Engineering Grad Looking for work -- Where are the Jobs???

Engineering Discussion Board 12-27-2002 ^ | FR Post Christmas 2002 | Various

[vannrox]

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AskMen.com Message Boards     > Career, Power & Money         > New Engineering grad: Are there any jobs??
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j455b2 Registered User Posts: 158 (8/28/02 11:18:30 pm) Reply	New Engineering grad: Are there any jobs?? Hi I finished my electrical engineering studies in the month of may. Before the end of my studies and until now, I have been actively looking for a job. I havent had much success, just 2 interviews. Most of my fellow graduates are in the same situation. I live in Canada where the job market is supposedly better than in the US presently. But when I hear that companies like Nortel laid off 60 % of their workforce and are going to lay off 7000 more people, I start to wonder: Who the hell is gonna hire a recent graduate if so many experienced ppl are available?? I am not desperate yet but I cant say that my resume is rock solid. I had decent grades but my work experience related to the field is obviously lacking. I try to compensate with my course work etc... What is sad is that just 2 years ago, these same companies were literally hiring by the truckload! 45k CAN $ (which is a lot of money in a city with low cost of living like Montreal) for entry-level engineers. In 2 months I am going to start to apply all over the country and "exile" myself . Is that the only way to get a first job? Start off in some kind of small shop in Saskatchewan??
a lady now Registered User Posts: 408 (8/29/02 8:49:50 am) Reply	Re: New Engineering grad: Are there any jobs?? Electrical Engineers are in demand in the states. You should have no problem catching on if you come here. Look at Monster.com and you will see
energyaz Registered User Posts: 2289 (8/30/02 3:36:24 pm) Reply	Re: New Engineering grad: Are there any jobs?? Electrical Engineers are in demand in the states - Yes they are. So much so that most of them are being hired out of India or the middle east cause these guys will work for pennies. Why hire an American or Canuck and pay them $60k + when you can get one from a 3rd world country who will do back flips for $30k? Sad, sick and lame. I cant stand it -Energy who works onsite at Honeywell aerospace....and 80% of our engineers are foregin nationals. I am embarrased and worried that if we keep outsoursing our white collar workforce from India and Pakistan...our economy and future is shot Congrats on your graduation!! Good luck! I wish you the best! I would be soooooo happy if Honeywell started hiring Canadians over Indians.....not a racial thing, but lets keep the jobs avail to the people who are actually FROM this hemisphere!
Audio58 Registered User Posts: 1 (9/9/02 12:02:08 pm) Reply	Engineering positions Yes there are many engineeing positions availible in the US, but they all require 3-5 years experience. I worked for an RF semiconductor company for 13 years while attending school at night. I received my Electronic Engineering degree in 2000, and got a job as a design engineer, but was laid-off at the end of 2001. I have been unemployed now for almost 10 months.
GQ Chris Registered User Posts: 783 (9/9/02 6:42:12 pm) Reply	Dude, here's an idea to get hired.... Move to India, learn to like curry chicken and kabobs, and apply for Indian citizenship. Then apply for an American engineering position, you might get a better shot then. Its pathetic, and somebody's got to put a stop to all this outsourcing of labor.
ryanjb2 Registered User Posts: 1378 (9/9/02 8:26:30 pm) Reply	Re: Trying to emigrate to India? They'd laugh you right out of the embassy. Immigration only goes one way in this world.
lovetolearn Registered User Posts: 2073 (9/10/02 9:26:53 pm) Reply	err... ryan, GQ Chris was being facetious in his comment regarding emigrating to India. His reason, of course, is that there are so many INdians in computers and engineering right now, and that clearly bothers him.
