The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) has initiated a “Grand Challenge.” The Grand Challenge asks for a commitment from civil engineers to be innovative in all phases of project planning, design, and implementation. The Grand Challenge’s goal is to reduce infrastructure lifespan costs by 50% by 2025 and to encourage innovation and design for infrastructure sustainability. The ASCE…
A/E Leaders Make Changes: Staff Should Take Note!
When I began recruiting within the A/E industry in 1986, consulting firms purported the ability for staff to choose between a technical track or a management track. In reality, if you were a competent engineer and personable, then you would be pushed up the management track (whether you wanted to or not). If you weren’t…
Does Company Size Matter?
The 2016 job market is in full swing and with it, if you are lucky, comes choices. Seasoned professionals as well as graduate engineers find themselves approached with opportunities. Today’s civil engineering companies are as different as their employees. In your job exploration you need to define the type of employer you will best fit. The…
Has Your A/E Firm Taken Over Your Identity?
Are you known as a civil engineer, architect, landscape architect and planner OR are you known as an employee of your employer? Recently an outstanding executive engineer was set to interview with my client. This engineer had worked as a leader in his firm for 20 years. At the start of the process, he told…
It’s Not About The Title or The Money: Stop Lying To Yourself!
If I had a penny for every time a job seeker told me that they would not reject a job offer based upon the title or the money, I could have bought an island years ago! Stop lying to yourself. Inevitably, 95% of job offer rejections center around money or title. That is acceptable and sometimes even reasonable. However,…
It’s All About Relationships.
Relationship: the state of being connected Engineering projects, project teams, department teams, clients, civil engineering recruiters all have one similar characteristic – RELATIONSHIPS. This includes our relationship with ourselves, our colleagues, our supervisors, our clients, our candidates. We cannot escape this inevitable connection. How we treat others, through our words and more importantly our actions,…
Professional Registrations – More Than Wall Decorations
For nearly 30 years I’ve been connecting employers and job seekers in the civil engineering industry. Sometimes I have someone who is a great fit for a position but the company does not want to interview the person. Why? Because the individual did not have a particular professional registration/license that the company felt would be…
No Time For Waste(water) In DC!
An earth-moving event is underway in Washington D.C. Only this time it’s not on Capitol Hill. This one is happening approximately 100 feet underground to fix runoff and wastewater problems that have afflicted the District of Columbia since the 1800’s. DC Water is conducting a $2.6 billion project to install 13 miles of new sewer…
Flashback: Where Have All The Civil Engineering Firms Gone?
According to press announcements, there have been at least 30 merger/acquisitions within the past MONTH in the US civil engineering and architectural consulting firm community. The blog below is just as relevant today as when it first ran on Civil Engineering Central in 2008. Refresh yourself with the write up and let us know what you…
Civil Engineering Employees Should Embrace Company Ownership
Privately held civil engineering firms can attract staff by offering the benefit of ownership through Employee Stock Ownership Plans (ESOPs). Privately held firms give stock to motivate and reward employees. Companies also offer staff the chance to purchase company stock. Work hard and own a piece of the company, which translates to employees sharing in…