Career & Professional Issues for Engineering Researchers

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My Pages:

• Engineering Ethics: On Being the Bearer of Bad News

Pointers:

• Computing Research Association (CRA)
  • Academic Salary data (CRA's Taulbee Survey)
  • Paper on evaluating computing researchers (journal paper count is a poor measure).
  • Dave Paterson talk on having a good career
• Young Scientists' Network
• Next Wave: career information young scientists
  • Pilot study: Supply and Demand for New Science and Engineering Doctorates, including salary information
  • Skills Employers Really Want
  • Various columns on Job Hunting
• EE Times engineering Salary Survey
• Kforce regional engineering salary survey for 2000
• IEEE Member Salary Survey (they want you to buy it, but the big picture information is available on the web page as graphics)
• Basic Research white paper -- trends in research
• Cost-of-living adjustment calculator (so you can see how much that job offer might really be worth).
• Research-Doctorate Programs in the United States: Continuity and Change (National Research Council report)
• Essays on research careers
  (much about bio-tech, but some information is applicable to engineering researchers in general).
• "Employment Roundtable: $urvival calls for more than technical fitness", IEEE Spectrum, March 1996, pp. 20-31
• The Downsizing of America (New York Times)
• Advice on Research and Writing (pointers)
• Smith, "The Task of the Referee"
• Advice on writing proposals for NSF
• Spaf's advice for grad. students
• 200 Free sample letters for job hunters on-line.

• Medical basis of & dealing with stress, depression, anxiety, sleep problems and drug use.

• IEEE Ethics Committee (with IEEE code of ethics), and Guidelines for engineers dissenting on ethical grounds.
• Ethics Center for Engineering and Science
• Doing the Right Thing, IEEE Spectrum, December 1996, Volume 33, Number 12 -- (You'll need your IEEE member password).

Books:

• Reshaping the Graduate Education of Scientists and Engineers; National Academy Press, 1995.
• National Academy Press reading room (on-line books)
• Rites of Passage at $100,000+ : The insider's lifetime guide to executive job-changing and faster career progress, John Lucht, Viceroy Press, 1993. ISBN 0-942785-21-5
  This is the book I tell all new graduates to read. If you don't know the difference between a retained and contingency recruiter (and, most importantly, the role you play in how they get paid) you really need to read this book. It takes you through the world of recruiters, resumes, and job-changing. Even though the title suggests it is for executives, I find much of it applicable to industry researchers. This book will repay the investment in reading it the very first time you get a phone call from a recruiter. Note that I don't necessarily subscribe to all the job-searching strategies -- you can get conflicting advice on almost anything. Instead, I recommend this book as a way to understand the motivations and incentives to recruiters -- in effect to learn the rules of the game. I recommend you read Appendix I ("behind the scenes with the retainer executive recruiter") before delving into the rest of the book.

News Groups:

• sci.research.careers
  (largely a life sciences crowd, but some interesting debates)
• misc.business.consulting
  (good for tuning into the basics, but little specific to engineering)

The Expert Game Equation (Jonathan Bach, COMPUTER Vol. 32, No. 8: AUGUST 1999, pp. 99-101)

    If...
             you are able to get important things done
             you are seen learning things on your own
             you are seen trying to do things even if you aren't sure how
             you share freely the things that you know
             you don't hide your ignorance, but also don't rest on it
             you honor what other people know
             you know more often than not how to find out what you don't know
             you know how to ask for help
             you offer to help people on their own terms

    Then...
             no one will care whether you succeed by learning or succeed by already knowing
             no one will care if you mess up occasionally because they assume you learn from it
             no one will mind if you forget (or don't know) any given fact or method at any given time
             you will be treated as if you're smart and useful, even though everyone knows you have a lot to learn

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Philip Koopman: