I agree, with a good engineering degree and the willingness to work anyone can and will get a job, there are always positions available for engineers, as long as someone remains humble and don’t pretend too much to start with, I mean what’s important at the beginning is to put your foot through the door, then once there the possibilities are endless and a real career can come out of it.

It is actually a bit of a catch without any specialized knowledge or experience, that’s because when applying for jobs it seems that many companies do prefer someone who has previous experience as opposed to someone who doesn’t. Having said that though it is possible, with a bit of luck, to put your foot through the door, which basically is all that is needed to start and real exciting and rewarding career.

Thanks!

Most engineer/managers I have coached feel doing the work and meeting the client deadlines take precedent over selling; which is why that describe their marketplace as “feast-or-famine”. They will manage themselves and staff out of backlog before realizing now they need to be selling. Unfortunately, most engineering companies don’t help managers to become more disciplined in balancing the two tasks, because they have contradictory performance measurement metrics. It’s common knowledge that if you don’t meet your weekly billable hour targets, management will be on your case fast. But typically management does not scrutinize marketing hour targets the same way. That disciplined approach to accomplishing both seller and doer roles is one where managers need training and coaching by mentors or outside consultants.

Finally, I like your comments on using LinkedIn to help in building relationships that can help your firm win more business. Most companies have adopted some CRM software to help manage their customer relationships. The biggest issue with most CRM systems is that they are in fact large data bases that are subject to data-entry quality issues and are pull-technology systems, meaning you need to pull the information out of the system you want. LinkedIn is a great tool to help managers with developing the disciplined maintenance of their client network. First, your network takes on the task of maintaining data quality, since they are constantly up-dating their own profiles. Second, the system is constantly pushing new information out to you, making it easier to maintain contact with your network contacts and better yet link to new contacts using the old “Six Degrees of Separation” concept. Introductions to people you want to know by people in your network creates “warm calls”, eliminating cold calling. LinkedIn is a tool every manager needs to use in their business development efforts.

Thanks so much for your feedback. It really speaks to the point that everyone has a truly different perspective.

As you stated, from your perspective, Tim Tebow hasn’t accomplished “much.” Yet there are people that think he has accomplished “so much.” There are people that think he changed the way teams will draft quarterbacks; there are people who think he gave a team (fans and a city) with almost no chance this year – a ride to remember; there are people who believe that Tim Tebow, in a time where athletes have a typically me, me, me attitude, has given people a refreshing look at a humble professional.

And again there are people like you who think he hasn’t accomplished much. Yes he has inspired me and I am sorry we wasted three minute of your life.

I hope you are not reading this comment and wasting another minute, but your feedback is appreciated.

Have a great week!

Anthony

Joel