How to change Your Career to a Planning Engineer
I receive this question very often ” how to prepare or change my career to planning field” Therefore, I decided to create a detailed post about this subject. Planning Engineer Job is required a lot with a higher salary than other fields. However, since it is an attractive job opportunity; you will find too many competitors and even it might be challenging to enter this field. In this article, I will explain to you my point of view on how to follow certain steps to get your job offer as a planning engineer.
Before moving further to the steps I would like to share with you a very nice definition that works for all industries including Planning Engineering.
Red Ocean V.S Blue Ocean
- The Red Ocean: This is the area where all weak, average, and maybe also the strong competitors are fighting together. In our case, many engineers apply for one job. The reason it called RED because of the blood of fights makes the Ocean red.
- The Blue Ocean: This is the area where only experts and professionals stand-in. There is no blood, competitors are very few, and there are a lot of fishes (Jobs) to catch. However, to reach there it requires some special skills.
Accordingly, you have to decide your self which route you prefer to follow; Red Ocean or Blue Ocean? In the following steps, I will recommend the Blue Ocean path… where you can boost your skills so your zone will be Blue; the new skills you will gain will make you move away from the Red to the Blue. It is not enough to learn Primavera … the most important is to have the tools and techniques to build a complete-time schedule cost and resource loaded along with a strong background for potential claims and EOT and finally being able to present your work in a professional report to different stakeholders. One size fits all approach does not work; you need to learn how to custom made a solution (Report, Schedule, EOT…ect) for each problem (Client, Consultant, Contractor, Subcontractor, Higher Management…etc)
Following are the recommended steps to reach the Blue Ocean (Planning Engineer Job) :
1- Study and practice this course: Planning Using Primavera Basic Course
2- Study this course (move fast do not practice now) : Professional Planning Engineer PPE Course
3- Study and practice this course: Claims and EOT Course
4- Study and Practice this course: Reports using Advanced Excel Course
Note: Courses number 2, 3, and 4 are available in one package at a discounted price here: Advanced Planning Package Courses
5- Build your resume on the website: Post Your Resume
6- Start applying for jobs (we post new jobs daily): Planning Engineer Jobs
7- Go back to course number 2 and study it with practice.
8- Keep applying for jobs as per step no. 6.
9- Study and practice this course: Monitoring and Controlling Using Power Bi and P6
When you reach step no 5, you will be able to clear any interview with above-average level; but when you reach step no. 9, you will be in the blue Ocean …. (Unbeatable).
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