Solidify your career foundation and becoming an intentional engineer

If your foundation is strong, you’ll have something to build on.

You don’t have to be a structural engineer to know that a solid foundation for anything provides a solid place to build everything.

You can also imagine what happens when you DON’T have a solid foundation.

In a building, it won’t last long and will fall.

In your career, you will struggle to grow and become what you want it to be. 

So today, we’ll dive into the importance of career foundations and also how to create your career with intention.

In today’s newsletter:

• The 3 things that build your career foundation

• Becoming an intentional engineer

• Hot jobs

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CAREER TIPS

Solidify Your Engineering Career Success Foundation With These 3 Things

Mindset, career clarity, and personal branding—with these three principles, you can empower your engineering career success.

Why?

Because you're setting up a strong foundation to build upon. 

Without them, it's like throwing pasta at the wall and hoping something sticks, or trying to play darts blindfolded. 

Or, well, like trying to build a house on sand. 

These "strategies" are rarely going to lead to great outcomes for long-term success.

Let's briefly break down these three items and how they can influence the foundation of your career.

Mindset

"Whether you think you can or you think you can't, you're right." ~ Henry Ford

Your mindset drives not just what you do but how you do it. Similarly to the quote above, if you don't believe you can build a great career, you probably won't. If you don't believe you are a great fit for a potential position, you'll be hard-pressed to convince the hiring manager that you're a great fit.

Your mindset and thoughts have a huge impact on your success.

So we need to address how you think about yourself, the challenges you face, the people you will interact with, and more.

Then your actions can be aligned with your powerful mindset!

Career Clarity

"If you don't know where you are going, any road will get you there." ~ Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

What do you want to be when you grow up? 

How do you make a decision between multiple career paths? 

You're not enjoying your career right now - but do you know what you would enjoy?

These are just a few questions I get people asking themselves all the time. They are questions of career clarity.

The key reason you want to get clarity is so you can be intentional, deliberate, and proactive in your career.

If you're not progressing towards something, you're just letting your career happen to you. You're being reactive, and will rarely end up in a place you want to be.

Career clarity helps you chart your path and take action toward that imagined reality!

Personal Branding

"Personal branding is not about you. It's about putting your stamp on the value you deliver to others." ~ William Arruda

This is a big one for modern careers. Your own understanding of your personal brand influences every mode of communication you have - written, spoken, and even how you listen.

A great personal brand is about communicating the value you can deliver to others in effective ways.

If you don't know how to do that, you'll have a hard time getting great jobs or clients. 

But if you can do it well, people will find themselves saying about you, "this person seems perfect for the problems we're trying to solve. Let's hire them!"

Figure out the value you bring and how to communicate it to others.

 HOT JOBS OF THE WEEK

> Senior Software Engineer (.Net/C#)
> Mainframe Engineer
> Data Engineer
> Lead Database Engineer

📚 BOOK RECOMMENDATION

The Intentional Engineer by Jeff Perry

Okay, this might be a bit self-serving to share this book, but it recently got awarded the IEEE Award for Distinguished Literary Contributions Furthering Public Understanding and Advancement of the Engineering Profession, which I’m pretty excited about!

So now I can say I’m an “award winning author!”

But this book was written for you - the engineer who wants to grow a career with purpose, intention, and meaning. 

Inside, you’ll learn how to:

• live intentionally so you can improve every area of your life (including your career, health, and relationships).

• “answer the call” to create a courageous life.

• align your life and career so they work together in perfect harmony.

• design your life and career using simple yet effective prototypes and experiments.

• use a research-backed process to cultivate your mindset and reach your potential.

• discover and unleash your genius zones to get in flow, find satisfaction in your work, and deliver great results.

• break out of analysis paralysis and clarify your career path based on your deepest values and motivations.

• tell your story and build your personal brand so others want to hire and promote you.

If that sounds like something you want to do, then grab your copy, and send me a note to tell me what you think!