I need an Engineering job

[StreamOfTheSky]

More Later... Time for dinner.

What? No pre-breakfast update?

No, it wasn't a waste... I just didn't have enough time to finish everything I would have liked to say.

Forgive my tone, but I've gone through similar situations with both my little brothers. It may sound harsh, but in my experience you'll be better off if we tell you what should hear, which is not necessarily what you want to hear.

Good, and I understand.

I know it's hard, but it's exceptionally important you do so nonetheless. A boss will never hire someone who they think is uninterested in the work, or unlikely to stick around the company.

It'd help if I were an optimist, but I'm the opposite. I'd like to think as an engineer, it's a far better outlook to try and find the negative in something and critique it, but that makes it really hard to do an interview.

Learn proper interviewing techniques. Most local Community Colleges hold classes and seminars to do just that. If you can, sign up for one. We can give you a few basic tips here, but in-person coaching is much better.

I've gone to such classes...once at my college career building, once at the state employment office (networkRI). Too often, it seems like it's more than just "learning a skill." And more of trying to not be an introvert. Which is hard. I could study body language and probably learn how to master it given a few months. No training will make me feel "comfortable in my own skin" or look less rigid (both things friends have pointed out to me many times in the past) during a high-pressure interview session.

Tell the truth... "I just graduated from college last year."

I've gotten the impression that most people expect you to have gotten a job within a year. In fact, many cut me off at the pass with some version of:

Interviewer: "I see on your resume that you have already graduated?"
Me: "Yes. In December of 2007."
Int: "So why haven't you had a job since then?*" / "What have you been doing since then?"
Me: [no easy way to answer. tried saying straight up nothing's panned out, say I've been limited in my search due to ailing grandfather (which is true, but I stopped when a career adviser told me even if true it's a bad excuse), blame the recession (seems lame to me, but the career adviser suggested it)... I've yet to find a "good" reply]
*I held my bookstore job until late Sept, when they had to let me go because I'm not a student and they can't keep temp workers on unless it's a busy period. I was the last temp worker to be let go, for what it's worth. None of this seems to matter to the interviewers. It says my work dates on the resume, but because it's not in the field it's not important (or, if they ask the second version, clearly not even "something").

This is where the interview coaching comes in... Your examples may have been perfectly suitable, but you presented them poorly, they will fail to make an impression. Post a sample of one of these examples as you might give answer in an interview, and perhaps we can help.

Part of the problem is...I didn't display leadership very much for any given project. Maybe once or twice, but not enough to give a good answer. I really don't *want* to be a leader. I have always seen myself as the "#2," the "man in the shadows," the smart guy who gets things done but has some other fresh-faced sod represent the team to outsiders and motivate its members. I can't say that in an interview, though, they don't want to hear that.

As for an example... I'll try to give it as close to how I would in a conversation:

"In my biomedical devices class, we had a project to build a portable, battery-powered box called the PHENOM.* It allows the user to hook up leads to himself and get a EKG and/or PPG reading wherever he wants. We were given the circuit diagram, but other than that, we had to work on every aspect of the product: drilling holes in the box for connector components, building the leads, soldering the board and placing components in such a way that would fit but not get too cluttered, and in general making the finished product look good for marketing. It was a lot of work in a short amount of time, especially taking long because most in the class had never soldered before. We were in groups of three, each person taking a turn as project leader and writing a progress report. Planning and scheduling meetings was crucial due to the time crunch, and while the last phase of the project was to program unique functions on the PIC processor, we decided to all work together, phase-by-phase. In the end, we never got to program the chip, but our board worked. Most other groups tried to split up the phases and ended up with some progress in all, but no working product to present, so i think we made the right choice."
*It's an acronym, I don't even remember what it stands for, other than that it's a very "poorly fitting" acronym that has a bunch of other letters in the full name. If the interviewer asks what it stands for, I tell them this. Honestly, even if I went to find out from the professor, I'd have to write it down and check any time I was asked.

Of course, it seldom comes out so cleanly in speech, and often the interviewer will interrupt me to ask a question I would have answered eventually anyway.
I also try and work into that experience an example of seeing theory flow into practice (capacitor example, below) and as an example of dealing with a team that doesn't work together well -- One of our group members would come in on his own to solder it, so we'd end up needing half an hour to figure out what had changed.

You'd be surprised. The whole reason an employer asks this question is to make certain that all their training isn't going to go to waste, when you ditch out for a better job in six months. If you find a diplomatic way to say, "I just want a pleasant and steady job. Give me that, and I'll stayfor as long as you'll keep me," is a perfectly good answer.

I state it as wanting to find a company to grow with and stay, and that definitely don't want to move around to different companies much. I should try your more succinct version.

No. I'm much the same way. Not for lack of ability, I'm simply not ambitious enough, I don't want the extra responsibilities that go with it, and I'm unwilling to place my job that on my priority list.

Instead, you could feasibly use this as a perfectly humble answer to the inevitable question, "What's your biggest weakness."

Good idea, I was kind of afraid to say I'm not that ambitious, as it seems to be sooooo important, but perhaps my guy is right and it's not.

