19 Key Attributes Environmental Engineers Need To Succeed In Their Career

by Noah Smith

Monday, January 4, 2016

Environmental engineers research, design, plan, or perform engineering duties in the prevention, control, and remediation of environmental hazards using various engineering disciplines. Work may include waste treatment, site remediation, or pollution control technology.

The core tasks that environmental engineers are likely to carry out include:

Collaborate with environmental scientists, planners, hazardous waste technicians, engineers, and other specialists, and experts in law and business to address environmental problems.
Inspect industrial or municipal facilities or programs to evaluate operational effectiveness or ensure compliance with environmental regulations.
Prepare, review, or update environmental investigation or recommendation reports.
Design or supervise the design of systems, processes, or equipment for control, management, or remediation of water, air, or soil quality.
Provide environmental engineering assistance in network analysis, regulatory analysis, or planning or reviewing database development.
Obtain, update, or maintain plans, permits, or standard operating procedures.

In order to successfully forge ahead with their careers, analysts in a survey carried out by U.S. Department of Labor (via O*NET) have marked out the following as important attributes that environmental engineers would need. These attributes have been selected from characteristics and requirements strongly associated with the occupation. They are

Abilities: Enduring attributes of the individual that influence performance
Interests: Preferences for work environments. Occupational Interest Profiles (OIPs) are compatible with Holland's (1985, 1997) model of personality types and work environments. Six interest categories are used to describe the work environment of occupations: Realistic, Investigative, Artistic, Social, Enterprising, and Conventional. An OIP consists of six numerical scores indicating how descriptive and characteristic each work environment (or interest area) is for an occupation
Knowledge: Organized sets of principles and facts applying in general domains
Skills: These include basic skills, which are developed capacities that facilitate learning or the more rapid acquisition of knowledge. Plus cross-functional skills, which are developed capacities that facilitate performance of activities that occur across jobs
Style: Personal characteristics that can affect how well someone performs a job

We have listed out attributes which were scored 80% or more in terms of importance by the analysts.

Having a strong preference for investigative work environments. Investigative occupations frequently involve working with ideas, and require an extensive amount of thinking. These occupations can involve searching for facts and figuring out problems mentally.
Attribute Type: Interests Score: 100%

Being careful about detail and thorough in completing work tasks.
Attribute Type: Style Score: 97.6%

Being reliable, responsible, and dependable, and fulfilling obligations.
Attribute Type: Style Score: 93.6%

Knowledge of the practical application of engineering science and technology. This includes applying principles, techniques, procedures, and equipment to the design and production of various goods and services.
Attribute Type: Knowledge Score: 91.8%

Being honest and ethical.
Attribute Type: Style Score: 89.4%

Analyzing information and using logic to address work-related issues and problems.
Attribute Type: Style Score: 86.4%

Being open to change (positive or negative) and to considerable variety in the workplace.
Attribute Type: Style Score: 85.2%

Understanding written sentences and paragraphs in work related documents.
Attribute Type: Skills Score: 85%

The ability to tell when something is wrong or is likely to go wrong. It does not involve solving the problem, only recognizing there is a problem.
Attribute Type: Abilities Score: 85%

The ability to apply general rules to specific problems to produce answers that make sense.
Attribute Type: Abilities Score: 82.4%

Knowledge of design techniques, tools, and principles involved in production of precision technical plans, blueprints, drawings, and models.
Attribute Type: Knowledge Score: 81.8%

Being pleasant with others on the job and displaying a good-natured, cooperative attitude.
Attribute Type: Style Score: 81.2%

Knowledge of principles and processes for providing customer and personal services. This includes customer needs assessment, meeting quality standards for services, and evaluation of customer satisfaction.
Attribute Type: Knowledge Score: 81%

Establishing and maintaining personally challenging achievement goals and exerting effort toward mastering tasks.
Attribute Type: Style Score: 80.8%

Using logic and reasoning to identify the strengths and weaknesses of alternative solutions, conclusions or approaches to problems.
Attribute Type: Skills Score: 80%

The ability to read and understand information and ideas presented in writing.
Attribute Type: Abilities Score: 80%

The ability to communicate information and ideas in speaking so others will understand.
Attribute Type: Abilities Score: 80%

The ability to combine pieces of information to form general rules or conclusions (includes finding a relationship among seemingly unrelated events).
Attribute Type: Abilities Score: 80%

The ability to arrange things or actions in a certain order or pattern according to a specific rule or set of rules (e.g., patterns of numbers, letters, words, pictures, mathematical operations).
Attribute Type: Abilities Score: 80%