Have you been stuck in the same technical profession for years? Whether you are looking for a job with more opportunities or desire to move into a completely new field, making the right moves and staying focused on your goals will be essential to landing your next gig. Here are seven steps you can take to get there.

Start by asking yourself what you want in your next career:

What do you like and dislike about your current role? Do you prefer to work in teams or independently? What are the skills and tasks you find most enjoyable? Create a list of these preferences to use as a reference while you look to make your career switch. 

Consider your personal values:

Perhaps you like your job, but the organization you work for conflicts with your values. Make a list of organizations whose values align with your own. You can typically find this information in a company’s mission statement. Once you’ve determined which organization’s values are in sync with yours, take a look at their job openings and see what opportunities are available that may interest you. 

Check out which industries are growing the most:

This research will give you valuable insight into what fields are providing the best opportunities. You can often find this information through government research— such as the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics employment projections— or by researching career websites, which often contain salary data. 

Rebrand yourself as a professional:

Once you know the type of job you want and the kinds of organizations you wish to find employment, rebrand yourself in a way that aligns with your desired position. Be sure to revise your online career profile, business cards, resume, and social media profiles in a way that sends a message to potential employers that you are a good match for them. Your cover letters should also reflect this personal branding. 

Get more experience in your dream job:

A big obstacle people often face when trying to switch careers is not having enough experience in their desired field. To solve this problem, consider picking up related freelance and/or volunteer work. Not only is it a great addition to your resume, it will show prospective employers that you are serious about making a change. As another benefit, you may also increase your network by creating connections in the field. 

However, if the skills are sophisticated and require training outside freelance and volunteer work, consider obtaining a certification or even going back to school. 

Have a plan:

Your next step is to set goals and to be proactive in achieving them. Commit a certain amount of time each day to network, search jobs, and submit your resume. It’s also important to set a mix of both small and large goals. For example, you can make it a goal to submit two resumes a day or submit five per week. You could plan to attend at least one networking event each month or work towards building a more robust LinkedIn profile. Whatever you decide for your plan, be consistent.

Grow your professional network:

To land a job outside your current field, you need to grow your professional connections to include people in that industry. A few ways to do this include using your alumni network, attending local professional events, volunteering, and reaching out to professionals on social media who work in that field. See if they are willing to speak to you and offer you advice.

Switching careers is not easy for everyone. However, knowing what you want, having goals, and staying consistent can help you be much more successful in landing your next job. 

Build Your Knowledge Through Continuing Education

Jumpstart your career change through continuing education and professional development! Making a point to develop new skills can help show potential employees that you’re dedicated to improving within your current or future field of expertise.

Since its launch in 2019, the IEEE Learning Network (ILN) has provided continuing education to technical professionals from around the world. With hundreds of courses available across IEEE, ILN offers the latest in continuing education for engineers and technology professionals who want to advance professionally, refresh their skills, or stay up-to-date with the latest trends.

Explore the courses and start learning today on iln.ieee.org!

Resources

Indeed Editorial Team. (9 November 2021). How To Switch Careers: A Step-By-Step Guide. Indeed.com.

Adamczyk, Alicia. (22 September 2022).  If you want to change careers, start by finding your ‘why’. CNBC.

Liu, Joseph. (2 April 2019). How To Change Careers, According To 50 People Who Made A Pivot. Forbes.

Public speaking is a necessary, but often dreaded, part of almost everyone’s job. If you’re a technical professional whose first language is not English, you may find the prospect of speaking before an English-speaking audience particularly nerve-wracking. 

According to Deborah Grayson Riegel, co-author of the book Tips of the Tongue: The Nonnative English Speaker’s Guide to Mastering Public Speaking, writing in Harvard Business Review, it’s normal for these professionals to be great at their jobs. However, they may lose confidence when they have to talk in front of an audience. If you’re experiencing this problem, Grayson Riegel recommends these tips for sharpening your presentation skills:

Over-learn your presentation

Many non-native English speakers report spending much more time preparing their PowerPoint slides than they do practicing what they will say, according to Grayson Riegel. Instead of spending endless hours on your slide deck, make time to rehearse your presentation. Do so repeatedly. This will go much further in helping you prepare for the moment you are up before a live audience. 

“The goal here is ‘overlearning’ your presentation — pushing on with practice even when it seems like you’ve done enough,” writes Grayson Riegel. “This will help your presentation to become embedded in your long-term memory and therefore less susceptible to the effects of stress. It will also help you speak spontaneously, if you can trust that your core content is safely stored (and able to be retrieved) from your long-term memory.”

Speak slowly

As a non-native speaker of English, you may be self-conscious about your accent. You’re not alone. Even native speakers can have heavy regional dialects that make them self-conscious during presentations. However, it’s important to keep in mind that pronounced accents and dialects can impede an audience’s ability to understand you. But don’t worry— you can help solve this problem simply by slowing down. 

“By slowing down your speaking pace, you help your audience to better manage the barriers to really hearing and understanding you,” states Grayson Riegel. The key is to make sure you take your time pronouncing your words to improve clarity. As the crowd becomes accustomed to your accent, they will be able to more easily understand you.

Take frequent pauses

When standing before an audience, it’s normal to get nervous. As such, you may feel a need to speed through your presentation. However, doing this will further impede your audience’s ability to understand you. In addition to talking slowly, be sure to take frequent pauses. Not only will this give your audience more time to process what you are saying, it will also give you a mental break to gather your thoughts, look at notes, and observe your audience’s faces.

“You can also use a pause to build rapport with your audience by checking with them about your pace and pronunciation by saying something like, “Let me pause for a  moment here. I know that I am making complete sense to myself in [Spanish/French/Japanese/Hindi/your native language]. How am I doing in English?” Grayson Riegel writes.

