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What should you tell your boss? Start with the truth. That's what the folks at Computerworld found out when they talked to their IT leaders. Other things to tell the boss include your ideas, your successes, your wants, and, when appropriate, tell them "no."
Read five things you should always tell your boss.
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If you're looking for a job and tired of sorting through
unrelated job listings, check out Machine Design's new Design Engineer Job
Zone at designengineerjobzone.com.
All posted resumes are anonymous, so you can post yours
knowing your current boss won't find you. You can also create an e-mail alert
to tell you when certain jobs are posted.
And there's good news for companies who are hiring. You can
search resumes for free, and pay only when you want to contact a job seeker,
unlike the other job sites.
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We've all heard about "Googling" your own name to see what your online trail says about you. I discovered a tool called the Online Identity Calculator that helps you assess your online "personal brand" and where you stand.
Using my maiden name (been married for seven months) I scored pretty high, 8.2 out of 10, mostly because seven years of magazine articles are splattered all over the internet. There's not as many pages of me with my married name, and a lot of other women with my name show up in Google results.
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I found this site called TryEngineering.org which is for kids and parents who want to find out about engineering careers.
But I think the most interesting part of the site is the engineering games.There are about a dozen games including Questioneering (engineering trivia), Design a Parachute (create a parachute strong and light enough to safely descend to Mars), and Beat the Heat (design a solar powered house) to name a few.
Post your scores if you dare.
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Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute is requiring undergrad engineering students to spend a semester studying abroad starting in spring 2009.
Read the article here. The idea is part of the Rensselaer Engineering
Education Across Cultural Horizons (REACH) program, and partner schools so far include the Technical University of
Denmark and Nanyang Technological University, in
Singapore. Classes will be held in English.
What do you think about this requirement? Are we going to see more of this from other engineering schools? Does spending a semester in Denmark make you a more employable engineer?
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The April 10, 2008 issue of Machine Design featured stories
from readers who had made career mistakes and the lessons learned from those
mistakes. Here are some examples that didn't make the article:
Rich Smith writes:
"In 1995, I was due for a
raise and it ended up 1/10th of the promised amount. I confronted the
owner of the small company with it and he suggested I could solve my financial
crunch by writing myself an "Action Plan". I did and 2 weeks
later I gave my notice that I was moving to Allen-Bradley for a 15% increase."
Nathan R. Jones says:
"In the late 90s I was
employed as an automation designer at a large disk drive company. The
department I was in was quite large (about 36 employees) and when the manager
left the company the department was split into 2 groups with a separate manager
for each. I took one of the manager positions, a friend of mine took the other.
This was my first time in management and it was considerably more work than I
thought it would be. Along with guiding the technical side of the designs I was
constantly writing reviews, mediating disputes, planning, producing budgets,
etc.
About a year later there was a
round of layoffs and the department shrank enough that the VP felt only one
manager was necessary to run the show.
Aside from giving the company more of my time I hadn’t seen much benefit
from being a manager so I volunteered to move back into my design role. Less
work, same pay. My friend happily took the sole management position and thanked
me for bowing out so gracefully.
Just a few weeks later the
division VP decided to consolidate several more groups under this manager so
his position was changed to director and he was given a substantial raise in
salary. There was a reorganization going on and some employees were jumping
ship so retaining bonuses were given to everybody at director level and above.
With the increase in salary, the additional level of management bonus, and the
retaining bonus, my friend had nearly doubled his compensation over the
previous year. I was left dumbfounded at having missed out on the promotion
because of my prematurely bowing out of the management position. I was (rather
ironically) reinstalled as manager of the design group (under the new director)
and was right back where I started. Years later the division VP told me that I
would have been his first choice for the manager/director position.
Although I was initially a bit
thunderstruck about missing out on such a great career boost my action didn’t
go unrewarded. Come review time I received an excellent raise in salary and
bonus. I have since gone on to work with both of these guys at different
companies and we still keep in touch.
