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Career Advice From a Tech Expert: Interview with Forough Ghahramani

What career advice can you give to engineers that hope to reach management levels in managing their careers?

Top ten tips include:

1. Obtain management and project management skills both through education as well as professional experience – technical skills coupled with business/management skills are critical to success in management.

2. Understand how to gather, analyze, and manage data – data analytics is a very important skill for all professionals, especially for managers. Information is power and therefore, understanding the significance of data and having the expertise in data analysis to convert data into information to make knowledgeable decisions is the key to successful management.

3. Develop strong verbal and written communication skills.

o To be effective communicators, engineers, scientists, and researchers must learn what it takes to translate – the language of technologist/engineer/scientist into concepts and analogies that can be easily understood.

4. Work collaboratively with a wide range of internal and external stakeholders.

5. Employ a novel and adaptive thinking approach to your role, and continually create new solutions and ideas beyond that which is rote- or rule based.

6. Become skilled in cognitive load management. Become adept at sifting through large amounts of information to eliminate “noise” and focus on what is most pertinent.

7. Recognize the importance of an organization’s ability to be nimble and therefore, continually try to get the team out of doing things the same way just because that is how it has always been done to “how can we do this better and more efficiently.”

8. Capitalize on the strengths of each team member and try to mix up the different groupings of team members. This helps make the team more dynamic as well as promotes individual development.

9. Develop the ability to see the organization in relation to the wider environment and stand outside the organizational culture to come to conclusions and actions that keep the organization responsive and healthy.

10. If you believe in the work that you are doing, you will be motivated to work hard to accomplish the goals.

Should students starting out in school or their careers focus on a specific technology or take a broader approach to the industry?

It is important to pursue an academic field that will make one marketable to get a job. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, students who pursue “STEM” (science, technology, engineering and math) related disciplines are in high demand right now.

It is important to note, however, that while having the technical skills required for the job is an important factor in getting the first interview and ultimately the first job, the following attributes and skills are significant factors in reaching career success:

* Novel and adaptive thinking

* Analytical skills

* Computational thinking – ability to translate large amounts of data into abstract concepts

* Understanding and communicating across multiple disciplines (known as transdisciplinary)

* Virtual collaboration

* New media literacy – visual, audio and virtual media are surpassing traditional text-based media

* Demand for blend of project management and technical skills

* Cross-cultural competency – be able to operate effectively in different cultural settings

* Communication skills (oral and written) – employers recruit those who are articulate, concise and have strong written skills. Verbal skills are important, while the new generation does most of their communicating without talking, “talking” has not gone away in business

* Leadership and team skills

* Time management

* Conflict management and resolution

* Facilitating and managing change

* Social intelligence and empathy – connecting to others in a deep and direct way

Therefore, it is important to develop the broad base of skills to complement the specific skills for the student’s’ discipline. Soft skill traits can be just as crucial as the technical skills.

What opportunities are you seeing most unfilled in the industry, and any insight into why?

The opportunity for a better collaboration between industry and academia to enhance student’s and educators’ learning/teaching experience.

* Mentoring opportunities from industry to educational institutions – involving both students and teachers.

o For example, in healthcare and biotechnology, early partnerships with local pharmaceutical, medical, healthcare, and biotechnology institutions is key to developing the necessary workforce and successfully placing students.

* Promote summer education workshops for teachers and guidance counselors in the industry with the ultimate goal of raising awareness in major influencers of future generation of scientists and engineers.

* Given the gap between public understanding and public perception of biotechnology, genetic engineering or gene mapping, researchers should take an active role in helping to educate and inform the public.

o Not all scientists are in the teaching profession, but all scientists can teach by sharing their knowledge and expertise with others. Whether it’s giving a presentation to students in on ‘career day,’ serving as a mentor for an aspiring biologist or talking to a local civic organization – being able to communicate effectively about your research and your scientific discipline is essential.

What type of work should students look to perform as part of internships?

I believe any type of exposure to a professional setting will provide valuable experience for the student. It is important that the organization has made a commitment to dedicate resources to spend time with the student, provide meaningful work to the student, and therefore, there is a specific outcome expected of the experience so that the student has something to show for their time.

Keep the following in mind:

* Goals are defined

* Work experience is varied

* Experiential learning is accompanied by discussion with professionals

* Access to mentors is available

It is when learning is infused with examples from the biotechnology/engineering/scientific/business setting, and students are able to practice hands-on technical/management skills on a regular basis that a program has the greatest impact on a student pursuing a job in their field of interest.