Let me be a little more clear about that... No boss will expect you to know everything about a specific job the first day out. Every job has its own procedures and duties that will need to be learned on the job. But, as you said, they will expect you to know the basics, and be able to apply those basics with some amount of intelligence to whatever task they give you.

In an interview you need to prove to the employer that you know enough about the generalities of the field to understand the tasks you will be assigned to, and that you are intelligent enough and flexible enough to be able to learn the parts that you don't know yet.

I know there's no way for you to give examples of how to do that, but that really seems like something that would come much easier after having worked in industry and actually applied the knowledge to work in the field. For now, I mostly have to stumble along with class projects for examples.

Another tip... Just because one entry-level job at a particular company doesn't seem exciting, doesn't mean you shouldn't go after it. There may be another job at that same you might like better, and could transfer into or get promoted into later.

Remember that "where I see myself in 5 years" question? There's another good answer... "If I'm given the opportunity, I'm hoping to eventually work my way up to [Insert Enjoyable Job Here]."

Good point. My only worry is if that makes it seem like I'm less interested in the open job, and they instead give it to someone else and put me in some folder to remember to look up when said job I prefer has an opening. Maybe it's an unfounded worry.

Thinking about it, we recently hired some new technicians. During the interview process the ones that I liked:

• Were clean and well groomed.
• Smiled.
• Looked interested at their surroundings.
• Asked questions which demonstrated ignorance but an interest to learn.
• Asked questions which demonstrated experience and an interest to expand it.
• Shifted their weight from time to time in the chair, but didn't fidget.
• Had the right amount of eye contact. Didn't stare, didn't look at the carpet.
• Had their cell phone off during the interview.
• Arrived on time.
• Were engaged and interested in the project.

One guy that we hired and later fired, I remember that his clothes were kind of threadbare or cheap or otherwise substandard and he had a shiny new ~$300 cell phone. Screwy priorities.

Ok, let's see...

• I'm typically clean-shaven for any interviews, and don't let the hair get too long. I may have looked a little too happy when the naval shipyard interviewer told me that not only do they not wear ties, but they're actually a safety hazard! (He brought it up, I try not to ask about dress code and specifically tie-wearing, though I'd like to)
• When I'm trying to smile consciously, it ends up looking really fake ...or creepy. It's the reason I usually go for a closed mouth "line" with my lips for pictures.
• If anything, I do too much of this. It's hard for me to hold eye contact for long, I have a tendency to look around and break it.
• I try this, but I have learned to be conservative in my reach; as in, I've made myself sound clueless by phrasing something too broadly or poorly.
• I have a hard time putting these into a question. For me, I usually try to tie in how my knowledge would apply to something the interviewer talks about. Like if it's a large company with lots of meetings between departments to develop a new product, I will try to tie in my class on concurrent project management.
• I am extremely fidgety, always have been, don't see that getting "fixed."
• I can't do eye contact. I even have a habit of holding a conversation while looking away from the other person (not in an interview, in general conversation). Someone told me once that's normal in Japan, so at least I'd fit in there. When I try and force myself to hold eye contact, I'm sure it comes across as staring.
• Never yet left my cell phone on, thank god.
• Only flubbed this the first interview, due to getting lost. Also hurt that i didn't bring the contact's phone number to call and say so.
• Can you give examples of how they conveyed this? I can't do that beyond broad statements, like how I enjoyed seeing theory affect an actual product in the case of my project building a EKG/PPG unit. The most specific example from that being that on the day of presentation, it turned on then failed to work. We found a capacitor was in backwards and was holding the charge, and it worked as soon as it was fixed. This is by far my best and most specfic example, IMHO.

In the rural west, we have coal fired power plants. I know, not the cleanest on the planet. However, the companies have openings for skilled engineers. It's difficult to attract them to a rural area. You may want look at a more ruralized area rather than metro city. They may or may not withstand the recession better.

My old high school buddy recently graduated with a EE degree. He is working on earning his electricians license. Is this something you have looked at? I don't know much about it otherwise.

Indeed, almost 75% of the job inquiries sent to me from seeing my resume online are from the midwest. Most don't lead anywhere anyway, but the number is astounding. Almost none of my regional job opportunities have come to me, I've had to go to job fairs and search online for them.

I guess I could look at it, but in my class selection I tried to avoid electronics classes as much as possible, they were always my least favored areas of EE. I'd much rather do optics, signal processing, communication systems, control systems, biomedical devices, or engineering management (roughly in that order of preference) all before I'd choose to go into integrated circuits or power. And yeah, beggars can't be choosy. It doesn't change the fact that I have less experience with these areas than most of my peers, so those jobs are more out of reach anyway. On the other hand, the knowledge works together any way. You can make a circuit representation of a filter, equate a mechanical system to a circuit...

Is your friend getting his electricians license as part of his engineering career, or is he going for a career as an electrician instead of engineering?

