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Any good career path ideas from Aeronautical Stress Engineer to Business Development and Corporate Strategy.

Keeping in mind that I don't really want to stay in Aerospace stuff. I have heard getting into sales or consulting would be good places to get my feet wet and on the right path.

Thanks
Josh

Mark's picture
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Josh-

There are millions. In fact, there are plenty while staying in Aeronautics. Get assigned to a cross functional team, befriend a marketing person and tell them you want to get close to customers, while showing them you are outgoing, friendly, clever, flexible and tolerate failure well (are resilient), and they may well put you in front of a hiring manager in sales. That would get you a shot at a BD future.

In a sense, there is NO career path, because path implies a well worn track, and the only paths that really exist are upwards in whatever silos your firm has created. Everyhing else -which is becoming more and more the standard rather than the exception - is case by case movement from job, moving ever closer to the field and managers who are in the field.

It boils down to results and relationships.

Also, keep in mind that changing job fileds and changing industries at the same time is MUCH harder than just one or the other. MUCH.

Mark

jdg's picture

Mark,

I have been trying to befriend some managers in other areas of the business to do what you are talking about. The problem is that we are such a huge company that most of the stuff that we do here is the technical stuff, and the business stuff is done in Ft. Worth. There is only a limited amount of the stuff that I find interesting here.

Also, as such a large company they figure their salaries off of some table. If I was to change jobs inside the company I would take a large pay cut. If I have to do this I will but my hope is that I will be able to accomplish the same thing without taking that huge hit.

I did befriend the director of business development for our company but I didn't get any response from him when I tried to contact him. I should probably attempt that again.

Thanks
Josh