ryanjb2 Registered User Posts: 1393 (9/11/02 1:32:26 pm) Reply	Re: I know, and I was utilizing his comment to insert a political commentary. I do this all the time, some find it annoying....
GQ Chris Registered User Posts: 810 (9/13/02 10:07:53 am) Reply	Re:What really sucks is Talented American Engineers become.. S.O.L. when it comes to finding full time technical work, that actually pays them what they're worth. Really blows away the traditional theory that if you want a good paying job, you've got to work hard in school and get a degree. Nowadays, there's no stability at all, its just a fight for survival, and very limited opportunity. Now more than ever, companies are focusing on cutting down expenses(ie. employees) and maximizing profits.
j455b2 Registered User Posts: 171 (11/3/02 10:36:02 pm) Reply	its me again I'm the original poster. After working as an electronics tech for the last three months at 9$ an hour (well its not really a tech job, more like electronics assembler but anyway) I decided to enroll in the army. They supposedly offer a 40 000$ (canadian) enrolment indemnity to engineering graduates but I guess its not for all candidates. Anyway I'm not going for the money but Its been 6 months I graduated and I am far from obtaining an engineering position It looks like the only place I'll get that is in the army... I just read an article in an employment paper today stating that electrical, computer engineering and computer science are the most unpopular degrees with employers these days... Even the job placement guy from my college said in the article that electrical engineering graduates are the worst hit.
C4S Registered User Posts: 105 (11/7/02 12:22:02 am) Reply	It comes and goes It's all a cycle. Hopefully in a few years everyone will need engineers again. It all depends on who's working on what and how ambitious you are. For instance, when I start working in the space industry, I'll be able to give you guys lots of jobs! CS
GQ Chris Registered User Posts: 1074 (11/7/02 11:18:23 am) Reply	re: jobs I'm still considering changing majors, I'm about halfway through to getting my Bachelor's and my current major is in Business with a focus on Computer Information Systems, I am thinking about changing it to Management. I mean what's the use of taking C++ and Jave programming classes, when upon graduation these jobs will be too few and far between. I don't know what to think now, I read in the paper that the economy has been making improvements, and then the next morning I'll read that the economy is going to take more time to make a full recovery.
wsux Registered User Posts: 1 (11/19/02 11:06:04 pm) Reply	Labor Mobility and Declining Wages Hi guys, I was going through your posts and I must admit that they make interesting reading. I am from India and I think I can offer some new perspective on the issue of labor mobility. First of all, I think trade in labor is just an extension of the so called process of globalization. Declining wages are nothing more than a manifestation of the simple law of demand and supply. The only way qualified people from foreign countries can be prevented from taking up jobs is by erecting artificial barriers on the movement of labor. But this is never, and I repeat, never going to happen in the US considering the clout that businesses command and the rewards they reap by hiring cheap labor. Second, without prejudice, I do believe that engineers from India who take up jobs in the US are superbly qualified. I am an engineer from the university ranked first in India and third in Asia - the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT). Students are admitted to the IIT's on the basis of entrance examinations. Can you guess the number of candidates who appear for approximately 2,500 seats? The figure is over 4,00,000. That's right - 4,00,000 candidates for 2,500 seats. Which selection process in the US is so competitive? But securing admission to one of the six Indian Institutes of Technology is comparatively easier - getting into one of the top Business Schools is even more difficult. My Business school - the Xavier Labor Relations Institute is ranked fourth in India. In the year I got into in, over a hundred thousand candidates appeared for 65 seats