Find out the top 10 core skills you need to master as an engineering support technician and what hard skills you need to know to succeed in this job.
An Engineering Support Technician is responsible for providing enterprise-level support to clients in civil, industrial, environmental and mechanical engineering. This position assists engineers with research and development, quality control and design as well as work alongside the scientists or quality assurance inspectors.
Their primary responsibilities include following standard procedures for proper escalation of unresolved matters to the appropriate internal teams, taking ownership of customer matters stated and discerning the problems through resolution, researching, diagnosing, troubleshooting and identifying solutions to resolve customer issues, providing prompt and accurate feedback to customers, ensuring proper recording and closure of all matters reported, preparing accurate and timely reports, documenting knowledge in the form of knowledge base tech notes.
Core Skills Required to be an Engineering Support Technician
Core skills describe a set of non-technical abilities, knowledge, and understanding that form the basis for successful participation in the workplace. Core skills enable employees to efficiently and professionally navigate the world of work and interact with others, as well as adapt and think critically to solve problems.
Core skills are often tagged onto job descriptions to find or attract employees with specific essential core values that enable the company to remain competitive, build relationships, and improve productivity.
An engineering support technician should master the following 10 core skills to fulfill her job properly.
Listening Skills:
Listening Skills are a practical ability to accurately receive and interpret messages you receive during the communication process to ensure flow and accuracy are maintained.
An Engineering Support Technician ought to have outstanding listening skills that lead to a better understanding at the workplace between the management and the staff, customer satisfaction in return yielding greater productivity with fewer mistakes and increased sharing of information in a more creative and innovative way.
Problem Solving:
Problem Solving is the skill of defining a problem to determine its cause, identify it, prioritize and select alternative solutions to implement in solving the problems and reviving relationships.
An Engineering Support Technician has a fundamental role in finding ways to address all types of problems through having a good method to use when approaching a problem without being ineffective, favoring or causing painful consequences.
Troubleshooting:
Troubleshooting is solving a problem or determining a question to an issue which is often applied to repairing failed products or processes on a machine or a system.
An Engineering Support Technician must be able to diagnose any trouble in the management flow caused by a failure of any kind and determine to remedy the causes of the symptoms with the final product being the confirmation that the solution restores the process to an excellent working state.
Inspiring others:
Inspiring is encouraging one to be their best in contributing to the vision of an organization where they are placed and entrusted to work.
An Engineering Support Technician must create a culture where the staff can use their professional prowess and aspire to be the best by giving them a clear vision and purpose through decisive leadership that motivates and inspires them.
Equal Opportunity and Diversity:
Equal Opportunity and Diversity means having employees from a wide range of background that includes different ages, gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, religious belief, educational background, physical ability and treating them equally.
An Engineering Support Technician is required by the law to create a workplace free from discrimination and harassment to its employees as well as understand and adhere to the rights and responsibilities under the human rights and antidiscrimination law.
Personal Relationships:
Personal Relationships is the relationship between individuals who have or have had a continuing relationship of any nature either professional or informal.
An Engineering Support Technician reserves the right to take prompt action if an actual or potential conflict of interest arises concerning individuals who engage in a personal relationship that may affect terms and conditions of employment and he should not also date a subordinate.
Seeing Potential Problems:
Seeing Potential Problems is the ability to structure the current situations and identify developments that could cause problems in the future.
An Engineering Support Technician needs to see potential problems before they occur and work to stop them early enough, he also has to stay ahead of the flow not to be caught you by upcoming issues that could be easily prevented if they were noted soon enough.
Time Management:
Time Management is the capacity for an individual to assign specific time slots to activities as per their importance and urgency to make the best possible use of time.
An Engineering Support Technician must schedule each task within a stipulated period for each employee and ensure all the tasks are completed promptly thus actually teaching the staff the value of time and how to utilize it for the interest of the business and their growth.
Customer Service:
Customer Service is the ability to cater for the needs of the client by providing excellent customer service without compromise.
An Engineering Support Technician must understand that pleasing customers is directly connected to the success of the business, therefore, must create a superior customer experience culture in the company that every employee should follow in ensuring all the customers are treated as they should.
Mechanical Skills:
Mechanical Skills are the abilities to solve problems that arise in the workplace, although it may vary from one company to another.
An Engineering Support Technician must be well equipped with technical skills to handle any underlying mechanical problem that may arise from wrong scheduling to meeting unique customer needs, budget, legal constraints, environmental and social issues, technology changes and any other management requirements.
Hard Skills Required to be an Engineering Support Technician
Hard skills are job-specific skill sets, or expertise, that are teachable and whose presence can be tested through exams. While core skills are more difficult to quantify and less tangible, hard skills are quantifiable and more defined.
Hard skills are usually listed on an applicant's resume to help recruiters know the applicant's qualifications for the applied position. A recruiter, therefore, needs to review the applicant's resume and education to find out if he/she has the knowledge necessary to get the job done.
An engineering support technician should have a good command of the following hard skills to succeed in her job.