Was it a career mistake? With the clarity of
hindsight I see it more as a crossroads in my career. Had I tried for the job I
would almost certainly have been selected. After that event I began a gradual
change of focus back to the purely technical side of engineering while my
career momentum began to lose steam. Had I got the promotion I may well have
gone the path of upper management company man.
With my focus back on designing I have had an easy time keeping employed
in Silicon Valley and several years ago started my own automation consulting
company." Milind Chitale writes: "As a fresh graduate, people are idiots on career
decisions. I was too. I used to fight for good causes with superiors, and held
my subordinates closer than superiors. ( Monumental career mistake- although
good as an individual choice) I had to change jobs very often as I quickly
learned that bosses cared for those who cared for them, and increments were in
direct proportion to this.
I also made the mistake of not taking a job in a highly
developed area (Bangalore ) and stuck to my small city to stay with my parents
at less than half of the salary I was offered in Bangalore. It may have been a
good family decision, but is a career suicide. I had to job hop from one small
company to another, never getting multinational experience, and always
reporting to small time bosses with disproportionate egos. Eventually, after I
married, I had to leave my parents house anyway. So I had to start from scratch
anyhow, which I could have done earlier and boosted my salary and career 5
fold.
Many engineers who love hands-on approach, abhor management
tasks like report generation, presentations, and regular office desk work. I
too hated it. But I have discovered that those of my friends who took up those
desk top publishing tasks are now General Managers and Technical Heads, while I
am still a Design manager. Let's face it: Glorify your work with nice
presentations and reports, people notice and take you up, else you
are still a junior manager with 15 years of experience."
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The fourth annual "Global Marathon For, By and About
Women in Engineering," will follow the sun around the globe from Noon EDT
Wednesday, March 26 to Noon EDT Thursday, March 27.
The 2008 Global Marathon at http://www.eweek.org/ features six continuous four-hour
blocks of virtual online programming, kicking off in North America and
proceeding westward through five additional regions – Mexico/Latin America,
China, India, Africa/Middle East, and UK/Europe before returning to North
America for closing ceremonies. Each region's corporate sponsor is developing
programming and engaging audience specific to the concerns of women in
engineering and technology their part of the world
North America's contribution includes talks by live Webcast and in-person,
including a panel discussion and live links to women in other parts of the
world. The kick-off event will encourage high school and college women to
imagine their futures. The Webcast is followed by presentations from television
shows and a variety of outreach programming.
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Does the idea of speaking in public scare you to death? If
it doesn't scare you, do you worry that you're not an effective speaker?
An article from Jeanette Henderson at www.publicspeakinghelp.blogspot.com
says that public speaking is no different than regular speaking. We speak every
day, and to more than one person at a time. What's the magic number where it
suddenly becomes scary?
Henderson is co-author of the book "There's No Such Thing as
Public Speaking" and offers some advice. She says the key is to
know exactly what you want to say in your opening statement, and why.
Forget the misguided advice to start with a joke, or a
question, or a shocking statement, or telling them what you're going to tell
them. It is better to start with the one way that will absolutely always work: begin
with something on which everyone can agree.
Start off with an irrefutable statement, one that will get
your listener agreeing with you and with each other, something to demonstrate
that you and your audience are all on the same page. It can be historical,
(think "Four score and seven years ago") or an obvious truth
("College graduates earn more money than high school dropouts"), or a
quote of any kind, as long as it's on point and something that everyone can
agree with. Once you have your listeners nodding in agreement, you'll soon
begin to calm down, and you'll be able to get past those few tense early moments
and get settled into your presentation more quickly.
The only other tense moment for most people is at the end,
knowing how to wrap it up. Because you're there to get listeners to take action
(hire you, buy your product, accept your proposal), have an ending that tells
them in no uncertain terms what it is you want them to do. Ask them to hire
you, sign the contract, get out their checkbook.
By giving them a proposal of action, you make it clear that
they haven't wasted their time listening to you, that they can, in fact,
benefit from your presentation, and to do so, all they have to do is react to
your proposal of action. The worst that will happen is they'll say no.
