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How to land a purple unicorn
T his is a term we use to define the rarest of creatures – a water/wastewater engineer with 10-15 years of experience with just the right blend of technical expertise, business acumen, and people skills. You may need to change out the role for your business or industry, but the experience level is the same. Firms that actively work to attract these rare creatures will be best positioned to grow and prosper.
Ryan Gallagher
The lack of qualified candidates in this age range is real and will likely get worse due to our industry’s failure to attract STEM candidates. As measured by the American Society for Engineering Education, in 2010 civil engineering degree graduates ranked number two for all engineering disciplines for a total of 12,154 out of 83,001, and by 2020 civil engineering dropped to fourth place at 13,771 out of 144,818. Our share of graduates dropped from 14.6 percent of all engineering students to 9.5 percent. Why? Our young STEM focused students are choosing to take their talents to computer science and electrical engineering which now hold the number two and three ranks, respectively. So how do we address the challenge of finding these “purple unicorns,” especially knowing the competition
for their talent will just intensify due to these trends? While I am aging out of this experience range, I am close enough to offer some insights into how I went from wandering the alphabet soup of engineering firms to settling down for a long-term commitment. I have found myself speaking from the heart, proclaiming, “This is the firm that I will retire from.” What led me to say this and how can you use this to help win the battle for your purple unicorn? 1. Put your ego aside. Whether you are an owner or a Fortune 500 company executive, hiring top talent in this age range means they may not have spent the same time in the trenches as you or may not approach problems the same way as you. Let it go. They are likely in the millennial
See RYAN GALLAGHER , page 4
THE ZWEIG LETTER JANUARY 3, 2022, ISSUE 1422
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