Continue your education

The days of lifetime jobs are long gone, but people may not understand that the passing of lifetime employment means they must manage their own careers. A long-term career plan can help ensure they'll have a lifetime of employment opportunities. In the past, companies such as IBM, GE, and Hewlett-Packard provided courses—often taught by colleagues—that helped employees keep their professional skills and knowledge up to date. These companies crafted better employees and, in the process, opened new employment opportunities for them. Unfortunately, the money set aside for education, training, and travel makes an easy target for budget cutters. Once cut, those funds may never get put back into budgets.

As an engineer, you have to take the initiative to stay current, and you have to view continuing education as an investment in your long-term career goals. To many engineers, "continuing education" means reading journals and publications, checking Web sites for new application notes, and buying a technical book now and then. That's a start, but a career plan should include more formal education, too.

Nearby colleges and universities with engineering departments may offer continuing education courses and seminars aimed at professionals who need to acquire new skills or who need immersion in a new discipline. Some schools offer learning-at-a-distance or online programs that let students take courses off campus yet provide for interaction with an instructor.

Engineering schools also may offer extension programs that provide several days of intense education. In my experience, these programs prove valuable because they rely on outside experts who can talk from experience about a narrow, but important, topic.

There's another facet of "training" that deserves attention in your career plan, and it involves training your colleagues by passing on your technical knowledge. And by acting as a mentor or teacher, you'll develop important teaching and presentation skills. Few people have natural teaching abilities, but over time, most of us can develop our own techniques to impart complicated concepts to colleagues. These same techniques—presenting concepts clearly and in front of others—has an added benefit. It will make you stand out in meetings with upper management. (This idea may suggest the need to take a course in public speaking.)

Teaching can go beyond internal development of colleagues. Many of the organizations that offer educational programs also seek adjunct faculty. The pay won't make you abandon engineering, but instructing others can prove satisfying. And what better way to stay up to date than by facing inquisitive students? People sometimes say, "Those who can, do. Those who can't, teach." It should be, "Those who can, do. Those who can teach what they do, do even better."