Show Notes
Today we’re talking about a topic I know you can relate to. It’s the all-too-common career saga experienced by women engineers.
I’m going to share with you a familiar scenario for engineering careers. And you’re going to recognize certain parts of it. It’s uncanny how many women engineers end up following this scenario in some way.
Unfortunately it’s possible to be a competent, innovative engineer – like you – with impeccable skills and abilities and never reach your career potential. I want to help you prevent this from happening.
Notice the parts in the scenario that are worries or snags that can later become roadblocks. The good news is that the saga can be avoided or interrupted. And afterwards I’ll share with you some ways of doing that.
Here’s the scenario:
STARTING OUT: You’re launched into an exciting engineering career and are looking forward to the possibilities! You don’t yet have a vision for your future career, though, because you’re still learning what this engineering profession is all about.
EARLY CAREER: You’re working hard, learning a lot, and becoming a contributor. You start imagining your future engineering career, but it’s vague because you can’t quite envision yourself in a high-level position. No one there looks like you.
EARLY-MID CAREER: You’re catching your stride and accomplishing technical goals. But, with few role models, you start to get disillusioned about high-level positions in the organization. You start doubting your ability to do those jobs.
MID CAREER: You’re such a great contributor that everyone is wondering where you’re headed and what your next career step is going to be – and so are you!
But, you notice that others are starting to pass you up. They’re getting promoted, finding new roles as leaders of the organization. Your salary is growing, but not as fast as others’.
MID-LATE CAREER: You’re successfully accomplishing all the work you can at your level. But you’re reaching a plateau, and you can’t seem to find the secret passageway to move beyond it.
You feel that you’re supposed to be farther along in your career than you are.
LATE CAREER: You’re one of the most experienced engineers in the organization. But you realize there are important career steps that you completely missed, mistakes you’ve made, and opportunities you never knew about.
You realize that, at this point, you’ll never catch up.
Wait, What?!
Even though all through this scenario, you’re working hard, learning, contributing, reaching project milestones, getting the product out, satisfying customers, making money for the company, and accomplishing the mission…
You’re still coming up short! So, what’s happening?
There are many factors that contribute to this saga. In general, women in engineering often don’t get the career guidance they need, nor the encouragement to dream big. Then they get toward late career and wonder why they’re not achieving what they had hoped.
We’ll be talking about this and many other factors in future episodes.
How much of this rings true for you? Can you relate? Fortunately there are ways to avoid or interrupt the career saga.
3 Ways Women Engineers Can Interrupt the All-Too-Common Career Saga
One thing you can do to interrupt the saga is to simply pay attention. Appropriate attention to your career will help you notice those little worries and snags as they happen – before they roadblock you. You’ll notice when you’re getting a little off track and then you can identify what you need.
For example, per the scenario in the early part of your career, you have trouble envisioning your future because there are few role models and you can’t picture yourself in higher-level positions.
This is one of those “little worries” or “snags” that I mentioned can turn into a roadblock. If you’re able to recognize that, you can take steps to address it.
We talked about ways to give your career the attention it needs in Episodes 1 and 2. I invite you to go back and listen to those if you haven’t already done so. They will help you be more aware and recognize features of this career saga.
Another way to interrupt the saga is to counteract the early signs of roadblocks. As you heard, these signs occur across the scenario. Here are a few examples for how to counteract them:
- In early career, you can use visioning. Visioning gives you purpose and direction and allows you to proactively plan career moves.
- In early-to-mid career, you can seek mentorship. Mentorship reinforces your strengths and abilities and advises on forward motion.
- In mid-career, you may be able to accept an offer of sponsorship. Sponsorship allows you to take advantage of challenging opportunities.
- In mid-to-late career, you can increase your risk tolerance. Taking more risk enables you to be a key decision-maker.
- In late career, you can increase your strategic collaboration through networking. Strategic collaboration helps prevent disillusionment and avoids the career plateau.
In this one short list I mentioned many powerful concepts! These are some of the things I help my clients with, and I know they are not simple.
Maybe you’d like some thoughtful guidance on how to ensure your career is on track in a way that is more fulfilling and brings you joy. My signature program is designed to do just that. Go to Work With Mary.
A third way to interrupt the saga is to put your career first. Think about your career as more important than your job, the organization, and the mission.
You may argue that this is a selfish view and that the mission and helping others is most important. For many women, it’s natural to put others first.
But here are my 3 counter-arguments:
- Think of how much more valuable you can be – how much further you can push the mission and how many more people you can help – when you gain more responsibility and authority in the organization.
- Reaching your career potential has positive psychological benefits that pervade all that you do and all whom you serve.
- You’re an awesome engineer and we need you. The world needs you to be a leader when it is your time.
Let’s rewrite the career scenario for women in engineering. Pay attention and watch for any indication that you’re being held back. When you notice something doesn’t seem right, follow your instinct and counteract these early signs.
Put your career – and yourself – first so that you can interrupt the all-too-common career saga, have more impact on your mission, and feel more hopeful and accomplished with respect to your goals.
Let’s recap: In this episode, we talked about a common career scenario that leaves women engineers feeling like they’ve come up short. We discussed how you can interrupt this saga by paying attention and noticing when things are amiss, counteracting early signs of roadblocks, and putting your career first. Next time on Her Engineering Career Podcast, I will introduce the concept of Forward Motion. Maybe you’ve noticed that we’ve already alluded to Forward Motion a couple times in the podcast. What does it mean? And how will it help you? Stay tuned for Episode 4!
