How to Advance Your Career: Four Factors to Address

I was among a group of Mazzettites who recently attended the Society of Women Engineers (SWE) Conference.  As my coworker, Tracy, mentioned in her post about negotiation tactics, there was an overwhelming amount of information to absorb! So I’d like to focus on a few points that I found to be especially interesting and/or useful. 
I attended a seminar presented by Susan Schmitt, the Senior Vice President of Human Resources for Rockwell Automation. She spoke about four areas (perfect for Mazzetti!) of competency that are utilized by managers and HR to evaluate employee performance.

1. S K E E: Skills, Knowledge, Education, Experience – I think this is a no-brainer for most people. Most of us are very familiar with recognizing “SKEE”. It’s one of the easier things to measure because it easily quantifiable. It’s the first thing we put on our resumes, and usually the first thing we evaluate when deciding the eligibility of a potential employee.
2. IPC: Information Processing Capability – This refers to a person’s capability to manage lots of information and complexities. Engineers can get focused on details and neglect to look at the bigger picture. Managers look for engineers that think three steps of ahead of the issue at hand. It also pertains to how well a person can handle increasing levels of volatility, uncertainty, and ambiguity in their work.
3. T: Temperament – In order to perform roles effectively and to maintain healthy working relationships, a person needs to be free of temperamental extremes such as aggressiveness, extreme shyness, procrastination, manipulative behavior, dishonesty, etc…
4. A: Acceptance – This refers to an individual’s acceptance of the role requirements of his or her position. Does the individual value the work and demands associated with their role?

I really appreciated this holistic approach to success. I think it’s good food-for-thought when thinking of ways we can improve our performance, and thereby, better ensuring our own success. AND, in the spirit of Thanksgiving, I’m thankful to work for a firm working toward becoming THE most female-friendly engineering firm.