is and the caliber of your network connections. Even though the numbers do not lie, they can often be misleading, especially when the time comes to search for a job opportunity. Size does matter, but it’s not everything!

Concentrating on enhancing the quality of your LinkedIn connections by as little as 5 percent can enhance your outcomes up to 95 percent. On top of that, you will invest 5 times less time on LinkedIn and social networking; the response rates will likely be greater, simply because you are messaging current contacts, and also the interactions will likely be significantly less nerve-racking; usually we can even ask a shared connection for an introduction.

Then why do 90 percent of people looking for work concentrate mainly on adding new connections to their LinkedIn network, with no distinct objective or comprehensive strategy?

How Fresh Graduate Engineers Successfully Negotiate Salary Increase

September 12, 2017 By Anthony Fasano

This is a guest post by Nader Mowlaee.

As a fresh graduate of any technical course or engineering program, it can be difficult to find a company that accepts applicants without any experienced On-The-Job Training during college or university years, much more than those companies offer a higher than average salary. With that said, I’ve helped several young engineers negotiate an extra $5K, which isn’t that bad when you start to break it down into monthly income ($416/month) and what you can do with that extra money.

After a numerous number of interviews, finally, the anxiety has diminished and the hard part is almost over. After the final interview with the manager, he says the sweetest thing you can hear at that moment “you’ve got the job”, then they’ll tell you that they will prepare the employment offer letter and that if you have any questions you should ask them. But for most applicants, they’re still at the peak of their happiness and will sign the contract immediately, without even bothering to read it first. I’ve seen new graduates doing that thousands of times without even bothering to search for more info on the average salary amount for someone in their position, their industry, and location.

Remember that it is a binding contract, so there is no turning back, once you sign it, the deal is done. There may be other reasons why newly graduate engineers are just signing contracts without asking any questions; they may be thinking that a degree is not enough for someone to land a good paying job, and lack of self-confidence will almost always raise concerns, as there may be thousands of applicants. When they have finally chosen you, negotiating becomes even more difficult, since this deals with money and the employer considers your salary expectations from the first moment they engage with you.

Remember this: You are the person offering your services, and you expect to get compensated accordingly; and the employer is someone who’s in need of someone with your skills; and has a budget for compensating you. Even though you are a rookie, you still have the right to negotiate your terms, even if it is your first job. They want to hire you because they see potential in you which they didn’t see in other applicants; that means you’re important to them and they feel you can be an asset for the company.

Negotiating is not easy, but it can easily be done when you prepare for it from the moment you start conversations with an employer. If you know what you’re worth and can confidently communicate your value, then you can get paid well; and if you want a salary increase you, must have leverage. In this article, I’ll give you 5 steps you can follow to identify and use leverage to ask for that salary increase, up front, and get it too.

5 Big Mistakes Engineers Make on the Job

July 26, 2017 By Anthony Fasano

This is a guest post by Nader Mowlaee.

Engineers are expected to perform at their best, if not all the time, most of it at least. Room for error in this type of career is small of course, as it can have huge negative impact on an individual project or the lives of millions of people.

It is essential to learn from our mistakes as it can help us become better engineers in our chosen paths, and the first step towards that is understanding how to become self-aware.

Everyone makes mistakes in things they do, such as daily actions and activities, their opinions towards someone or something, or judgements towards techniques and processes that result in poor outcomes, poor reasoning, and overall carelessness.

No matter how good of an engineer you are in your field, there is always going to be a time where you will make a mistake, as the famous saying goes, “Nobody is perfect.” Even machines make mistakes over time.

Why is it important to discuss these common mistakes? Well, prevention is the best solution to avoid mistakes, and we must talk about and accept the fact that we all can be in one of these following five situations at some time during our career.

There are mistakes that you have probably committed but didn’t realize because they happened on a subconscious level and required you to push outside of your comfort-zone, but you failed to do so and hoped and prayed that nothing bad would happen, but it did. Here’s how to avoid disasters from happening again.