Career path: How does a young professional grow into the position of a Cost Engineering Consultant?

Meet Jos, our Senior Sales Consultant

My name is Jos van der Stelt and I am the Senior Sales Consultant responsible for Professional Services and the Estimating Team of Cleopatra Enterprise. I can imagine that you have a lot of questions about your future career path, so I will try to provide you with a glimpse into the future.

For 25 years, our dedicated and certified cost engineers have enabled more than 500 companies in 75 countries to improve their project performance. We help organizations by combining deep industry expertise and our state of the art tools and solutions. But how does a young professional grow into the position of a Cost Engineering Consultant? I will try to answer this question by explaining the (potential) career path of a Cost Consultant Trainee

For 25 years, our dedicated and certified cost engineers have enabled more than 500 companies in 75 countries to improve their project performance. We help organizations by combining deep industry expertise and our state of the art tools and solutions. But how does a young professional grow into the position of a Cost Engineering Consultant? I will try to answer this question by explaining the (potential) career path of a Cost Consultant Trainee

From the first moment on, you will be trained within the field of Cost Engineering. The goal is to gain, amongst others, a lot of estimating and cost control knowledge and learn how to put this knowledge into practice. After finishing the traineeship, there is still a lot to learn, which will gradually lead you to work on a client assignment. Whether this is done remote or onsite is still a question, but the key for me is to link you to a senior who will be guiding you during your first client task.

Some of the assignments that we’ve been working on lately with young professionals:

Inhouse Estimating Team

  • Analyse the project data and create an estimate for a new chemical plant in The Netherlands
  • Estimate the costs for a tank terminal in Abu Dhabi and advise the contractor during the bidding process
  • Create an estimate for building a scaled-up direct air capture and storage plant in Iceland
  • Review the existing estimate of a project in China and report on the delta’s of the cost estimation by using our inhouse database, CESK
  • Benchmark labour rates for a tank terminal in The Netherlands and advise the client if these rates are in line with market pricing

Onsite

  • To reduce the greenhouse gas emissions, create an estimate for a large furnace project near Rotterdam,
  • Help the client in using our Total Cost Management tool Cleopatra Enterprise in the best possible way (Training, Workshops, etc.)
  • Become part of the Tender Team of a large offshore company and create bid packages for renewable (e.g. offshore wind) projects

Pretty cool right? As you can see, we have quite a diverse client portfolio.

Learning & improving is one of our company’s core values. It could be the case that you will need to do some studying, in-between assignments on certain Cost Engineering topics since you will need that knowledge during your next assignment. Please do know, that we would like you to grow and that we will challenge you (even during long assignments) to gain more knowledge.

Eventually, after a couple of years, you should be able to advise clients on how to approach and manage certain projects. You will become a Senior Cost Engineer who can:

  • Explain the concept and the practicalities of Total Cost Management
  • Advise on the best way to approach projects – from scoping to close-out
  • Create all kinds of estimates, from conceptual (high-level) to detailed estimates
  • Work on complex and large projects as Project Controls Manager and report on the progress with regards to time and money
  • Help the client to succeed by showing them how projects are managed with Cleopatra Enterprise
  • Share best practices with all clients that you will work for
  • And so much more…

As a result, all of our clients will know: if you have a project to manage, call Cleopatra Enterprise. They have a great solution called Cleopatra Enterprise and professional experts to support you.

Interested in working for Cleopatra Enterprise?  See the available jobs at our company!