Are you thinking about attending a career fair? Interested in seeing what CP&Y has to offer? Are you eager to learn why CP&Y is a competitive employer? From career growth to community engagement, here are answers to a few of the most frequently asked questions that CP&Y receives at career fairs.
What’s the culture like at CP&Y?
Not only is CP&Y employee owned, it is also employee focused. Our tagline, “Partners for a Better Quality of Life”, not only includes our clients and their customers, but also extends to CP&Y’s own staff and their families. Our culture is defined by our core values of Integrity, Excellence, Reliability, Community, Dedication, and a desire to “Live like Walter”, CP&Y’s founder, who led a remarkable life and was always so humble, genuine, and kind. These are the values that our Employee Owners try to embody, which results in a family-like atmosphere built on honest hard work and community support.
Driven by our core values, CP&Y has developed a culture that pushes Employee Owners to excel – to provide the highest quality service to our clients and ourselves. We do this by using the latest technology, staying on top of industry trends, and teaching other Employee Owners so we can all succeed together. As CP&Y’s CEO and Chairman of the Board Pete Patel, PE said:
That fundamental belief drives CP&Y to actively care for and invest in our Employee Owners. We focus on professional development for all employees with one goal: to help you thrive. This means offering assistance with professional registration and licensing as well as providing career planning, development, and training.
What kind of benefits does CP&Y offer?
CP&Y believes in taking care of our people, which is why our firm offers outstanding benefits. That means competitive insurance plans for health, vision, dental, life, and disability as well as paid time off, 401(k) retirement plans, and access to our Employee-Owned Stock Program (ESOP) among others.
Our ESOP is an IRS Qualified retirement benefit plan similar to a 401(k). It is fully funded by CP&Y with no employee contribution. As such, Employee Owners directly impact and benefit from our CP&Y stock value increases.
Other optional benefits include a flexible spending account (FSA), health savings account (HSA) legal counsel, identity theft prevention, and fitness reimbursement.
Is CP&Y involved with local communities?
With 15 offices across five states, there are numerous and varied opportunities for CP&Y Employee Owners to participate in humanitarian efforts that directly affect the very communities where they live, work and play.
In the words of our late founder, Wen-Jo “Walter” Chiang:
Philanthropic involvement has always been encouraged at CP&Y, both on an individual and firm-wide level. CP&Y’s Employee Owners regularly volunteer in their communities to support S.T.E.A.M. initiatives, social charities, accessibility, women and minority opportunities, military personnel, and our firm’s commitment to clean water. You can see more examples of CP&Y’s previous philanthropic pursuits, here in The Partners’ Journal.
On a broader level, CP&Y as a company is committed to “Our Mission to improve infrastructure, sustain the environment, and help communities thrive” by providing high-quality transportation and water/wastewater engineering services. Our firm provides leading-edge water and wastewater solutions that enable our clients to be responsible stewards of the earth’s water resources. Our transportation engineers, planners, and ADA specialists help clients improve and sustain communities through accessible and economically beneficial projects.
Does CP&Y offer mentorship opportunities?
CP&Y offers numerous professional programs aimed at helping young professionals grow their careers. First and foremost, all new hires will work alongside talented professionals in an environment that rewards performance and commitment, developing fulfilling and longstanding careers.
Additionally, CP&Y offers an 8-month, Employee Owner-driven Partners Mentoring Program. Each year, CP&Y pairs Mentees who have less than 10 years of experience with Mentors who have over a decade of experience under their belts. Matches are made based on participants’ self-identified strengths and skills that they either have or wish to foster. Our mentor program is structured to leave both Mentor and Mentee feeling professionally engaged and empowered in their careers.
Other opportunities for career growth and mentorship at CP&Y include the Women’s Leadership Committee, the Young Professionals Leadership Council, the Safety Council, and the newly formed Partners for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Council.
