Find out the top 10 core skills you need to master as a senior structural engineer and what hard skills you need to know to succeed in this job.
A senior structural engineer leads and supervises other junior structural engineers. They are responsible for quality control of the site investigation to designing of any construction or civil project. He/she is also responsible for making sure that the structural engineers under them follow the set guidelines for investigating sites before construction.
Other duties include providing insights on the best measures to take before construction can begin to ensure safety and are responsible for the designing of the structure by working with his/her team of professionals. The senior engineer also acts as the spokesperson for the team of structural engineers, where he/she communicates all the necessary measures developed for the project.
Core Skills Required to be a Senior Structural Engineer
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.
A senior structural engineer 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.
A Senior Structural Engineer 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.
Interpersonal Skills:
Interpersonal Skills are a set of abilities that enable a person to positively interact and work with others effectively while avoiding office disputes and personal issues with each other.
A Senior Structural Engineer must learn the importance of these skills in the workplace and emphasis on every employee possessing them to build a more cohabit able and productive workplace with the help of each.
Facilitation:
Facilitation is making tasks or life easy for others while ensuring the daily running of successful meetings or workshops or business at large.
A Senior Structural Engineer must use facilitation to process and structure a system that meets the needs of either an individual or a team to help them achieve their goals as well as add value to their lives by making sure each participates.
Managing at team:
Managing is the administration of an organization which includes activities of setting the strategy of an organization and coordinating the efforts of the employees to accomplish its objectives.
A Senior Structural Engineer must learn the art of creating corporate policy, organizing, planning, controlling and directing organization resources to achieve the aims of the policies formed while making decisions to oversee the enterprise.
Team Building:
Team Building represents various types of activities used to enhance social relations and define roles within the different teams at the workplace.
A Senior Structural Engineer ought to provide team building activities to his team to cultivate better communication, morale, motivation, productivity and help employees know each other better as well as their strengths and weaknesses to be used in building a better workplace.
Developing Others:
Developing others is an unremitting process that focuses on the broader, longer-term growth of individuals to nurture them to their potential and promote future development.
A Senior Structural Engineer needs to support, coach, positively impacts and effectively aid in developing talents of their staff by motivating them to become outstanding in their behavioral change and performance improvement that opens up development opportunities in the organization.
Orientation to Work:
Orientation to Work is the introduction that is given to a new worker whereby he is introduced to coworkers and given relevant information like schedules, performance standards, benefits and facilities, names of the supervisors, etc.
A Senior Structural Engineer must ensure that all new employees go through an orientation process to assimilate into the workplace and become familiar with what is expected of them.
Handling Stress:
Handling Stress is the skill to balance the requirements of the job and your abilities or available resources in performing it.
A Senior Structural Engineer needs to creatively learn how to schedule work according to the abilities of different individuals to ensure a balance that will not put an unsustainable level of pressure on the employees and cause them to accumulate work related stress.
Project and Goal Focus:
Project and Goal Focus is setting your mind and heart on things that matter and add value to your life against those things that add no value at all or of little value.
A Senior Structural Engineer ought to learn of early hiccups that may cause distraction and get to motivate the employees early enough to see the projects completed promptly and in good condition.
Technology Trend Awareness:
Technology Trend Awareness is staying updated with the useful upcoming trends that can serve your business better and easier.
A Senior Structural Engineer must be able to look back at the setbacks and success of the company and consider new possibilities for the future by the use of technology looking for a better, faster, more practical approach that can make business more productive.
Hard Skills Required to be a Senior Structural Engineer
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.
A senior structural engineer should have a good command of the following hard skills to succeed in her job.