What do you do when you feel like your engineering career has stalled? This was the topic of a question that Emer Feeney answered in last week’s Sunday Independent. Emer is an HR Generalist here at SL Controls.
You can read the full article here. Emer answered the question by giving eight smart tips on how engineers can get ahead in their field.
Eight Tips to Engineering Success
1. Define your goals
Defining your goals will help keep you focused as well as enabling you to measure your progress. Remember, goals don’t have to be permanent as you can change them whenever it is appropriate. You should always have an idea of where you want to get to, though.
2. Always work to improve
There are plenty of engineering opportunities in Ireland at the moment and there will be more opportunities in the future. To take advantage of these opportunities, you should always work to improve your skills.
3. Improve your soft skills
When improving your skills, don’t forget soft skills as they are becoming increasingly important to the engineering careers of today and in the future. This includes communication skills, presentation skills, teamwork skills, and more.
4. Embrace change
Nothing stands still in engineering, so don’t resist change. Just because something has been done a particular way for years doesn’t mean it can’t be improved. You should welcome new technologies, processes, and ways of thinking.
5. Work hard
Even if you work on all seven of the other points on this list, you probably won’t achieve your goals if you don’t work hard. You need to strike the right work/life balance, of course, but working hard is essential.
6. Remain optimistic
You’re an engineer, so you will face challenges. This could be a complex problem that appears to be completely resistant to a solution, for example, or an issue with a client that is difficult to fix. It could even be the challenge of getting out of a career rut. Remaining optimistic will help you progress.
7. Get a mentor
Mentors are invaluable in all careers, including engineering. It can be a formal arrangement or something more informal, but a mentor can point out things you might have missed, give you fresh insight on your progress, help you identify new opportunities, and more.
8. Stay flexible
Engineer is changing. Take Industry 4.0, for example. Opportunities exist today because of Industry 4.0 that didn’t exist 10 years ago, and there will be opportunities in 10 years that are not available now. By staying flexible, you can take advantages of these opportunities when they arise.
Read more articles by Emer Feeney to get further insights into progressing your engineering career.
You should also check out our careers page to see the engineering vacancies we currently have at SL Controls.
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