Engineers: Communication and Writing Skills

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Engineers: Communication and Writing Skills

For many years, in the masses of people there has been made a stereotype of the working engineer. This is a person who spends ten hours straight in front of his computer, making some strange graphs and calculations. He is afraid of sunlight and spends his free time inventing the time machine. When people try to start a conversation he says that he has a lot of work to do and tries to run away as fast as possible. This picture may be a little exaggerated, but it is how media and television draw it. But today, engineers need communication and writing skills even more than actual engineering.

Any engineering career starts from the resume writing. Usually a resume consists of two parts: the list of things that you have done well in your life and the cover letter. Dr. Craig Gunn, a professor of mechanical engineering, clearly explains, “Many big companies do not require the cover letter, but it will be much better for you to write one, because if a manager will read it for some reason, your chances to get a job will be a lot higher.” A person that is going to give you a job will not see you directly, so you have to convince him or her not to throw your resume in the basket by presenting all of your best qualities in the resume. To write a good convincing resume is a very difficult thing to accomplish without some preparations. A good thing will be to go to a library and read a special book about resume writing. Also, the Internet is full of websites like http://www.7step-resumesampler.com/ that have a lot of important information about this subject.

A cover letter plays an important role in getting a job too. In your cover letter, as dr. Gunn suggests, “use all your writing abilities to convince the manager of your exceptional importance for this job, and you will be accepted.” Smooth and grammar free cover letter increases chances to get a job very much.

Communication is also a very important part of the work of any engineer. As Dr. Gunn states, “there is only twenty percent of actual engineering and eighty percent of writing and communication between co-workers and superiors.” Employers, as Paul Osterman points out in his essay “Getting Started”, “are not simply looking for technical skills.

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