Late in 2007, the world began the financial downturn we now have accepted as the new reality. Early hopes were placed on a quick recovery in 2008 after a “normal” recession, which we have come to realize was just the opening act. Now, daily news reports gush forth layoffs and corporate re-organizations and numerous other “efficiency measures.” Each new report increases the personal anxiety each of us feels. Am I next? If not, why? Is it only a matter of time?
The reality is that when things are good, getting to market fast is most important—just add more people to get it done faster and before the competition. But when things aren’t so good, i.e., today’s environment, cutting costs is most important—add more hours to each person’s load to get it done cheaper.
For engineers, especially product designers and the massive support organizations we build to get products from concept to customers, it is not always clear when one is an expense or an asset, a critical team member or a head on the chopping block. Rather than lose sleep worrying about it, each of us can take action to increase our own “staying power” by explicitly increasing our value to the companies for which we work.
The following five steps will help you secure your place in the future, in your current position at your company, and in the industry (read: other companies). In the world of personal financial planning, everything begins with assessing your present situation and figuring out your current net worth. The same holds true in your professional life. And just like our finances, when we get busy we don’t pay attention to our own “balance sheet.” So that’s the first step.
Assess Your Personal Professional Net Worth
Just as in a financial net worth or balance sheet, one must take stock of one’s assets and liabilities. Begin with your education, professional certifications, and licenses. My experience is in the real-time embedded firmware area, which unfortunately offers few opportunities for specific degrees. That’s changing now, though it’s too late for me.
While there are a few more opportunities for certifications, typically vendor-specific like a particular real-time operating system or development tool set, the embedded space places little value on a professional engineering license. Engineers usually have an engineering degree and perhaps additional programming courses or possibly a project management seminar. Even so, it’s important. Add to this area awards (if any) and other recognition like patents and published works. Don’t list professional organizations here, only awards or certifications.
Next, review your current and past experiences. It helps if you have old resumes, but usually a bit of time and thinking can resurrect the information. Detail the skills and project specifics that are recognizable outside a particular place of employment. What’s most important here aren’t keywords or buzzwords, though they are useful, but what you did that involved said concepts.
For example, on my first contract assignment almost 20 years ago, I secured a call from a recruiter because of keyword matches, which later prompted the question, “Do you have ASC 2 experience?” After many minutes, it dawned on me what he meant was ASCII. The lesson is that while keywords are great for a hit, context is essential if you want the job.
Include any meaningful contributions to professional organizations, such as whether you sat on a standards board and helped develop a new or revised industry standard. Describe what it was and what you personally did. Simply being a member of IEEE is not enough.
Lastly, and this is the hardest part, outline your intangible qualities. Do people ask you for help a lot? If so, asking yourself why they come to you may possibly lead to key “assets” you have that might not have shone during any particular project. For instance, does every project team seem to ask you to review its protocol? Do you typically spend time with new hires and junior engineers to bring them up to speed? Are you often called upon to provide customer training? All of these examples indicate an expertise that may be a hidden asset.
To complete this step, ask a few key colleagues you trust to review your assessment. Many will try to avoid this activity because it can be uncomfortable. It is key that you choose a trusted colleague, which may mean selecting someone you aren’t presently working with. Don’t forget to include your spouse in this process. Your significant other shouldn’t be the only reviewer, though, since you probably spend much more time at work than you do talking about it at home.
Once you finish this step, you are way more than halfway through the process. With that in mind, make sure you either really apply yourself to this assessment before moving on or iterate often to complete the assessment. In either case, now that you have acclimated yourself to soul searching, you’re ready to get real honest with yourself. It’s time to work on the “Liabilities” column.
Bolster Your Weaknesses
True net worth calculations take assets and subtract liabilities to find the “NET” worth. When you’re dealing with bank accounts and loans, this is fairly straightforward. As you saw in the asset exercise above, professional liabilities aren’t going to be that straightforward. Also, unlike getting a new loan from the bank, you probably won’t be sharing your column of liabilities with others. Yet to increase your overall value, you will need to make yourself painfully aware of anything that reduces your net value.
Again, make a list, but start this time with a forward-looking exercise. First, think about anything that would prevent you from taking an otherwise perfect job assignment. For example, you may be unwilling to relocate, travel, or commute, as external responsibilities like childcare may limit these options. Have you burned any bridges in the past when you left or changed positions at a company? If so, how far might that event extend? We all work in amazingly small worlds and industries. This part of the process may take several walks, runs, or long showers to get through, but the sentence you want to complete is “Here’s the job but...” Be brutal when you look for “buts.”
The other section of your liabilities that requires an honest inventory are the job aspects you don’t perform well. Do you typically miss deadlines? Do you hate to be interrupted with meetings when digging into a problem? Do you have a hard time working with others when the group decides your own recommendation isn’t the path to pursue? If you find yourself struggling to get this process started, visualize yourself in your manager’s role and having to build a team. What aspects of yourself would affect the team or role?
These are tough questions. While the answers won’t appear on your resume, you really need to know where you stand because only then can you improve yourself. And that’s the essential point of this step, to know what you want to work on. If you were fortunate enough to have found well-trusted colleagues for step one, you may also be able to ask them to help here.
Now you need to make a personal improvement plan. Just as importantly, you need to consider how you can take one or more of these challenges and turn them into an opportunity for improvement. Don’t wait until you’re looking for a new job. Make an appointment with your manager or supervisor to discuss one of these areas and develop a plan together. If you’re unsure whether this is a wise move in your circumstances, ask your trusted colleagues to run through this process with you first. Be honest but tread carefully. You’re exposing your weaker side but also letting management know you’re working to improve yourself.
You may want to choose one of the easier items first, spin it as a diamond-in-the-rough strength, and then develop a polishing plan. For instance, if you do really well on projects that follow your recommendations, but not so well when your proposal loses out, this could be due to lack of data and time you spent analyzing or presenting it. It may be your ideas are a great fit, but just didn’t fit the schedule or budget at this time. A development plan could be to make sure you document and detail (i.e., publish) what you know and don’t know so this information can be readily shared. A documented trail for yourself and others (when you share it) can be a valuable way of increasing your value. Also note that sometimes your path fails at some point. If it does, you have to come back to the table and try again.
Up to this point, you’ve outlined your strengths (step one) and weaknesses (step two) with a plan to eliminate or reduce the liability of your weaknesses over time. Most of what you have done so far is to arm yourself for the next step, which is to begin to make the case that your strengths (and improvement on weaknesses) are highly valuable and worthy of recognition by either your current or future employer. Moving ahead, it is time to begin positioning yourself. To clarify, positioning is a marketing concept that means, in this case, creating an image of yourself in the minds of your company leaders that shows how essential you are.
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