Before accepting any job offer or defining what kind of career do you want, it is very important to find out which engineer job is the best for you, which things that you like on a job, which ones you don't, and in this last category, which ones you can tolerate and which ones you can't accept and are not willing to take.
A simple example: if a particular position requires travel availability and you don't have this availability for one or more very strong reasons, you shouldn't focus on this position to seek opportunities, because in the interview your answer will be negative if you ask about such availability. This can be a determining factor for your hiring.
Ask yourself: What do I want in a job? What I don't want?
Take pen and paper, divide it in half by a line and list the factors of satisfaction and dissatisfaction for you in a job. Highlight the factors of dissatisfaction you don't accept under any circumstances and those that, although you don't llike, are acceptable.
But where to find these factors? Review your most recent jobs, for example, and list what brought professional satisfaction in them, and what brought dissatisfaction. Other examples of job requirements that may be typical factors:
- Workplace
- Distance from your residence
- Work at weekends
- Overtime
- Travel Availability
- Leadership style of superiors
- Company culture
- Types of responsibilities and duties
Some of these factors are also visible directly in the advertisement of the position, when the company discloses certain requirements, such as travel availability. Other factors will only be visible if you do a research on the company or observe the behavior of people in the company while, for example, you are waiting to be interviewed. An example is the company culture and leadership style of the superiors, which you will be able to identify during interviews with futures superiors.
The result of this exercise will help you to understand which jobs as engineers you will be more interested in accepting, which ones you will need to evaluate more calmly to decide, and which ones are actually more distant from your interests.
Remember: the more flexibility, the more opportunities
It is important to remember that you can and should be careful with too many limitations. The more restrictions you have on the characteristics of the opportunities, the less opportunities you will encounter. So, it is also important to think that the greater your availability, the more diversity and the number of vacancies you can consider in your search.
