Are you comfortable with what you have?

Last week I met with a very good electrical engineer that had a good grasp of his project and a plan for completion. He spoke about some new equipment that would be very helpful in finishing his tests. Once he decided what he wanted, he was leaving it to someone else in the group to request the funds. "I don't get into that..." he said, making clear his discomfort when talking about money.

I wished that he would get into that,

Rare traits

In my experience as a recruiter and from talking with friends that hire their own employees, I have learned that there are three traits that are very rare, and thus very valuable.  These traits are, in order of increasing rareness:

1. A personality that can be trusted in front of customers - AKA The Ability To Look Someone In The Eye, The Ability To Not Say Inappropriate Things, or The Ability To Not Ramble In Conversation.
2. A technical mind - Evidenced by the confidence and patience to learn new ideas EVEN if it requires math, programming concepts, circuit design, mechanical knackery or modifying your Windows registry.
3. Ownership of problems -  It's easy to find people that can be cogs in a large corporate machine.  America is full of people that lean on "policies" and hold up a process when they don't know the answer and don't know who to ask. It's really hard to find people that will roll up their sleeves and not back down until the problem is solved.

The first and second traits are relatively common in isolation.  If you have any two of these traits, you are a rare person.  If you have all three, mix in a little initiative and find the people that are looking for you.