Are you someone that’s completely fallen out of love with the engineering path you’ve chosen? It’s nothing to fret about. Know that you aren’t alone. A lot of engineers end up choosing a career path that’s not for them during their early years. After all, they show interest in different things at varying points in life like everyone else. Over time, your priorities change and you can easily find yourself doing something you don’t necessarily love.
Luckily, you can change your career paths very easily. Here are some of the best tips that you can use to get started with switching up your engineering career path.
– Use a Career Test
One of the things you can do is to use a career test that will help you perform a self-assessment. A career test can be one of the best tools you use to figure out what you’re interested in, what skills you have, and what profession matches your personality type. This can give you a lot of information that you can use to choose the right engineering jobs to pivot to. There is a lot of detailed information in Pat Sweet’s excellent article titled “Three Simple Questions That Will Change Your Engineering Career.”
– Research The Various Disciplines
You want to try to look at the different disciplines that are available, such as commissioning engineer. You want to try to find the ones that appeal most to you. You can look at educational and online resources to figure out more about each of the disciplines to identify which one would work best for you. You can complete a basic Google search and learn a lot of information that could help you make a more informed decision. There is a lot of good information in Anthony Fasano’s article about how to create a plan and he considered the research process as one of the most important to look at.
– Figure Out If You Need Retraining
This will vary based on the transferable skills you have. This is in addition to your engineering knowledge and experience. You want to understand what kind of skills you have that can help you in the new discipline. If you do need more education or training, you can figure out a way to study and learn what you need to while you are still at your job. Nowadays, you can do just about anything you want with an engineering degree and history. You can leverage the engineering degree and experience to give you a shortcut to just about any path you want.
– Research Companies and Industries
Not only do you need to look at your engineering discipline, but you also want to look at the industries and companies that you have a lot of interest in. You want to look at the industries and the companies in it because it can dictate your satisfaction levels. You should try to spend a lot of time figuring out some of the industries and their quirks. This can give you a good idea of whether or not you would enjoy yourself in it. You can look at a great article on Engineering.com. This article is titled, “How To Decide To Take The Technical or Managerial Career Path as an Engineer” and it gives a lot of information you can use to figure out what industry you want to get into.
– Network
You want to ensure that you are spending sufficient time networking with everyone. Networking is easily one of the best things you can do when it comes to getting a position you want. A lot of people get positions through referrals. Because of this, you need to spend a lot of time making new contacts and cultivating relationships with people in the industry you want to work in. This can give you a big leg up on the competition.
– Perform Information Interviews
You want to try to speak with as many people as possible in an industry you are looking to get into. Try to find seasoned and experienced professionals in the industry you want to work in and pick their brains. This can give you a lot of information as to what you should be doing to get into the industry and it can even help you figure out if it’s for you.
– Work With a Recruiter To Find A Job
A recruiter is a good option for those that want to land a gig somewhere but don’t know where to start. This is especially true if you find one that is a specialized recruiter in the engineering field. They can look at your skillset and experience and find the perfect fit. They will also help you position yourself for job opportunities before they even hit the open market. This is where they can be valuable in your career search because they may get you interviews for positions that you never would have known about without them.