in their Business Management program (I have heard that they have increased the number of admissions to 140 since). The typical selection rate for most good business schools in India is no more than 0.07%. That's right - 7 in 10,000. Compare that with 15% for Wharton (Source: bwnt.businessweek.com/ft_...hools=520) It is guys who have gone through such gruelling elimination processes who finally end up in the US. It is not surprising that about 50% of the IT businesses in the silicon valley is owned by Indians (per Clinton's own admission!). Just one more (a trifle unrelated) statistic about the selectivity of examinations in India. One of the most sought after jobs in India is that for the Indian Civil Service for which over 3,00,000 candidates appear for fewer than 350 seats in the unreserved category. I joined this service in 1995 and my rank at the end of the selection process (comprising a set of preliminary exams, the main examination comprising two non overlapping subjects at the masters level, exams on general knowledge, essays and personal interviews totalling a whopping 2,200 marks) was 313 (yup, just made it). To say that selection processes in India are tough would be an understatement. Despite my best efforts to the contrary, I have this nagging feeling that I am giving an impression of beating my own drum. Sorry abt that folks, but some facts were necessary to put matters in perspective.. Oh and just a quick word on Indians working for measly salaries. I don't think that's true. I don't think any Indian engineer will come all the way to the US to work for $9.00 an hour. That no company will sponsor an alien (god bless whoever devised that wonderfully expressive term) for that salary is a related issue. As about me, I have been nominated by the govt of India to serve at the IMF on the condition that I get a Ph D in Econ. So at present I am slogging at a US univ pursuing my Ph D in Econ. Don't worry guys, I won't be usurping any of your jobs.
gxeric Registered User Posts: 861 (11/20/02 10:10:47 am) Reply	re They have colleges in India!?
mike1117 Registered User Posts: 194 (11/20/02 11:08:13 am) Reply	college You better hope they do. Otherwise it'll be high school students taking "your" jobs.
Go Blue 99 Registered User Posts: 119 (12/9/02 9:17:08 am) Reply	- Hell yeah there are colleges in india...they have engineering and business schools that are on par with top schools in the US.
Marcus137 Registered User Posts: 1 (12/9/02 4:27:31 pm) Reply	Labor Mobility and Declining Wages Well! I guess that it's time to give ourselves up, boys! Looks like the Indians have won! But seriously, just because a vanishingly small percentage of a population can endure extraordinary academic torture doesn't mean that they're any better when it comes to the nuts and bolts of genuine human creativity. In fact, most times you wind up worse for the torments through a loss of human objectivity. An example - I have a wonderfully fast and capable PC which could probably eat most anybody's lunch when it comes down to raw cataloging, computational, and retrieval power. And, there are millions like it out there, all around the world. But not one of them WILL EVER be able to replace the cross-colossal innovation machine present between any healthy person's ears. The point - America didn't become the place it is now through the hard, manufactured world of sheer academic expression and test scores. Rather, it has always been driven by a culture which values the full spectrum of human expression, and innovates through a healthy balance of academic experience and genuine creative leisure. This is true excellence. Our history testifies to its power. Where we abandon this right balance to cultures which do not embrace any such values, we will see ourselves losing our very souls to a cold, hard, unnatural existence of intellectual and academic slavery. But take heart all, it will come back around. Somewhere, someone will get just enough grant money to "explore" this issue, and bring our culture back to its roots. Why, they'll even discover that it's good for business! Till then, keep hoeing your row and have recourse to God. Pax.