Beyond these structured opportunities, CP&Y’s leadership emphasizes a culture of learning through informal training as well. Employee Owners are encouraged to constantly help each other learn and grow to the ultimate benefit of the entire firm.
How can I grow at CP&Y?
We believe in supporting, encouraging, and creating growth opportunities for Employee Owners to drive the success of their own careers. To that end, CP&Y offers several programs that help continually develop our talented staff.
CP&Y has implemented a Career Development Program that facilitates regular, career-focused discussions between Employee Owners and their supervisors throughout the year. This encourages Employee Owners to stay on track with their goals and informs supervisors on how best to help support those goals.
We also offer training through the e-learning platform Pinnacle Series. With this online portal, Employee Owners receive tailored on-demand and self-paced education on a variety of topics driven by their interests and needs. Our library includes courses for Autodesk, Bentley, BIM Track, Deltek Vision, and several other industry softwares as well as customized training for CP&Y standards and manuals.
At CP&Y, there are opportunities for tuition reimbursement for full-time employees seeking to continue their education to secure increased responsibility and growth within their professional careers. CP&Y’s Employee Professional Licensure Training Assistance Program outlines how Employee Owners at CP&Y may receive financial assistance with select professional licensing preparation courses. CP&Y also reimburses one association membership for each employee every year to encourage our professionals to actively participate in industry events.
Will young professionals or new hires be involved in highly visible projects?
CP&Y recognizes the need for young professionals to face challenges, gain invaluable experience, make lasting networking connections, and continue growing their careers. To this end, CP&Y encourages upstarts to build relationships with their managers and seek involvement in progressively more challenging projects.
Project Managers at CP&Y welcome upcoming professionals to participate in meaningful ways on projects that are large, complex, or even very public facing. Not only does this interaction between professionals of different experience levels help teach young professionals, but it also breathes new life and different perspectives into CP&Y’s projects.
What will I learn at CP&Y?
CP&Y is an innovative and progressive full-service engineering, architectural, and ADA consulting firm. With more than 400 professionals spanning a wide range of specialties, if you want to learn about a particular discipline, there is likely an expert here at CP&Y to guide you. Our range of service offerings means that we can teach new hires about nearly every aspect of all project types.
New hires will immediately be exposed to a wide range of projects. For example, a new water/wastewater engineer may work on anything from small-diameter pipeline rehabilitation efforts to complex, large-diameter pipeline installations that will secure water for generations to come. Likewise, a new transportation engineer’s involvement may range from shoulder widening projects for two-lane rural highways to miles-long, high-profile facilities with challenging environmental requirements. With this variety of assignments, our new Employee Owners receive the experience offered on large, multifaceted projects while still maintaining the close-knit culture gained on smaller, more routine endeavors.
The variety of learning opportunities offered to new hires extends throughout every phase of a project. From the first kick-off meeting with the client to wrapping up permitting efforts, from preliminary design to start up assistance, from cost estimating to quality control, from proposals to close out – the CP&Y team is a knowledgeable source of information for the entire life cycle of a project.
Upcoming Career Fairs
So, are you interested? Learn more at a career fair! CP&Y is excited about our upcoming career fair events for Spring 2021. For more information and to register, please visit the links below.
February 23, 2021 from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. (Virtual) at Texas Tech University Engineering Career Fair
February 25, 2021 from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. (Virtual) at Oklahoma State University Virtual STEM Career Fair
February 26, 2021 from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. (Virtual) at the University of Texas at Arlington College of Engineering Career Fair
February 26, 2021 from 12:30 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. (Virtual) at The University of Oklahoma Spring Career Fair
March 3, 2021 from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. (Virtual) at the University of Arkansas STEM Virtual Career Fair
March 4-5, 2021 (Virtual - times TBD) at Texas A&M University American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) Career Fair
Still want to know more?
Visit our Career Opportunities page for a list of our available positions and apply through the portal provided. Follow CP&Y's social media platforms for additional information on upcoming career fairs and new career opportunity announcements.