<p>OP; you asked what I regretted about the business/engineering grad I hired. He stated in the interview that he was really interested in doing engineering work. Well, that interest didn’t last too long before he keep asking to do “management” tasks because, after all, he had a business degree. I hired him to do engineering work and not “management” tasks. I put management in quotes because an engineering manager’s role is to manage the development of the staff, ensure that tasks are completed in a timely manner (i.e. within budget) and done correctly and plan and budget future work (which requires a detailed and extensive knowledge of the work the group did, not something a new hire could do). There are no “management” tasks as one would typically learn in business school. No market studies; no product placement studies; etc. HIs attitude and insistence on “management” tasks strongly interfered with his on the job training and he was not progressing toward becoming a functional engineer (college only teaches the basics, most of what you need to do, you will learn on the job). He saved me the trouble of laying him off by leaving on his own. I wasted a fair amount of other engineer’s time trying to teach him engineering when that was his career goal after all.</p>
<p>I worked for a large aerospace company and my group did nothing but analysis. There were separate marketing groups, etc. but they all wanted people who had had a number of years with the company and were very familiar with the products we sold. We had very knowledgeable customers and that product knowledge was critical, so he was far from the person that our marketing group wanted.</p>
<p>I wanted to hire people who were dedicated to doing engineering. Engineering management is a path that one enters after a number of years on the job. The skill set to be an engineering manager is different than that taught in the MBA programs that I have seen. An MBA after doing engineering work is focusing on a different career than doing engineering, you are making the transition to the business side of things. An MBA / engineer can be a good combination but one would typically want to learn the details of engineering first. That path is different than what I would term “engineering management” which is more people skills. </p>
<p>The National Management Association offers a series of classes to become a certified manager. Those classes are more in tune with the skill set to become an engineering manager. My company now requires one to get that certificate before one is typically considered for engineering management.</p>