Biotechnology has been one of most popular fields when discussing job growth and opportunity. In your role as an educator, have you seen a large number of career changers entering the field? Are they finding opportunities after school as readily as traditional students?

We have several health sciences programs at DeVry University, including health information technology (HIT) and neurodiagnostic technology (NDT), and those areas seem to attract career changers.

Other popular fields generally include healthcare as well as pharmaceuticals and biotechnology and the types of jobs these offer range from a medical writer to a product/process developer to a bioinformatist.

Career changers oftentimes tend to be more mature, have more confidence as well as experience, while not in their current field of study necessarily. However employers are gravitating towards these types of students due to those characteristics described earlier that differentiates them from their less experienced academic peers.

Therefore, many times the career changers have a competitive advantage. In addition, the HIT and NDT programs engage students in practical settings and not only enable participants to develop high levels of competency in basic industry skills, they also provide participants with the opportunity to understand different aspects of the field.

How important are advance degrees in the biotech field?

Interdisciplinary skills including biology, information technology, mathematics, and analytics are all extremely important for success in the biotechnology field. There are few degree areas that offer all or a subset of these in one undergraduate degree, such as bioinformatics. Therefore, advanced degrees are necessary to acquire a combination of these necessary skills.

For those who aspire towards management, advanced degrees in management and business administration are also necessary for complementing the science/technology expertise with management skills.

How competitive is biotech for the mature career changer? If any, what challenges does an older group face?

As I mentioned, in response to a previous question, a mature career changer in many instances has a competitive advantage over traditional students in biotech and healthcare, based on maturity, confidence, communication and leadership skills.

The challenges include:

* Proficiency in use of technology

* If they have not used their math and analytical skills for a long period of time, this serves as a challenge for them

* Requirement for interdisciplinary skills

What are the top 3 things a 2013 graduate in this field should be doing now to prepare for his or her job search in this field?

* Develop a network of contacts (professors, friends, parents of friends, friends of parents, family, and neighbors, etc.)

o Inform people know that you are about to graduate and are looking for a job before you actually graduate

o Create a professional social media profile (i.e. LinkedIn)

o Look into professional organization memberships

o Good networking is about building solid, trusted relationships that are long-term, not short-term

* Develop and market your brand: what are your key differentiators, how do you want people to perceive you

* Think ahead – create a 3-5-year plan

For more information on careers of the future and ways to advance in your job search, visit www.devry.edu/know-how.

Author: Forough Ghahramani

A transformational business leader, engineer, and entrepreneur, Forough Ghahramani is an associate dean of the College of Business and Management and the Keller Graduate School of Management at DeVry University and is the founding director of the New Jersey Center for Innovation, Creativity and Entrepreneurship.

Prior to her current role, Forough was a senior systems architect at Hewlett-Packard. Forough’s diversified career experience includes higher education management, strategic planning, management consulting, business analysis and organization-wide information technology planning.

Forough has a bachelor’s degree in mathematics with a minor in biology from Pennsylvania State University. She also holds a master’s in business administration from DePaul University as well as a master’s degree in computer science from Villanova University.

About Mark Anthony Dyson

I am the "The Voice of Job Seekers!" I offer compassionate career and job search advice as I hack and re-imagine the job search process. You need to be "the prescription to an employer's job description." You must be solution-oriented and work in positions in companies where you are the remedy. Your job search must be a lifestyle, and your career must be in front of you constantly. You can no longer shed your aspirations at the change seasons. There are strengths you have that need constant use and development. Be sure you sign up to download my E-Book, "421 Modern Job Search Tips 2021!" You can find my career advice and work in media outlets such as Forbes, Inc., Fast Company, Harvard Business Review, Glassdoor, and many other outlets.

by Mark Anthony Dyson

Book Review: Who Says Its A Man’s World by Emily Bennington

Emily Bennington is the author of, Who Says It’s A Man’s World: The Girl’s Guide to Corporate Domination is the second book that I am reviewing that is not solely focused on job search advice and tips. In December, I outlined key points from the Leigh Branham’s book, The 7 Hidden Reasons Employees Leave, that job seekers should apply to their job search. I will make the same case as well, but first address why should job seekers read a career book among the other industry related material in preparing for the next opportunity.

To answer a common question, yes, I read the book in its entirety.

I also read through the reviews of Emily Bennington’s last book, Effective Immediately: How to Fit In, Stand Out, and Move Up in Your First Real Job. Most of the positive reviews mentioned how practical the book was acting as a guide for new graduates. Even seasoned professionals commented how the advice was so practical and precise.