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Women Who Tech: A TeleSummit for Women in Technology will bring together the most
talented and renowned women breaking new ground in technology. The
telesummit aims to create a supportive network for the vibrant and
thriving community of women in technology professions by giving them an
open platform to share their talents, experiences, and insights through
virtual workshops and panel discussions.
Any woman with a telephone who works in technology at a non-profit, a
political campaign or is interested in technology is invited to
participate in this free, live event on March 31, 2008 from 11AM to
6:15 PM EST.
The Women Who Tech Telesummit will happen via conference call
and webinar. There will be 2 one-hour long panels. As
soon as the panels are finalized you will have the opportunity to
register for sessions on the website.
Get more information and sign up at their web site: www.womenwhotech.com
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The Engineer Your Life campaign and coalition launches on Wednesday, February
20 as part of Girl Day 2008. An outgrowth of the Extraordinary Women
Engineers Project (EWEP), Engineer Your Life aims to make a national impact on
the way engineering careers are presented, particularly to college-bound high
school girls. Three new messages developed and tested by EWEP –
creativity has its rewards, explore the possibilities, and make a world of
difference – form the centerpiece of the national campaign. The Engineer
Your Life web site, a guide to engineering for high school girls, is at http://www.engineeryourlife.org/.
For its part, the
National Engineers Week Foundation offered grants to local Girl Scout troops to
stimulate activities in connection with the PBS television programs
"Design Squad" and "Cyberchase," and coordinated interviews
with women engineers at http://www.engineergirl.org/.
A month after Girl Day comes the 4th annual "Global Marathon
For, By and About Women in Engineering," a 24-hour Internet and
teleconference running from Noon (EDT) Wednesday, March 26 through Noon (EDT)
Thursday, March 27 at http://www.eweek.org/. Presentations
and Q&A sessions originate from points around the globe to heighten
awareness of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics issues among
pre-college, college, and young career women. Honorary Chair of the 2008
Global Marathon is Judy Spitz, Senior Vice President and CIO of Verizon
Business.
Visit www.eweek.org/site/News/Eweek/2008_nationalpledgeroster.shtml
to access Girl Day activities nationwide.
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I found this online game called Tackle Your Boss from an Australian career guide group. Get enough power and you make the Boss' eyeballs pop out.
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MSN Careers posted a list of bad employees who crossed the line this year and got caught. Examples of the bad behavior include the postal carrier who kept greeting cards for the cash, the day care center worker who locked a 14-month old in the building alone, and an employee who pushed his manager out of the way to get back pay out of the register. These people aren't just bad employees, they're bad humans!
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NASA is accepting applications for the 2009 Astronaut
Candidate Class. Those selected could fly to space for long-duration stays on
the International Space Station and missions to the moon.
To be considered you need a bachelor's degree in engineering, science, or math
and three years of relevant professional experience. Typically, successful applicants
have significant qualifications in engineering or science, or extensive
experience flying high-performance jet aircraft.
Teaching experience, including work at the kindergarten through 12th grade
level, is considered qualifying. Educators with the appropriate educational
background are encouraged to apply.
After a six-month period of evaluation and interviews, NASA will announce final
selections in early 2009. Astronaut candidates will report to Johnson in the
summer of 2009 to begin the basic training program to prepare them for future
spaceflight assignments.
NASA will accept applications through July 1, 2008.
To apply visit: www.nasa.gov/astronauts/recruit.html
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Careerbuilder.com posted an interesting article that lists job goals according to your age. For instance, in your 20s you should establish a positive work record, in your 40s reexamine your definition of success, and in your 60s, reap what you've sown.
Read the whole article here
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Telephone interviews are usually the first stumbling block in landing a new job, and video interviews are rapidly gaining popularity as companies start to use webcams and other technologies to screen job candidates.
There is an upcoming seminar that will give some hints. Visit www.experts-connection.com to register.
"How to Win at Telephone & Video
Interviews" will be led by Ross Macpherson, an acknowledged expert in advanced career
strategies. The teleseminar will be held Wednesday, August 22, from
4:00 - 5:00 p.m. ET, (1:00 - 2:00 p.m. PT) and costs $45, or $35 for NETSHARE
members. A CD of the seminar will be available after.
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