4 Career Paths For Civil Engineers In The UK.

Have you just finished University and you don’t know what to do next? I have been there. This post might help you to decide (and this one to succeed at your interview).

Civil Engineers have very good analytical skills and a strong technical knowledge in Maths so the sectors where we can add value are almost endless. I have friends working in business consulting, banking, academia and law firms. However, on this post I am going to focus on the “typical” route for a civil engineer who wants to stay within the industry.

On every civil engineering project in the UK, there are 4 main stakeholders:

• Consultancy: responsible for developing the calculations that support the design.
• Contractor: responsible for delivering the project according to the design.
• Client: responsible for defining the requirements, paying the contractor and the designer for their services and owner of the final product.
• Regulator: responsible for defining the industry safety and quality standards and defending the interests of the general public.

Routes for a Civil Engineer in the UK. (Source: prepared by the author)

For instance, imagine EDF (the Client) wants to build a new nuclear power plant. They, as the Client, would define the requirements for the plant (lifetime, materials, location, cost…).

EDF would pay AECOM (the Designer) to provide a design according to these requirements.

EDF then would pay Laing O’Rourke (the Contractor) to actually build the power plant according to AECOM design.

Design and construction stages would be supervised by the Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR) which acts as the Regulator on behalf of the UK Government.

Let’s explore what could be your role on each of them:

 

Consultancy

They are the designers. They always think they are the most intelligent people in the room. And they probably are. They live to keep the Client happy.

You should consider working for them if you like a theoretical approach to engineering, finding new solutions and working in an office environment.

Work can be monotonous at the office sometimes but the experience you will gain using Eurocodes and finding technical solutions will be invaluable in the future if you change role.

World Trade Centre – Oculus, New York. 2018.

 

Contractor

They are the pragmatists. Hands-on people trying to find practical solutions to last minute changes.

You should work for one of these companies if you like working on site, sorting out logistics efficiently and adapt quickly to dynamic environments.

Working on site can be a synonym to long hours and high time pressure but this experience will be useful for you to understand constructability issues and detect improvements to the design. This is why, Civils with site experience are key on the pre-construction stages of a project.

 

Client

They are the owners of the final product. They pay and they define the requirements. Sometimes they can be too vague and the designer would struggle to meet their needs. They would typically say the designer is not asking the right questions.

You should work for a Client if you are assertive, enjoy supervising work done by others, and you are comfortable making decisions with limited information. Civil Engineers usually manage interfaces between contractors or define technical requirements.

You might not get involved in the technical detail as much as a designer or a contractor but you have the responsibility of managing their performance and the power to make decisions.

 

Regulator

They are “the Police”. They set the rules of the game and challenge the other 3 stakeholders on behalf of the general public. Especially the Client. They essentially are the Government.

You should work for one of them if you like laws, policy and regulatory environments.

It can be bureaucratic at times, but you will gain a holistic view of the industry and there is meaning in defending the interest of the public.

United States Capitol. April 2018.

My recommendation

Work at least a year for each of them. Which one first? My preferred order would be Designer – Contractor – Client – Regulator.

Why? Because if you start with a Consultancy straight after University, all your theoretical knowledge will be very useful and relevant for your daily technical tasks.

After this you could apply your design skills on a construction site learning about constructability.

With these 2 previous experiences you would be highly desirable for a Client because you would be able to set clear expectations for Designer and Contractor. You know how they think because you have been on their shoes.

Finally, if you fancy a change you could work for the Regulator because your vast experience and good connections in the industry would allow you to set the rules and enforce them.

And you, where did you start your career? 

 

 

 

Should You Change The Way You Use Email?

This is one of the most useful productivity hacks I’ve ever seen. And what strikes me the most is that it has been around since 2007! Many great things have been around longer than we think as the famous bridge below.

How many minutes do you spend every day just reading, classifying and sending emails? Probably a lot. Having a clear strategy to deal with emails is critical as you move up the corporate ladder. Efficiency is a very useful skill to have as an engineer too.

Iron Bridge in Coalbrookdale, England. 2019.

Before

I used to classify emails by subject or project. So as months went by, I started needing more and more folders, subfloders and sub-subfolders.

Since some emails required an immediate response and others don’t, I also had to flag some of them. I had to create a double classification: one based on subject and another based on urgency.

If I received an urgent email which requires a response by the end of the week, I had to flag it and store it into the relevant folder. But borders between folders were not always clear. They tend to be blurry.

As a civil engineer, you might have a folder called ICE to save your Chartership-related emails. You might also have a Volunteering folder to save emails about events you attend as a volunteer. What if you get an email about a volunteering event organised by the ICE? Should you save it in both folders? Should you create a subfolder in you ICE folder called Volunteering? You see the issue.

