Let us now use these insights and take a moment to reflect on our own careers. As we are engineers, the educational level is well-covered, so let us look at the other areas. I would like to ask you to reflect on the following experiences in your own career (our questions assume that you do have some work experience already):

• Cross-functional experience:
  • Have you worked across more than one functional area? (e.g. engineering, manufacturing, sales, marketing, finance)
  • If yes, across which functional areas have you worked thus far? How did your perspective on your work change as you moved from one area to the next?
  • If no, what is your perception of your colleagues in other functional areas? Which are differences in the culture between your functional area and other functional areas within your company?
  • How would you go about further building your cross-functional experience? From whom would you need help in order to realize this ambition?
• International assignment experience:
  • Have you lived and worked in multiple countries?
  • If not, would you have an opportunity to do this? How would you go about this?
  • How can you further round your international experience?
• Tenure:
  • How long do you tend to stay in each job?
  • Have you taken an assignment through its full cycle from developing a vision and creating an action plan to driving it through to completion?
  • Which have been the moments of truth in your professional and personal life during which you have proved yourself in the face of adversity?