Making sure my professional society work does me some good, too.

March 14, 2009 8:48 PM

Strategies to maximize how I personally benefit from my leadership position in a regional professional society chapter ?

I'm on the executive committee for my local, discipline-specific engineering chapter. I'm looking for ideas to make sure I personally benefit from this, because I'm of course already doing everything I can to benefit the chapter membership.

posted by TheManChild2000 to work & money (5 comments total)

Very vague question. What would be your ideal yield from your position—power?
posted by trotter at 8:54 PM on March 14

Yeah, please articulate what sort of benefit you are looking for. Future contracts? More contacts? Identifying potential employees/employers? Leveraging this into an argument for a raise or rate increase?
posted by Miko at 9:50 PM on March 14

Use your contacts with universities to identify and recruit the most promising new graduates for your company.

Take an interest in the work of all the people you talk too, actively seek to encourage the involvement of people you'd like to work with in future to events that you are running. Your role in the society gives the perfect excuse to invite them along then take them to dinner to pick their brains. Don't disappear home when the event is done, a presentation might be interesting but its the chance to talk to other successful professional engineers that makes meetings really useful. Go to dinner, go for a drink or a tea/coffee if their is an opportunity.

Consider how you can relate your activity to the wider national picture and move your involvement up to that level. Go to the events at the national level whenever possible.
posted by biffa at 12:49 PM on March 15

Careful, TheManChild2000.
Exacting personal benefit from work done on behalf of another party sounds to me like a situation almost guaranteed to bring up conflicts of interest.
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 5:55 PM on March 15

You benefit in two main ways. First, it's a great item on your resume -- shows that you care about professional development, care about giving back, and have leadership skills. As someone who helps make hiring decisions, I can tell you that it looks really good and helps you stand out (not many people do it). Second, networking (i.e., biffa's comment).
posted by acridrabbit at 8:03 PM on March 15