Surveying Industry Needs for Leadership in Entry-level Engineering Positions

Industry is expecting engineering students to graduate with both strong technical skills and strong leadership skills that they can apply in the companies they join. Recent research has demonstrated wide-ranging meanings with regard to how companies define leadership. Using qualitative research methods in an earlier study, we found that personnel from engineering companies involved with hiring define leadership by categorizing it into five main themes or competencies: initiative/confidence, communication, interpersonal interaction, teamwork, and engagement. This study extends the prior research by developing and validating a survey instrument based on these five themes. This paper presents the development and refinement of the survey instrument by utilizing fundamentals of survey methodology and cognitive interviews. The survey contributes to our understanding of the engineering industry’s needs for leadership competencies in their new hires. The prior research effort involved interviews of human resources and engineering personnel at six engineering companies. During the next phase of our project, this survey will be distributed to over 800 engineering companies to expand our understanding of the industry’s needs. Findings from this pilot survey will inform engineering educators about leadership competencies of which they should focus while better preparing our students for entry-level positions in engineering and aid in the further development of this instrument. The results of this research can inform the efforts of all engineering educators that strive to embed leadership development into the engineering courses. With this research, educators will know what expectations for leadership skills their students will encounter in their entry-level positions after graduation. Further, engineering programs will be able to better articulate the leadership skills their students are developing and educate potential employers on both the technical and leadership education their students are gaining in their courses. Finally, employers will benefit from hiring engineering graduates who are better prepared for the leadership expectations in the entry-level positions.