Engineers need soft skills and management knowledge

The first days I graduated from the university, I had the idea that as an engineer, I need to be the most knowledgeable person in the company I am hired in. Therefore, I just focused on reading design standards needed to use in my design projects and studying the software packages which were needed in my field. After a while, I looked at myself and compared myself to other colleagues who had lower engineering duties but were far more successful in their networks. As an instance, in ten years I would mostly be a skilled structural engineer and a very fast modeler; but sooner than that, those colleagues were project managers, head of department, investment consultants, etc. It was obvious I lack some soft skills they are extremely professional in.

I registered in some management classes. It was totally a new world for me! I got familiar with negotiations, project management, strategies, marketing, etc. Regardless of a person's specialty, these really help people in their market to grow. I believe any graduate engineer needs to take some of these classes or at least read some good texts in order to increase their success in the engineering field. Here are my suggestions, specifically to junior engineers as well as fresh graduates who want to grow far more in the next years of their professional career.

1- Project management knowledge and tools

I can say, almost any task in engineering field can be assumed to be a project. As an engineer, you need to know how to organize your project. A project needs resources management and resources can be time, funds and human. You need to have contacts with your clients and other people involved in the task in order to deliver a satisfactory result to your clients. I categorize these people as end-users and back-end producers and middle-supporters. So, I would like to suggest you to have a look on project management tools. PMBOK and PMI courses are one of the best resources. You can learn some skills, earn certificates in those topics, and become far more reputable in your network. Moreover, by having knowledge of project management, you will be able to be more productive compared to your colleagues who lack these skills.

2- Human resource management and negotiation

I would like to say, even the most skilled engineers can do nothing without having good understanding of their colleagues, employers, or employees. Human resource management gives you a correct understanding that it is important to understand people in your field. You need to care of your employees, and they are not just computers who do the work for you. You will understand that sometimes a company pays higher to its employees, but they never feel they belong to that company. Sometimes people prefer to work with people and companies where they pay less, but they understand their demands, they feel happy to be in that organization.

Skill of negotiation is also very important. As an engineer, you need to know how to peacefully negotiate with clients to understand what are their expectations from the work they are investing in. You need to negotiate when you face trouble to deliver the projects on time. And in a higher level of career, engineering managers need to negotiate with other engineering teams as well as investment resources in order to balance work pressure, feed their firm and successfully deliver the engineering service.

3- Strategy, marketing and selling engineering service

When I used to hear these words in the past, I always thought they are important to salespeople who sell FMCG products to shops or visitors in malls and shopping centers. The models in my mind was like they sell some physical good and the more they sell, the higher they receive from their companies! But their work is more important and needs more skills than what I expected. When it comes to engineering services, this model should be clear to the engineering firms. As a contractor, you need to convince investors that you can build what they want. You need to sell your service to them! As a consulting engineer, you need to convince the clients that you are able to understand all engineering aspects of their work and can forecast all future demands and risks. Again, you need to sell your engineering service to them. See, there is no difference, it is all about selling something to people and this can be a service or some kind of physical goods. It is apparent that you need to be a good negotiator, have clear strategies in marketing your services, and you need to actively improve your basket of services to cover demands of the market. Otherwise, you will lose the market and better service sellers will occupy your place.

To conclude, as a fresh graduate or early career engineer, do not limit yourself to engineering topics. Be multidiscipline and learn as much as you can. Managerial tools and soft skills will help you in your future career. Take some online courses, read some books, earn some certificates in business, management, and projects. These may seem to be irrelevant to an engineering career, but will help you widen your market in the future. These will make you a more competitive person.