How to make a great first impression?
How to make a great first impression?
(OP)
This question is geared more toward senior engineers or people within management in engineering departments. How does a new grad give off a great first impression during thier first day or week at work? What would make you think "wow this candidate was a great choice I'm very happy with him"





RE: How to make a great first impression?
Extrapolating what I tell them on one thing to apply another thing, and then checking with me if that makes sense if appropriate rather than just asking first off.
Rather than always asking questions instead proposing your idea and asking if that seems right.
Asking good questions when you do ask them.
Humility.
Confidence without any hint of arrogance.
No sense of entitlement.
What is Engineering anyway: FAQ1088-1484: In layman terms, what is "engineering"?
RE: How to make a great first impression?
2. Don't be afraid to ask questions to get a better understanding of your task or reasons behind it.
3. Don't just sit at your desk waiting for work to come to you. Go to your supervisor and ask for work, if none can be found there, ask the person in the chair next to you. Repeat until you find work to do, and notify your supervisor that you found it on your own (ie I'm assisting Jim-Bob because I finished my last task).
4. Don't talk about your nightly conquests at the bar or party activities over the weekend. Chances are everyone is older than you, and has "been there, done that." Gentlemen never tell, and you might remind others of what they might be missing out on.
5. Pay attention to personal hygiene and wear conservative clothing.
You can adjust all the above behavior after you've been there for a few months and have figured out the company's culture.
"Art without engineering is dreaming; Engineering without art is calculating."
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RE: How to make a great first impression?
RE: How to make a great first impression?
RE: How to make a great first impression?
Cheers
Greg Locock
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RE: How to make a great first impression?
What is Engineering anyway: FAQ1088-1484: In layman terms, what is "engineering"?
RE: How to make a great first impression?
Kenat also mentioned in his first post to write down all pertinent things in a notebook when someone gives you a task. We had a junior engineer start and he wrote down each task in his notepad during our conversations to make sure he knew what was asked of him. This gave me a good impression of his organizational skills.
RE: How to make a great first impression?
B.E.
The good engineer does not need to memorize every formula; he just needs to know where he can find them when he needs them. Old professor
RE: How to make a great first impression?
But I have been spoiled rotten by the new people in my charge. My goodness, but they have been great young people.
Attitude is everything.
RE: How to make a great first impression?
Chris
SolidWorks 11
ctopher's home
SolidWorks Legion
RE: How to make a great first impression?
No one can be expected to know everything; I've found that being honest with your customers, which includes your management, tends to engender more trust, because they know you'll give them the straight scoop, regardless.
TTFN
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RE: How to make a great first impression?
- Steve
RE: How to make a great first impression?
While we're at it, you can also make sure you don't fall prey to another ALL TOO COMMON habit of the younger generation. They seem to think that all written communication is the same as texting. Many of them pay no attention at all to grammar, spelling, punctuation, paragraphs, syntax, etc. How did these folks ever get a degree? That tells me a lot about our schools.
I have numerous examples in my inbox. A graduate engineer recently sent me a request for information. His message was three sentences. It had one capitalized letter, five misspelled words, and one period. This young man is a competent engineer, but you would never know it by his communication. He is hobbling his own progress.
Oh, and one last thing - the fact that you are asking the question is very a good indication!
RE: How to make a great first impression?
Maui
www.EngineeringMetallurgy.com
RE: How to make a great first impression?
RE: How to make a great first impression?
And when you're slow ask people if they have anything for you to do. If the answer is no, then do something constructive. Don't just twiddle your thumbs or surf the Internet or leave early. Read journal articles or trade magazines. Find a textbook for something you're not good at or didn't cover in school and go through the basics and then some basic examples (for structural engineers, common examples of stuff we have to do ALL.THE.TIME that are not covered at all in school: slabs-on-grade under heavy loading, retaining walls, slender wall design, steel joists (specifying, detailing, reinforcing)). Go through tutorials for an analysis package you're not totally familiar with to make sure you know it when the time comes that you need it. There's tons all of us can learn and would love to learn, but just don't have the time. Take advantage of the down-time, you'll wish you had when you're swamped.
RE: How to make a great first impression?
It's better to ask than to assume.
Great advice here already. Be a professional but don't be worried if you aren't 'catching on' right away. It's all about experience and, unfortunately, the only way to get experience is to put the time in. You will be overwhelmed but that's OK!
You will find it will take about 4-6 months before you are comfortable and probably 50 years beyond that to 'figure it all out'.
Good luck.
RE: How to make a great first impression?
RE: How to make a great first impression?
RE: How to make a great first impression?
RE: How to make a great first impression?
Regards,
Mike
RE: How to make a great first impression?
Handshaking tends to be a bit of an art, and often requires instantaneous reaction of the appropriate kind. While the ideal approach for yourself is a firm, but not overly powerful one, if your greeter is attempting to intimdate you, you must instantly crank up the handshake strength to correspond. If your greeter submits a weak handshake, you must drive through and still present a standard handshake. Duration of the handshake is also important. You can often judge your greeter's intent by their body language and hand/arm movement toward you.
TTFN
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RE: How to make a great first impression?
_____________________________________
"It's better to die standing than live your whole life on the knees" by Peter Mayle in his book A Good Year
RE: How to make a great first impression?
RE: How to make a great first impression?
Personally, I can't stand having something on my wrist. Moreover, I've got a perfectly good timepiece in the guise of a phone, so I don't need another.
TTFN
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RE: How to make a great first impression?
