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.

[A. Pole]

What would say to an aspiring EE?

Study Chinese? (Indians know English)

[Jhoffa_]

Gee, thanks..

I feel so much better.

[Alberta's Child]

A couple of things I've noticed is that engineers who work in highly-specialized areas tend to do well when things are hot but do poorly when things in their area of expertise are slow.

Some career counselers will tell you that answering an ad in the newspaper is one of the worst ways for a professional to land a good job. These ads generate a large number of responses, which makes it impossible for the prospective employer to review resumes in any detail. In my opinion, the best way to land a position these days is through personal contacts in professional societies, alumni groups, etc.

I'd also suggest that you mail your resume instead of e-mailing it, unless specifically instructed otherwise. Employers are inundated with resumes because it is so easy for job applicants to send mass e-mailings, and I've found that a resume with a good cover letter sent via snail-mail will attract a lot of attention just because it stands out.

[BigBobber]

Good luck. You're going to have your hands full when the Baby Boomer engineers retire. On the bright side, you'll probably be able to charge a premium for your services because of the shortage.

[VOA]

bump

[Cate]

JOIN THE MILITARY.

[lewislynn]

"" labor on foreign soil""

[speekinout]

Most MBA think they will be commanding salaries of 200K and will be directors or VPs without any real knowledge.

This one reminds me of my Master's program. I was in a Master's program paid for by my employer, and I took a couple of electives in the Business school. It was in the mid-80's, and the rate for a top notch MBA was about $100k. One guy was telling me that there were 20 in his class, and they already knew that only 12 would get jobs from on-campus recruiters, and chances of getting hired other ways were dismal.
The rest were thinking about going on to law school. :-(

[vannrox]

LOL...Ex Navy Myself.

[vannrox]

What would say to an aspiring EE?

Join a union. Or, work for the Government.

[Red Jones]

You're 100% correct TruthNtegrity. I'll add that if you haven't got experience working as engineer/programmer and seen how things work first hand or at least looked closely at h1b, then you just don't understand h1b. In that h1b is a truly terrible program. It is indentured servitude. It is short-circuiting the free market for labor. It is discouraging americans from developing valuable skills. There is a lot of insanity in our nation's public life and our policies relating to the economy. H1b is a desperate effort to helpp corporations, but it merely ads to the insanity, it does not combat it at all. The really bad economic policies are not addressed, h1b only pits some classes of people against other classes of people and produces nothing.

[Jhoffa_]

A union?

Surely you jest..

No, no, no.. Jhoffa_ don't work for no union.

[Red Jones]

you're going to study electrical engineering??? First, be sure to read Professor matloff's big 200 page research paper. It's called 'Debunking the Myth Of Engineer/Software Labor Shortage' or something similar. Find it on the net.

In that paper Matloff sites an american born fellow of asian descent (I mention he's asian because many people feel people of american stock can't do this work) busted his but enough to get into Princeton. He got a degree in Electrical engineering. He was a 4.0 student. Then he got a graduate degree at yale also in EE, again straight A's. Then he spent 2 years trying to find a job, didn't get a single job offer. This was in mid-1990's.

matloff's whole point is that we've created a situation through market intervention so that americans are sent very strong market signals to not study engineering or programming because these jobs are for foreigners.

If you look carefully at h1b, then you'll see that the h1b visa holders are given advantages in the job market that americans don't by law qualify for. Americans can't sell their labor in 6 year time slots, Americans don't receive US citizenship in return for 6 years of labor, so from an employer's point of view there are strong reasons to believe that an american can't compete due to these legal disadvantages given to them by their own government.

If all h1b's could switch jobs at will just as an american can, then a large amount of their advantages in the job market would go away.

On the other hand, if you've got god-given talent and you want to use it, then are you going to let a government policy intimidate you? Only if you have sense. Some people don't have sense. People in this later category are sometimes the great achievers, this policy is meant to intimidate you? Are you going to let it?

[Red Jones]

my strong sympathies to you; and my 2 cents to you is that your high level of intelligence and good integrity level have caused the world todiscriminate against you in effect IMO. It is a tough blow, but in my opinion it is something to actually feel good about. Would you rather be stupid and of low integrity?

[Red Jones]

you're not old school, you're just a dope. One can see that the little fascist in you really likes being in the army doesn't it?

A few comments ago you said that anybody who can make an if/else statement in some language thinks he ought to get 100k. No, mr. ignorant, please don't speak. Those high salaries came about because of market forces, because somebody voluntarilly decided to pay them that based on real work and a real need for that work. The vast majority of people who study programming don't make it much less at those high salaries. It is only the few who earn that high pay who get it, that's the way it always has been.

But h1b is a big intervention into the market, it is not free market at all. The h1b's are not really free to switch jobs at all. Non-americans shouldn't even be eligible to come and live in america to work jobs. Anybody who wants tohire a foreigner for any reason should go to the foreign country and hire them. But if you're going to do business here, then you hire americans, that is a simple rule even an army guy with a bright shiny helmet and dull brain should be able to understand.

Our government should serve us, don't you agree? Or are you the fascist who says it is the other way around? If a government does not serve the people it rules over, then it will become corrupt and tyrannical towards those people. Then it will send jack-booted army thugs in to beat them over the head and I see it will find some americans who take glee in that job.

[Jhoffa_]

..you're going to study electrical engineering???