[Dominic Harr]

I'd argue the problem is much bigger than just one small person's discontent:

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I live this every day.

[nutmeg]

ping

[Dominic Harr]

Sorry, didn't mean to repost that comic.

Well, here's a new one, for the heck of it:

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And yes, that does describe my world.

[Squantos]

Yer really that guy in the black cowboy hat that won the powerball aren't you....;o)

Stay Safe !

[Stavka2]

You are running circles around the issue. How would you, as a military man (and by the way, I've got 10.5 years under the belt Active & Guard) feel if you were cut and your job given to Gurkas or hell, Costa Ricans, because they didn't need that much pay, since they were getting a citizenship and you were told that sorry, you aren't going to be given a chance to get to E-8 or to retirement, you're to damn over paid as is. That's the issue. No loyalty and breaking of the law.

[Stavka2]

You want mercenaries fighting for this country - go for it. They are, for sure, cheaper. They just have the tendencies of changing sides or going where the money is better at the wrong time.

First you obviously aren't getting my point. Second apply this to corporations. Why should anyone not sell their job out and all it's corporate secrets when that corp will sell you out without thinking twice about it. Loyalty runs both ways, otherwise it's just abuse.

[Stavka2]

Oh, great advice...already did and guess what...no one is still highering Americans. Upgrading skills also costs money...again, maybe you get the point. Doesn't help I'm back on Active Duty, but that's a risk I knew could happen and about that I'm not bitching.

[Stavka2]

Thanks, glad someone could appreciate it.

[Stavka2]

In other words, if the U.S. citizen with 3 years exp makes 50k, then the H1B with 3 years gets the same.

What planet are you from? I've been in the industry and most of my friends are in it, and that is not the reality.

[The Raven]

>>>Yes we did. First we imported slaves. After we ended slavery, we started to import vast numbers of Irish and Chinese worke

Who's we?

[Stavka2]

Most of these people who are responding the way they are responding are blue collar so they think those with high degrees are spoiled brats...but gads if a textile mill or some such closes and moves to Mexico..then it's down with NAFTA and all that. Funny, they are usually the same people who are also complaining about to many immigrants, but since this one sticks it to the edumicated, they can live with being hypocrits.

[vannrox]

Oh wait...that's right... under the Clinton Administration the Government was run by a Union....

[Jhoffa_]

Oh wait...that's right... under the Clinton Administration the Government was run by a Union....

Well, we did bail out "Big Steel" and largely gave "Big Teacher" a pass..

Losing the union vote is a pretty intimidating thing I guess.

[EverOnward]

I'm old enough to have seen where people through a lucky break have been able to be very successful and yet think somehow because they worked hard, they did it all on their own. I'm old enough to have seen people with more talent, more ability than the "winners" go through tough times. For those fortunate ones who have had mentors or connections to understand those who have not -- well, in all of their ignorant arrogance, they never will.

As long as you work as hard as you can each day... As long as you never give up and are open to change and learning... As long as you pray for guidance (prayer is the key in the morning and the lock at night)... As long as you keep God as your partner and follow His counsel... As long as you learn from those who succeed... There is hope. There are those who when drowning, are too proud to cry out for help. Don't be afraid (nor too proud) to utilize all the resources that may be available to help you. I wish you well, brother. In the end, you may gain more insight into the real purpose of life than the proud and arrogant ever will.

[jwalsh07]

Field Service engineers in the XRAY industry without EE's make an average of 60K.

The good ones make near a 100K.

I have been working on XRAY equipment since I got my degree in engineering after the Army. I choose to work for myself since it fits my don't tread on me personality.

Any recent graduate with a EE who is not afraid to get his hands dirty can make a good living working on scanners and general xray equipment. I get calls constantly from headhunters so the jobs are there.

I wear workboots and a blue collar and I am proficient from millivolts to kilovolts while being enmeshed in digital imaging and IT with a wide berth of knowledge as relates to the physics of diagnostic radiology.

Try it, you might like it. :-}

[1rudeboy]

That's the issue.

What, a misguided sense of entitlement? The notion that taxpayers should pay more for military services than they have to because it's only "fair?"

[Stavka2]

What are you defensively babbling about? I made an analogy, you I have no idea what you're about.

[2banana]

First you obviously aren't getting my point. Second apply this to corporations. Why should anyone not sell their job out and all it's corporate secrets when that corp will sell you out without thinking twice about it. Loyalty runs both ways, otherwise it's just abuse.

First you obviously aren't getting my point. Second apply this to corporations. Who really cares if a programmer jumps ship from one corporation to another? Who really cares if Ford makes a lousy car if I can by GM? Life will go on pretty much as normal

But you will really care and be upset if the 82nd airborne marches on Washington for their politician or Ranger Batt refuses to go into battle until they get more money.

In Afgan, you can hire soldiers for less than $1 a day. You really want the armed forces of America full of soldiers like that (althought the defense budget could be cheap)?

[Mr. Bird]

Well, it's the law. So why not be a hero and blow the whistle on your employer?

[Hildy]

Engineering opportunities go in cycles. Back in the early 70's my brother had a full scholarship to MIT. He opted not to become an engineer. Back then, there was little opportunity.