Last month, I touched upon how professionals in the energy space can enhance their value in the market, regardless of the inherent risk of whether or not their company is able to secure projects. Some of the key takeaways were:

• Take on roles that give you a wider exposure, rather than have a focus that’s too narrow.
• Gain experience across multiple phases of a project, from early stage feasibility and due diligence, into bid preparation, later stage development and execution.
• If possible, take on multiple work-streams to hedge your risk of being an asset attached only to a single project.
• Collect small wins to put on your CV, whether this is signing an MoU with a business partner, getting investment approval, or developing smaller projects; real achievements count.

Today, let’s dig deeper into the topic of maximizing your value, both for the purposes of being recognized as a key asset for internal career development and making yourself a prime target for external opportunities.

Work widely, or work deeply?

There’s an age-old question of generalization vs specialization. This is a question that will never go away, and will always have arguments for and against. Let me say that the correct answer for the purpose of maximizing your value is to do both!

For highly technical and engineering-focused professionals, leaning toward specializing and working deeply is advisable. In order to effectively lead a key technical project or engineering package,……