I had considered it. It's been a hobby for me and it's something I enjoy. My father was an engineer for the phone company for years, brilliant guy.

I am not as smart as him however, so I think maybe I used the wrong term when I said engineering. I had hoped there is a need for service personnel with all the automation in the service and manufacturing industries.

I have a sporadic speech defect that makes me want to get out of a position where I have to deal with the public, sell things or address a crowd. I would be more than happy to service equipment or work in a dark corner somewhere.

As long as it's doing something I enjoy, I wouldn't mind a bit.

[Red Jones]

well, then don't let h1b intimidate you out of doing a type of work you'll like. Proceed without fear. But remember that h1b is a system that will discriminate against you viciously if you go down that path. You'll pay the price. People don't understand, h1b is an ethnic cleansing program, the rules are rigged against americans and then jack-ass americans willfully pretend not to understand how the american and non-american groups are divided up, separated and treated differently in the market because of laws made in washington with the real advantages going to the non-americans.

[Jhoffa_]

I agree with you about this H1B business.

It irks me because Conservative philosophy dictates that union pressure or other means of leveraging the federal government against your employer is out. No minimum wage either, uh-uh. You are expected to go out into the market and earn what you are worth.. It's simple and it's fair.

However, the other side of the coin (the one no one bothers to mention during these discussions) is that employers are expected to compete also, they are expected to compete for your labor.

They don't wish to do this, instead they want to stack the deck with imported labor. So, the net result is you have to compete, they (to a large degree) do not.

Simple economics says that when too much labor is chasing too few jobs, wages and benefits decrease. This is also why I am not big on throwing open to borders and letting others have "the jobs Americans won't do" The reason Americans won't do them is because employers aren't willing to pay to have them done. If they have a job that really has to be done, then someone will make a decent wage at it or the employer will have to do without.

That's the right way to get wages and benefits, not with union pressure.. but with more competition between employers.

^ Imho..

[Dominic Harr]

H1-Bs Just The Symptom

American IT is in trouble, and not because of H1B.

Or rather, the H1-B program is just a *symptom* of the problem. America Big IT is where American Big Auto Makers were in the 1970s. Replacing American workers with H1-Bs leads to longer time-to-market, a lower quality end-product, and lower costs. The lower cost temporarily raises the stock price.

The modern IT 'Pointy-Haired Manager' only cares about the stock price. And that's what fuels the system.

The Real Problem is the 'Dilbert' World
The Real Prophet of Truth for the modern world is Scott Adams. His strip, 'Dilbert', chronicles what we in the IT industry see every single day -- massive mismanagement on a scale that would not be allowed in almost any other industry. You can not BELIEVE the things we all see.

75% of all corporate IT projects FAIL.

It is an epidemic.

To be a project manager for an Auto plant, you have to have quite a bit of knowledge about auto manufacturing. To be a project manager in just about *any* other industry, you have to be skilled and experienced in the product and production methods involved.

But as Scott Adams shows daily -- not in IT. For some reason, Project Managers almost never have any skills or experience in software development. Modern 'Big IT' is so poorly managed, and they use their power to squash (buy/copy/threaten/coerce distributors/etc) the entrepeneurs who would carry us into the next tech revolution.

It Has To Be Software
The tech revolution can't carry much farther on hardware. With the exception of bandwidth, the average PC user has far more technical power at their fingertips than they currently need.

If the 'tech revolution' is to move forward, it will be on the backs of software.

H1-B Outsourcing Does Not Save Money
I specifically work in my company's project management group. I see the numbers.

H1-Bs are *very* skilled people, on average. I've worked with many. But in the same way that Japanese Engineers tend to be very skilled. They grow up in a system that discourages individuality. They are very good at doing something 'off the rack'. If you tell them exactly what you need, and how you want it done, they excel.

But that describes almost no software design, unfortunately.

The Results Are Already Coming In
Giving the work to H1-B's is not profitable. It takes 3-4 times as long to come up with a finished product, and the quality of the end product is almost always far, far lower. Not because they aren't skilled, but because software design is not something that you can teach in a college. Design skill requires independent thinking, creativity, etc. That which Americans excel at.

One of my favorite examples is Dell's Phone Support, here in Austin. They outsourced all their phone support to India, and it now stinks. It's like pulling teeth to get any help.

But the executives in modern IT have no concern about the end-product. The 'Dilbert' "Pointy-Haired Manager" is so amazingly short-sighted and inept it's incredible.

Programmer Pricing In A 'Free' Market
The IT world is in a similar labor situation as the NFL once was. The management reaps almost all the reward, and the 'front-line' workers get almost nothing.

If you can develop code 3 times faster than someone else, you deserve 3 times the salary.

Do you think this happens? Not on your life.

Typically, only management gets bonuses. Management makes far more than 'talent'. In my company, I was actually told that if I wanted to rise any higher I'd have to go into management.

A 'Management' Revolution
Once, almost all quality TVs were made in America.

Once, the American Auto dominated the world.

The American Govt is now so mismanaged, it's hard to imagine how it can stand. America's most hopeful industry, IT, is killing itself.

The only thing that can save us is some sort of 'management' revolution.

But remember, my opinion is worth *exactly* what you just paid for it.

---

[Porterville]

Buy a frickn' house and sell it if you want to make some doe; stop belly-aching and get some gumption. My God, these engineering students were suppose to be the brightest of the Universities.