As an educator, I appreciate the practitioner approach, witty, mildly caustic, and affable, with an educator’s heart in her latest offering. That makes a book an easily digestible read for me, not one inundated with statistics and learning theories.

The first chapter in Emily Bennington’s book recommends that you outline three points from each of the five sections of the book. In addition, she created some practical worksheets for the readers to use and organize thoughts (I am also ignoring that the women focus advice is as practical for us men folk). I wish more career publications would incorporate this strategy (Emily, please don’t change).

To pontificate on my random statement, no, I did not study this book. I suggest that the job seeker who desires to optimize the wisdom from these lessons is to read through it twice, absorbing a few points per section.

Out of the many reasons job seekers must embrace “…Man’s World,” I am offering five reasons this would aid all job seekers, particularly women:

Self-awareness

Bennington empathizes with the unload of the unexpected work and offers several strategies to help manage stress and expectations. As mentioned before, there are exercises to help the employee envision the type of pace and culture he or she desires. This mindset is useful for the current unemployed job seeker to manage his or her expectations of a future employer. Bennington’s suggestion is for you to control of every phase possible from the beginning.

Social skills

Bennington tackles commonly sticky subjects such as, appropriately dressing, office banter, and managing your manager in a way that is easier to swallow than most authors would. If anything she suggests that you walk in the other person’s shoes as part of a strategy that accompanies direct communication.

Personal effectiveness

As mentioned earlier, this section is workbook-like so that the reader can create target areas for improvement. More importantly, this enables to keep the reader accountable.

Team development

Bennington merges a chapter about critical thinking to help the reader think even deeper about his or her approach to knowing people on the team. This is useful as job seekers need to display his or her aptitude and abilities to solve problems. How do you engage coworkers, learn their strengths, and complement them with your abilities? Bennington provides 100 questions to engage others as either a non-management coworker, and as a manager.

Leadership

Again, the practical approach makes this book easy to follow and put in practice, especially when she discusses leadership in a “walk the walk” mantra. Bennington makes the case as trust is earned, and “…trust is built on dependability.” Although much of this is addressed to women, men can take away the approach.

I recommend “Who says…” not just as a preparedness to the office, but as intended by Bennington, an opportunity to excel in the workplace.

Oh Yes, the FREE copy!

Would you like to own a copy of Emily’s new book? To qualify, all you have to do is leave a comment below before Monday by answering this question: Which of the five areas (self-awareness, social skills, personal effectiveness, team development, leadership) mentioned in this review is your strength? The winner will be randomly picked on Monday. Good luck!

About Mark Anthony Dyson

by Mark Anthony Dyson

A Moment with Amit De, CEO of Careerleaf

Here is a fresh look at a new job seeker community, Careerleaf.com, an all-in-one job search platform that cuts the time to apply in half, publicly launched. Careerleaf’s partner-driven platform helps job seekers search for jobs, showcase themselves, and track and manage the entire process. You can read more at Careerleaf.com.

Amit De was gracious enough to find a few minutes provide some answers to questions I had. I will say that he had to correct me when I called the site a job board. In fact, the site was created to avoid the feel and function of any job board site. It was his own frustrating research experience using job boards that inspired this site.

What myths do you tackle and debunk with Careerleaf that makes you standout?

We provide a community for candidates that lets them access niche and other job boards, while structuring their job search effectively and efficiently.

What were some of the challenges you faced in starting out?

Building out the features that would help the candidate most, as our solution focuses on the candidate. However, getting the right mix for users is always a challenge.

Please explain the thought process of what you liked and didn’t like about job boards that you were using?

Just searching the large boards, where you have postings which receive hundreds of applications and get no responses. There needs to be a more efficient way of finding the right jobs.

How did you come up with Tracklet?

We created the Careerleaf Tracklet to help job seekers easily track and manage their search. Many job seekers don’t just look for jobs in one place, so Tracklet was created to allow them to easily manage all of their searches across the Web.

Was your goal at the beginning was to cut the initial time from the application to the search?

One of the goals was to cut the time. But overall, to create a more efficient system.

I saw a screen shot of the job seeker profile and it looked very attractive. Are there other considerations to the job seeker profile that would make it stand out to potential employers and recruiters?

There are lots of other features we can add, but too much is also not good. Hence, we felt this was a good balance to allow candidates to showcase themselves efficiently and tailor their profile.

So what would be key elements that a user must have to attract employers and recruiters on their profile?

A fully completed and well-thought out profile will certainly give users a better chance of attracting employers. Job seekers should focus on creating a strong summary of themselves in their bio section to allow employers and recruiters to better understand what they are searching for.