Six Telltale Signs You’re Ready for an Engineering Promotion

With 39% of busi­ness­es hav­ing increased their engi­neer­ing and tech­ni­cal work­force over the past three years and 51% expect­ing to do so in the next three years, the oppor­tu­ni­ty for career pro­gres­sion with­in engi­neer­ing is big­ger than ever. The big ques­tion is, are you ready for your next engi­neer­ing pro­mo­tion? At RTRS we have put togeth­er the top six tell­tale signs that show you’re ready to take the next big step on your engi­neer­ing career ladder.

1. You no longer find your cur­rent engi­neer­ing role challenging

You have proved your­self as a sol­id engi­neer with­in your field. You per­form, you get results and your col­leagues not only trust and respect your work but they active­ly seek your opin­ions and input. You’re doing great but you’re hun­gry more. You want chal­lenge, respon­si­bil­i­ty and oppor­tu­ni­ty to make a real impact; an appetite that you’re cur­rent role isn’t satisfying.

2. You push your­self beyond your tech­ni­cal abilities

You have sound and vast tech­ni­cal exper­tise and you active­ly seek out oppor­tu­ni­ties that will test and devel­op your non-tech­ni­cal abil­i­ties. You look for projects that require lead­er­ship, com­mu­ni­ca­tion and strate­gic skills and use these to devel­op a grow a well-round­ed skill base.

3. You con­tin­u­ous­ly look for ways to improve

You strive for per­son­al and pro­fes­sion­al devel­op­ment, gain­ing addi­tion­al qual­i­fi­ca­tions, attend­ing sem­i­nars and updates, obtain­ing pro­fes­sion­al reg­is­tra­tion and seek­ing coach­ing and men­tor­ing from seniors. You are also always on the look­out for ways to improve the per­for­mance and results of your department/company, through increased effi­cien­cies, smarter work­ing and oppor­tu­ni­ties.  You demon­strate a will­ing­ness to learn and active­ly seek feed­back and look for ways to develop.

4. You involve your­self in projects

You vol­un­teer for projects, see­ing them through from start to fin­ish in order to devel­op your project man­age­ment skills. You emerge as a nat­ur­al leader and achieve results through empow­er­ing, encour­ag­ing and moti­vat­ing those around you to per­form. Col­leagues look to you for direc­tion, feed­back and guidance.

5. You’re for­ward thinking

You know where you want to be and you have a clear path of how to get there. You also recog­nise the impor­tance of dig­i­tal­i­sa­tion in the future of engi­neer­ing; the IET 2017 skills sur­vey found that 44% of busi­ness­es will need to recruit new skills in order to tack­le dig­i­tal­i­sa­tion and here at RTRS we’re already see­ing that. You are already upskilling your­self to be in demand now and in the future.

6. You demon­strate the right val­ues and behaviours

You tru­ly love engi­neer­ing and you take pride in your work, in your results and in work­ing smarter not hard­er. You demon­strate a pos­i­tive atti­tude towards change and con­tin­u­ous improve­ment and you get involved in deci­sion mak­ing and strat­e­gy. Impor­tant­ly, you recog­nise and learn from your mis­takes and present solu­tions, not problems.

Get­ting Your Engi­neer­ing Promotion

The aver­age salary for a manager/senior engi­neer is £48,102 and at RTRS we help can­di­dates progress their engi­neer­ing careers into senior/management lev­el, every day. We work with you to iden­ti­fy the next step in your engi­neer­ing career and pro­vide prac­ti­cal advice on how to get there. We can help you tar­get your CV and iden­ti­fy your strengths and devel­op­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties, to pro­vide you with excit­ing new open­ings that will enhance your skills and devel­op you pro­fes­sion­al­ly and per­son­al­ly. If you’re ready, we’ll help you get your next step — con­tact us.