Not only does this help you through audience feedback, but it also gives you the chance to take a break. 

While you can certainly improve your presentation skills with these tips, taking courses specifically designed to improve technical English for non-native speakers can help you improve even more.

Improve Your Technical English

Available on IEEE Xplore and the IEEE Learning Network, IEEE English for Technical Professionals is an online learning program. It uses real-life interactive scenarios to provide non-native speakers with a working knowledge of English techniques and vocabulary that are essential for today’s technical workplace. Designed to help learners master essential English skills, this mobile-friendly program is ideal for both working professionals. It is also suitable for students who are preparing to enter the field.

Enable technical professionals whose first language is not English to improve their language skills. Do so in a way that fits the needs and priorities of working adults in technical fields. Connect with an IEEE Content Specialist today to learn more about this program and how to get access to it for your organization.

Interested in the program for yourself? Visit the IEEE Learning Network.

Resources

Riegel, Deborah Grayson. (6 April 2018). 3 Tips for Presenting in English When You’re Not a Native Speaker. Harvard Business Review.

Most engineers enter the workforce as individual contributors. And the job is fairly straightforward—you rely on data and individual efforts to impact outcomes. Your technical knowledge is your most important skill set as you work with others to achieve the team’s goals.

 

Moving Into Engineering Management

But what happens when you start to work your way up to management? While your technical skills are still important to help you make decisions, you can no longer rely on your technical knowledge alone to help you succeed. As an engineering leader, the technical knowledge you possess in your field will be only one of many elements needed to develop people and projects.

 

Engineering Leadership Skills

Fortunately, you do not have to be born with leadership skills to become an engineering leader. This set of skills can be developed over time. If you want to transition into a leadership position, there are a variety of skills you should develop including:

• Finance: Individual contributors have the luxury of only considering the technology when it comes to making recommendations. However, leaders also need to consider the business objectives and goals of the organization, including the finances. It’s vital that managers possess the ability to find balance between their organization’s financial and technical needs.
• People Skills: Professionals who enter engineering management can no longer base their projects solely on technical requirements. It is enormously important to develop the ability to sell ideas, influence people, and understand the impact of your words and actions. In order to achieve organizational objectives while negotiating with other business leaders, you must be able to translate technical needs into laymen’s terms. As an engineering leader, you also need to be able to motivate and support the individual contributors who you manage. Learning to understand what drives the people on your team, as well as how to clear the roadblocks they may face, requires good listening and communication skills. Leaders with these traits are more successful at creating environments that help people do their best work.
• Networking: An extension of people skills, engineering leaders must be able to collaborate across a wide range of departments. This means building trust with people in your organization that you may not work with on a regular basis. In order to build consensus and achieve business goals, the most effective engineering leaders are those who seek to understand the needs of each group at the table.
• Strategic Planning: A major component of engineering leadership is the ability to see the big picture. When planning and leading projects, there are many areas of strategy that need to be considered, including business strategy, product roadmap, financial strategy, intellectual property strategy, and human capital constraints. By developing your strategic planning ability, you are able to make decisions with the long-view in mind. This type of thinking can completely transform your organization as well as help you lead effectively.

 

Prepare Promising Individual Contributors for Engineering Management

For engineering leaders who want to help promising individuals on their teams develop the skills necessary for leadership roles, IEEE has partnered with Rutgers Business School to offer the IEEE | Rutgers Online Mini-MBA for Engineers. Designed specifically for organizations, this program operates entirely online. It features topics including business strategy, managing product development, finance, negotiation, managing human capital, intellectual property strategy, and transformational agility.

Designed for groups of ten or more within an organization, participants learn how organizational decisions are made with both technical and operational considerations. After developing an understanding of how different functional groups interact to achieve overall goals, they will learn to apply their newly developed business skills to better align their technical capabilities with business strategy.

The program offers the option of a customized capstone project, completely aligned to the needs of your organization. As part of the project, you’ll receive feedback from program professors who have worked as engineering leaders themselves.

To learn more about the IEEE | Rutgers Online Mini-MBA for Engineers for your organization, contact an IEEE Account Manager today.

 

Resources:

Pop, Jake Bennett. (31 Jul 2016). When Engineers Become Managers: How to Be a Great Technical Leader. VentureBeat.

Hsu, Jean. The Curious Transition to Becoming an Engineering Manager. GitPrime Blog.

If engineers in your organization are moving into management roles for which they could be better prepared, consider offering enrollment in a mini-MBA program.

Developed by IEEE science and technology experts along with Rutgers University faculty, the IEEE | Rutgers Mini-MBA for Engineers is a flexible online program designed for engineers and technical professionals.

This fast-paced, instructor-led program is based on real-world business and engineering practices. Because it bridges the gap between engineering and business, the curriculum is particularly valuable for employees transitioning into management roles. It also teaches engineers fundamental business theories and best practices that are applicable to the engineering sector.

Why offer this program to your engineers?

1. It’s the only Mini-MBA program specifically designed for engineers.
2. Featuring highly-specialized, interactive content relevant to current employee roles, it offers immediate return on investment at a lower cost compared to traditional graduate degree programs.
3. Taught by top-rated Rutgers Business School faculty members and experienced practitioners, this program will help employees keep their skills relevant.
4. Convenient, on-demand classes allow learning anytime, anywhere. The self-paced video lessons and interactive assessments enable busy employees to maintain work-life balance.
5. Participants receive ongoing access to online materials for future reference.

Offering professional development opportunities can serve as a tool to raise overall staff expertise. It can also prepare employees to enter leadership roles.

The IEEE | Rutgers Mini-MBA is intended for multiple engineers within an organization. Connect with an IEEE Content Specialist today to learn more about this program and how it can fit your organization’s needs.