Customer Reviews

Career Advancement and Survival for Engineers

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This book is packed with useful tips for excelling in the corporate environment. It is all about the "whens" and "hows" of making a good impression and achieving the greatest impact. This is not a technical book--it focuses more on how to deal with the organization. It includes tips like how to find and utilize a good mentor, and the importance of maintaining a company calendar (for scheduling requests when they will have the most impact).

The editing of this book is poor--it has a lot of typographical and grammatical errors. But if you look beyond the writing errors, there is an awful lot of useful, practical information. This is a book that every engineer, from the new college graduate to the senior engineer, should read.

This is one of those books that spews out common-sense advice such as "know what gets you ahead" and "seek out opportunities to excel." Okay, this might be useful information for some. For the most part, though, this will only be useful to those who are really out of touch with what it takes to get ahead. And it is going to take more than reading this book to change that.

John Hoschette provides valuable insight for advancement, not only for the target audience of engineers, but also for technical professionals. The book details what is necessary to defeat the bureaucratic mentality and get ahead. The only caution that I would give is that it applies to large, stratified companies. Those employed in many of today's lean thinking companies will find his advice somewhat out of date. Even in those companies, the fundamentals provide a good insight and historical perspective to the environments that made lean manufacturing a necessity.