 

Now

I got to a point were this approach was unmanageable. A friend told me about another system called Inbox Zero. It basically had one goal: keep your inbox empty at all times.

That concept sounded great but, how I do that? After reading about this system I’ve outlined some principles for you to follow. If you prefer, you can see the full version on Youtube.

1. You should classify all your emails by urgency and not by subject. This means you don’t need subfolders but only folders to differentiate what needs a response today, this week or this month.
2. Anything that is not actionable by you should go to Archive. If it requires an action from your side, then you should save it on a folder called Today, This week or This month according to its urgency.
3. If you can reply to an email in less than 2 minutes you should do it. If not, you should decide where to save it: today, this week, this month or archive.
4. Every email you can delete, you should delete it. It’s unbelievable the amount of irrelevant emails you get per week. Don’t archive them if you can delete them.
5. Your subject line is everything. The more descriptive and specific your subject line is, the easier it will be to find emails later.

 

This is how your inbox should look like.

 

Critics could say: “OK, but what if you want to find an old email related to a specific project? You have to go to Archive and dive into thousands of emails.” True. But this is why the subject line on your emails should be the most important thing. Because this will be what you’ll use as search terms in the future. Plus, unless you have less than 10 emails per folder, you’ll have to use the search function anyway. As long as your subject line is descriptive enough, there’s no difference between searching amongst 1000 or 10000 emails.

Inbox zero might not be perfect but it’s definitely the best email management strategy I’ve found. Give it a try and let me know your thoughts.

Which Are The Most Useful Skills For A Civil Engineer?

Is it being able to solve triple integrals? Is it solving designing steel structures in less than 30 minutes? Is it remembering formulas from the Eurocodes? Definitely not.

A strong focus on analytical thinking for years can prevent civil engineers from developing other abilities. This can be a weakness for us in comparison with people from other backgrounds. Emotional intelligence could be one of our areas for improvement.

How To Win Friends And Influence People is probably one of the best books I’ve ever read and provides good insights on this. The amount of value and useful concepts per page is insane. And what amazes me the most is that it was written in 1936!

Some concepts might seem obvious to you but I have always wondered why some of these ideas are not taught at public schools. Same happens with economic concepts such as debt, credit and investments which are not taught at schools even though they will be far more useful in your life than remembering book titles written by a famous author.

This book allows you to better understand human nature and people’s behaviours which is useful for your personal and professional relationships.

I’m going to focus what I think is the main idea of the book:

Everybody wants to feel a sense of importance.

Believe it or not, this is the main force that moves the world. Dale Carnegie found out that people who truly understand this concept have a huge influencing power.

 

Treat everybody by their name.

Carnegie says that:

A person’s name is to that person the sweetest and most important sound in any language.

It is unbelievable how many positive reactions you get when you treat people by their name. Charismatic people are able to remember hundreds of names and include them in their conversations. This make us to immediately like them.

We get a sense of significance when people we have just met are able to remember our name. It’s silly but true.

 

Encourage others to talk about themselves.

People don’t care about your problems, they only care about their problems. Rough but true.

People don’t want to listen to your stories, they want you to listen to theirs. And not only to listen but also engage, ask follow-up questions and show interest.

How many times you had a conversation where you are just waiting for the other person to stop talking for you to say whatever you want to say? It’s unbelievable. If you truly analyse all the conversations you have during the day, you’ll be surprised by the conclusions. So many conversations where there is zero active listening. Just 2 people saying stuff to each other without considering what the other person said previously.

For instance, you’re having lunch with your colleague and she’s talking about her last trip to Australia. How likely are you to mention that you or your friend have been in Australia too a few years ago? Instead, you could make the other person feel important by asking her about her trip: Which areas did you visit? What were your favourite spots?

It’s crazy the amount of conversations we turn into talking about ourselves instead of becoming interested in other people’s lives. Why? Because we all want to have that feeling of significance. And obviously you too.

 

Let the other person do a great deal of the talking.

You only learn new things while you’re listening. Not while you’re talking. This is also related to one of the 12 Rules for Life by Jordan Peterson: Assume that the person you are listening to might know something you don’t.

It’s about having enough humility and self-confidence to accept your own limited knowledge and the value of the other person’s ideas.

In mathematical terms, technical knowledge may be a necessary but not sufficient condition to succeed in the civil engineering industry.

7 Ideas To Excel At Your Next Interview

Unemployment in the UK is hitting historical lows and the job market presents great opportunities especially for engineers. However, there is uncertainty regarding the consequences of Brexit and this positive trend could change.

I am writing this post because I want to share with you my lessons learned and hopefully help you smash your next interview.

 

1. Take notes.

This might sound silly but it is useful for both parties. By writing down the main points mentioned by the interviewer you will be able to remember what happened during the interview and analyse it retrospectively once it ended. You cannot learn from your mistakes if you keep track of them.