As far as stupid questions go, I have very little patience for basic, stupid questions. I assume people that ask basic, stupid questions are lazy and looking to have everything handed to them. I generally go out of my way not to help them much or i simply give them a short, stupid answer. I appreciate people who do their homework and ask intelligent questions. I have a job to do and I can't be bothered with a lot of inane questions. You need to balance your question asking so that you don't ask too many or don't give the impression that you want everything handed to you. Before asking someone as question, ask yourself: Should I already know the answer to this question? If so, give it some thought, go back through old textbooks or notes to see if you can refresh your memory. Is the answer to this question one I should be easily able to find. Engineers need to be able to build their resources. Might the answer to your question be found in a textbook? If it is an anginnering question of general nature, such as what does FPGA mean? can you find it on the internet? Are the other sources such as company manuals or best practices manuals that might contain the answer? If you can't easily answer the question yourself then ask a supervisor or coworker because it is better to ask than guess and be wrong.
RE: How to make a great first impression?
Imagine how annoying it is to that person if you come up asking them questions that's in that material, or if they discover you've done something wrong because you ignored that material.
My first day on my first job I spent a bunch of time going through the 'design room manual' and related procedures so I'd be vaguely aware of how things worked.
What is Engineering anyway: FAQ1088-1484: In layman terms, what is "engineering"?
RE: How to make a great first impression?
RE: How to make a great first impression?
Regards,
Mike
RE: How to make a great first impression?
Maui
www.EngineeringMetallurgy.com
RE: How to make a great first impression?
RE: How to make a great first impression?
Best to you,
Goober Dave
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RE: How to make a great first impression?
RE: How to make a great first impression?
RE: How to make a great first impression?
However, I would tend to err on the side of asking lots of questions, assuming I could learn something useful from everyone more senior (unless and until proven otherwise), and generally doing my best sponge impression.
I have seen a tendency among a very few brand new engineers to want to prove how much they know during conversations with the more senior engineers. That can be counterproductive, especially if engaging your mouth interferes with engaging your ears. Not only will you miss out on learning, but you won’t impress anyone.
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(2B)+(2B)' ?
RE: How to make a great first impression?
RE: How to make a great first impression?
Another thing is that everyone makes mistakes, just try to not big those big ones. I did that not looking at every sheet in detail before a huge rush, and ended up having to replot 50+ sets of 1 sheet at 36x60!!, and have our guys go down to the city, unstaple/unfold the sets and replace each set. That was an expensive mistake I made, which I never did get yelled at for making. Lesson learned. And that is part of being new to your field, in my case about 5 years in.
B+W Engineering and Design
Los Angeles Civil Engineer and Structural Engineer
http://bwengr.com | http://bwstructuralengineer.com | http://bwcivilengineer.com
RE: How to make a great first impression?
At least you did not get to the stage where somebody was cutting steel or laying concrete.
B.E.
"A free people ought not only be armed and disciplined, but they should have sufficient arms and ammunition to maintain a status of independence from any who might attempt to abuse them, which would include their own government."
-George Washington, President of the United States----
RE: How to make a great first impression?
For a brand new design engineer in my department, I would suggest:
- Ask questions. Ask anyone in the department, not just the manager. First make an attempt to answer the question and ask someone to confirm that the answer is correct.
- Take notes. Make a design notebook, put things into broad categories, and start stuffing it with good stuff. I started by simply photocopying my supervisor's design notebook. Keep them somewhat organized too.
- Communicate effectively. Listen, speak/write, and take the moment to observe whether your message was received as intended. Note that some semblance of grammar and spelling is required to hold the attention of certain audiences (particularly important ones). There are plenty of smart engineers who are idiots to the rest of the world due to poor communication.
- Learn from everyone. Each company has multiple roles and passionate people in those roles. Find those individuals and get to know things from their point of view. Shop floor, field service, marketing, sales, etc all have important ideas and perspectives. Also take note which individuals are great communicators, great reasoners, great analytical solvers, and when presented with those types of problems compare their method to yours and possibly review your work with them before committing it.
- Be creative with perspective. Try new ideas while continuing to execute your work the traditional way. So for example if everyone uses one system to perform a task and you see another way, try BOTH. The existing way has some advantages, and unless you can show the new way of doing things alongside of the current way, nobody will (nor should they) take your suggestion seriously. Not much good if one person is doing things vastly different than the rest for no particularly strong reason.
- No engineering school teaches you how to be an engineer. It teaches you a foundation, without walls, roof, or furnishings. You need the whole building to succeed. Identify what skills and general knowledge are required at your company and continue to learn. Once you've learned all of the tribal knowledge about a particular subject, look outside of the organization (textbooks, magazines, etc) to refresh and expand that knowledge.
- Accept that your tasks early on will be more repetitive. Interesting and more complicated work comes with time and efficiency.
- Value others' time. So you've worked for an hour and a half and developed a couple of questions. Assume that it will never be a yes/no answer (after all, we've established that the "why" is just as important as the choice) and don't ambush people as they're walking to a meeting or in the middle of something urgent. At the very least consider when you need your answer to keep on schedule, and have a couple of tasks going so that you can stay productive.
That's all for now. I need to get to work now and try to deliver on these things myself.
David
RE: How to make a great first impression?
One of my problems is that I have a deep soft voice which sometimes people can't hear. This was made clear to me when a Landscape Architect we will be working with on a few jobs kept saying what during a lunch they took us out for. It's not as important as I am the company owner talking to other owners and we are on the same team just talking. But you always have to be critical of yourself as you present yourself to others. Something I need to work on when getting new clients.
B+W Engineering and Design
Los Angeles Civil Engineer and Structural Engineer
http://bwengr.com | http://bwstructuralengineer.com | http://bwcivilengineer.com