ANS webinar includes career advice, personality quiz

The American Nuclear Society recently hosted a webinar with Earnestine Johnson, principal mechanical engineer at Nano Nuclear and author of The Nuclear Empowered Workforce, to discuss both her book and opportunities for those entering the nuclear workforce today.

Diving in: Johnson kicked things off by giving the big-picture goal of The Nuclear Empowered Workforce. "Within the first few pages, you will find that the book itself is not about becoming a nuclear engineer, it's about seeing the nuclear industry as a broad ecosystem" composed of people, their skills, their missions, their stories, and their career paths, she said.

With that context in mind, Johnson gave a rundown of her career path. During her 30-plus years in the nuclear industry, she has worked in design, component, and program engineering at more than 16 facilities, spanning Millstone to Vogtle-3 and -4. In that time, she worked for Southern Nuclear, Exelon Nuclear, Bechtel, and Entergy. Now, she wears many hats as part of a smaller team at Nano.

Nuclear "personalities": A short Myers-Briggs-style reflection was next up on the agenda, with Johnson guiding participants through eight quick questions to determine the nuclear career environments for which they might be best suited. From these, each participant generated a four-letter pattern that was connected to possible nuclear career environments later in the discussion.

These career paths were framed as examples and suggestions, providing participants with valuable food for thought rather than definitive calls to action. Each of the 16 possible four-letter patterns was paired with five possible career paths. An ISTJ, for example-described generally as detailed, dependable, and structured-was paired with careers like configuration management and maintenance planning. An ENTP, on the other hand-inventive, questioning, and entrepreneurial-was paired with careers like advanced reactor development and systems integration.

Career ecosystem: Aside from the quiz, the webinar offered several other pieces of valuable context and advice relating to the many paths in the nuclear career ecosystem. For a useful mental map, Johnson splits that ecosystem into nine subdivisions (each containing a multitude of paths themselves). Those subdivisions are engineering; projects and construction; licensing, regulatory, and lobbying; cyber and digital; chemistry, radiation protection, and health care; trades and maintenance; research; operations; and law.

Go deeper: For the remainder of the webinar, Johnson dove into the myths surrounding these pathways and the industry in general, the way each of these subdivisions supports the industry, and several more areas of advice pertaining to nuclear careers.

The whole discussion-including the personality quiz-is available on the ANS YouTube channel. Her book, The Nuclear Empowered Workforce, is available for purchase from the ANS store.