You cannot imagine how good impression you would cause by just simply taking notes. This will show the interviewer your keenness to get that job and that he has your full attention. And as Oren Klaff says in his book Pitch Anything, genuine attention is one of the most difficult things to get from your interlocutor. Furthermore, getting the attention of another human being make us feel important and significant. And this feeling is extremely powerful as Dale Carnegie explains in his book How to Win Friends and Influence People

 

2. Focus on what YOU did.

“Give me an example when you worked on a team to achieve a goal” – the interviewer asks you. Try to avoid giving vague generic examples. Instead, tell a story about a specific situation where YOU contributed to a common goal.

Even though this question is about teamwork skills, the interviewer is more interested on YOUR contribution and the value YOU added than the actual outcome of the process. This kind of competency-based questions are also a great opportunity to show your storytelling techniques. A good starting point is to use the STAR (Situation-Task-Action-Result) approach to structure your answer.

 

3. Ask questions at the end (and at the start?).

Most of the interviews end with the interviewer asking you if you have any questions. If you are really excited to get that job you should have loads so try to have 2 or 3 questions ready. You can also write them down beforehand on your notebook. This will show that you have done your research.

Q1: What is the strategy of the company regarding…[insert recent event or news that can impact the business]. This question show that you are up to date and informed about the sector where your company operates.

Q2: What is expected from me?/ How do you define success on the context of this role? This is a very useful question both for you and the interviewer because it will give you an idea of what are the main challenges of the job and it will show the interviewer that you are keen to deliver results and adapt quickly.

Q3: What is the best and the worst thing about this role? Classic. You will get very good insights from the answer to this question.

Robert Cialdini on his book Pre-suasion develops the idea that we make decisions based on what happens immediately before the alternatives are presented to us.

How can we use this idea to our advantage? By asking the interviewer one simple question at the start of the interview: What strengths, skills or traits have you found on your CV that stood out to you and led you to call me for an interview?. He will then have to give you an answer by listing out loud your strengths. This will make him to subconsciously focus on your traits the rest of the interview.

First impressions are very important and by asking this question at the start, the interviewer will keep the reasons why you are a good candidate on the back of his mind the whole interview.

New York. 2019.

4. Don’t be afraid of failure.

One of the most scary questions on a job interview is: Which is your biggest weakness? There are only 2 types of answers and only one will strengthen your position.

1. Avoiding the question: I can’t think of any right now or I am too perfectionist. Everybody has weaknesses and trying to hide them from the interviewer is not going to help you. This shows a lack of self-awareness.
2. Truly self-reflective response: I have been told that I can improve my [insert any of your areas for improvement such as speaking skills, assertiveness, punctuality, attention to detail…] so I have decided to [insert your current strategy to improve on that area such as reading books, listening to podcasts, attending workshops, new routines…]. You could also structure this answer by using STAR (Situation-Task-Action-Result) technique and giving examples.

We tend to avoid answering these kind of questions because we think that it will reduce our chances of getting the job. However, these questions are a good opportunity for you to show your self-awareness, how you are able to learn from your mistakes and that you are keen to receive feedback to work on your areas for improvement.

In short, don’t be afraid of sharing your areas for improvement as long as you have developed a strategy to improve.

 

5. Call the interviewer by their name.

Did you notice that beautiful feeling when someone you’ve just met remembers your name? You instantly like that person. It’s all about making the other person feel important. By subtly incorporate the name of the interviewer in your answers you will make the interview look more like a conversation rather than a interrogatory.

Sartre once said that there are 2 main forces that move the world: one is sexual attraction and the other one is the human desire of significance.

 

6. It’s OK to stop.

Sometimes when I feel on the spot after a difficult question I tend to rush my answers. Don’t. This can lead you to be vague and not being able to properly answer the question. Instead, say: Excuse me, I’m going to take 30 seconds to structure my thoughts. This is great because it shows that you are not afraid of stopping and thinking when encountered with complex problems. If after 30 seconds you are still not able to provide a solid answer you can always say: Please do you mind if I come back later to this question?

If you genuinely don’t know the answer to a question instead of coming up with a weak answer, I always recommend to tell the truth and say I don’t know the answer right now but I know where to find it. You are not expected to know everything but to be able to provide solutions when encountered with problems.

 

7. Send a relevant follow-up email.

Again, try to be specific and avoid sending generic emails such as: Thanks for your time and hope to hear from you soon. Instead, adapt your message to your audience by mentioning some anecdote, interesting fact or story which came up during the interview.

All these concepts can be summed up in one sentence: Put yourself into the shoes of the interviewer and the company. In other words, ask yourself: what the company needs and how can I help them achieve it?