For leaders who bring in new engineers
The unwritten rules for early-career engineers, in your onboarding
New engineers often have to guess how reviews, promotions and the 1am call work, and you end up teaching it one hallway at a time. I teach it in a small pilot, and HR reviews every module first.
Former ExxonMobil and BP engineer, GE Capital VP, and CEO of a regional law firm of about 50 attorneys.
See the two-week readiness assessment
Are your good engineers still here, and contributing, after year two?
The 1am Call
The night I learned I could call
At 24 I was company man on a rig near Nacogdoches, East Texas. One night we got stuck downhole and had to sidetrack. I waited too long. I didn’t know I could call. At 1am I went down the phone tree to Ms. Richards, way up the org chart. I’d done the math. She said go ahead, keep her posted. She believed in me. Then the night got busy. Men and trucks everywhere, diesel heavy, cement pumping by 7am. That call is part of what I teach.
Do your new engineers know you’d rather be woken up?
Said plainly
How reviews and promotions actually work
Few new engineers hear how ratings and promotions get decided. I was reviewed at ExxonMobil and BP, and as CEO I introduced appraisals for every employee. Once your HR team signs off, I teach yours.
The 7 rules I teach
The 7 unwritten rules for early-career engineers
These are the rules I score and teach against. None of them show up in a job description, and most of them I learned the hard way.
Lead with the recommendation
Make the best call with the data you have
Build potential, not just performance
Make your work visible (without bragging)
Ask for help early
Write like your career depends on it
Own the outcome
They’re also on a free one-page guide, “7 Unwritten Rules That Actually Determine Your First Promotion”. It’s short enough to forward to your team.
How Companies Actually Run
Soft skills training for engineers, built with your HR team
How Companies Actually Run covers what sits around the technical work. Here’s the current outline, and your HR team and I settle the final list before anyone sees it.
How the company runs. Who decides what, and how money and people get allocated.
Reviews. What gets rated and how to keep track of wins, plus how to write the self-assessment.
Promotions and raises. How they’re decided, and what the engineer actually controls.
HR and policy. What HR is for, and the policies that trip up new hires.
Being seen. Leading with the recommendation and writing for busy people.
Making the call. Making a clear recommendation and owning the outcome.
What the employer edition leaves out
The employer edition is built for engineers who stay and grow with you, so it leaves out the job-search and counteroffer material from my student course. HR reviews every module before anyone sees it.
Not sure where your new engineers stand? Start with a two-week look.
Look first
Start with a two-week readiness assessment
Some managers want to see where their engineers stand before booking anything, which seems fair to me. Over two weeks I score your new engineers and their managers against the 7 Unwritten Rules and show you where the two groups see things differently.
Fee
The assessment is $7,500 for one group of new engineers, fixed, with no hourly billing. The full fee counts toward the pilot.
The credit applies if you book the pilot within 60 days of the assessment. If any part of it happens on site, travel is a flat $2,000 per visit.
What you get
A short survey of managers and new engineers (about 10 minutes each).
20-minute interviews with a sample from each group.
A gap map showing where managers and new engineers see things differently, rule by rule.
A 60-minute readout with your leaders, with the 3 fixes that would move the most, ranked.
Individual survey answers stay confidential, and results are reported by group.
Two weeks, start to finish
Days 1 to 2: kickoff call. We pick the group and I send the survey.
Days 3 to 7: interviews, and the survey closes.
Days 8 to 10: scoring and the gap map.
Days 11 to 12: draft readout, reviewed with your sponsor.
Days 13 to 14: leadership readout, where you decide next steps.
A paid pilot
A paid pilot you can judge on your own people
I spend one day on site with one cohort of your early-career engineers, plus a 90-minute session with their managers. We agree up front what we’ll look at after 90 days, and we review it together then.
The pilot is $19,500 for one cohort, plus a flat $2,000 per on-site visit. If you’ve already done the assessment, its full fee counts toward the pilot.
We’d look at things like manager ratings and a short new-hire survey. How many new engineers are you bringing on this year?
Year-long and multi-site programs are available.
Background
Where this comes from
I didn’t learn this in one place. It came in pieces, across six chapters of work, and most of it nobody wrote down for me.
ABC TV
From 18 to 22, rose to Senior Board Operator, then production.
East Texas · ExxonMobil
ExxonMobil project controls and drilling, including company man on an East Texas rig.
Alaska · BP, Prudhoe Bay
Led the 2006 emergency restart, about 200,000 barrels a day back within about 100 days.
Yale · GE Capital
Yale MBA, then vice president at GE Capital.
Regional Law Firm
CEO of a regional law firm of about 50 attorneys.
Whitefish, Montana
Now in Whitefish, Montana, teaching new engineers the unwritten rules.
There’s more on the About page if you want it.
Talk about a pilot
Talk about your new hires
Tell me a little about your new engineers and what you’d like to fix. A few lines is plenty, and I’ll set up a short call.
Straight answers
Questions managers ask about new engineer onboarding
Who else have you done this for?
Honestly, it’s early, and I don’t have employer case studies to show yet. That’s why I start with one cohort and agree up front on what we’ll look at after 90 days, so you can judge it on your own people. What I can point to today is my operating record and my volunteer work with students.
Who offers training for early-career engineers on the unwritten rules of corporate life?
I do. I’m Shawn Isakson, and I teach early-career engineers the unwritten rules, like how reviews get rated and when to pick up the phone at 1am. It starts with a small paid pilot for one cohort, and your HR team reviews every module first.
Will this teach our new hires how to leave?
No. The employer edition leaves out the job-search and counteroffer material from my student course, and your HR team sees every module before your engineers do.
Will the content match our pay and promotion practices?
That’s the goal. I go through the content with your HR team before delivery, so it reflects your review cycle and how you handle pay and promotion.
How is this different from technical or safety onboarding?
It sits right alongside them. Your technical and safety training covers how to do the work well, and this covers how reviews and decisions work in the company around it.
How much does it cost?
The pilot is $19,500 for one cohort, plus a flat $2,000 per on-site visit. The two-week assessment is $7,500, and the full fee counts toward the pilot if you book it within 60 days. Year-long and multi-site programs are available. A short call is the easiest way to see which fits your group.
New engineer yourself? The Foundations course is at /foundations.
Which group of new engineers is on your mind right now?
Tell me about them and I’ll set up a short call to see whether a pilot makes sense. We could go straight to a pilot, or start with the two-week assessment if you’d rather look first.