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

I was just searching today to find some means of contacting an old co-worker at the bookstore that was an EE major. He works at FM Global now, and I finally managed to find him... on a networking site that offers almost no information. For all I know, my contact request only stayed "in-site" and didn't end him an email notification. Which would mean he won't even notice until he happens to go to said site again to check up. It got me to thinking, though.

What are some good resources for networking and job searching specifically in engineering and technical fields? If it's a job search site, I VASTLY prefer ones that let you choose experience level. I hate sifting through 8 pages of results with nothing but jobs for people with 10 yrs xp, 2 years xp, 5 yrs xp in a very specific job function, etc... Putting in "entry level" or "entry" in the search field proves rather unreliable.

Engineering Central has proven the most useful of all the internet sites I've seen, which...still isn't a great boast.
Dice.com seems great, but too much of it is devoted to computer science/engineering, network security, and other things out of my field completely.
The USAjobs site is basically required for searching federal jobs, but is a major pain to use and has yet to result in a single contact or job offer. (Been plugging away there on and off for over half a year now).

LinkedIn is the website I found him on, so I joined. My page, if you'd care to join / connect with me: LinkedIn: View Profile Sign In
Pretty bare bones, though.

I'd really like some kind of headhunter service to help out, but locally there aren't any for engineering. I've found some online, many are employer-centric, to the point of some not even letting those looking for work search employers and instead requiring you to send all your information and *maybe* get contacted. Even the user-friendly ones seem mostly like glorified job search sites with no actual help. And as I had thought before looking for headhunters, they are pretty much exclusively looking for experienced professionals to fill niche or senior level positions. Not much help for the just out of college sort.

EDIT: May need to log in just to view the profile, sorry. And for some reason searching my name doesn't result in finding it either. Oh well.

 

[ssampier]

I am like you, I didn't get any results from Monster and Hotjobs, etc. As a person on the other side of the interview desk it costs money to place ads on their services (it's not huge, but $400+ is high for education).

As for electricians license, I think his career goal is build those electrical sub-stations. I have lost contact with him the last few years, so I never did ask him how things panned out....

 

[Meowzebub]

Lots of good advice there. I would just like to add...

Are you working with the career placement office at your university? As a graduate, often there is no cutoff date for your access to their services to find your first job. They will likely have workshops for interviewing and resume writing. The potential employers contacting the school are coming full well knowing that the people they are interviewing have little to no experience. It is in their best interest to help you find a job, as university statistics are kept that detail how many graduates go on to find jobs in their field

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

Lots of good advice there. I would just like to add...

Are you working with the career placement office at your university? As a graduate, often there is no cutoff date for your access to their services to find your first job. They will likely have workshops for interviewing and resume writing. The potential employers contacting the school are coming full well knowing that the people they are interviewing have little to no experience. It is in their best interest to help you find a job, as university statistics are kept that detail how many graduates go on to find jobs in their field

We have Career Services, I've never heard of a career placement office, but I assume they're the same thing. I have gone for resume, interview, and other help several times, before and after graduating. They sometimes have "interview days" for a major, but very rarely, and I've never seen it for engineering. I thought they would have contacts at various companies that are involved with URI, but they apparently don't. They'll give advice on interviews and such, but no help in actually finding a job. They also have a job search function on their website for employers specifically seeking URI grads, but every time I've checked it, there's been almost nothing on it.

 

[Steve Jung]

We have Career Services, I've never heard of a career placement office, but I assume they're the same thing. I have gone for resume, interview, and other help several times, before and after graduating. They sometimes have "interview days" for a major, but very rarely, and I've never seen it for engineering. I thought they would have contacts at various companies that are involved with URI, but they apparently don't. They'll give advice on interviews and such, but no help in actually finding a job. They also have a job search function on their website for employers specifically seeking URI grads, but every time I've checked it, there's been almost nothing on it.

Do they sponsor job fairs?

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

Do they sponsor job fairs?

Yes. I go to all of them that have employers looking for engineers (about 3 job fairs a year, on average) and have since sophomore year. That is where I tend to get the bulk of my local opportunities. In case it wan't clear: I've had interviews. I just haven't gotten a job.


That said, job fairs aren't very reliable IME. It gives some leads due to sheer bulk of companies there, but is only about twice as likely to go anywhere as online applications. The companies sign up to attend beforehand, o when they show up, a solid 1/3 aren't actually hiring at the moment. Half of the rest tell you to apply online. Which is funny...could've done that without the job fair....heh... Some are so insistent on doing everything online they won't even take a resume! But I digress, I've never actually had an interview at a job fair. I've heard of people doing that. Some do grill you with completely random technical questions to test you or something, which I hate. I learned to avoid a particular Sensata rep. any job fair I saw him after two straight such experiences talking to him at previous job fairs.

 

[LightPhoenix]

I don't know what your feelings are on graduate study, nor do I know your financial and academic situations. If you don't happen to find something in your time frame you may want to consider graduate study as an alternative. An advanced degree (MS or PhD) is more likely to get you noticed (ie, your resume not thrown out at first glance) in a field where most new hires have at least a BS. It typically counts as work experience if you look at government jobs (ie, USAjobs or the like), and if it includes research experience you can talk about that at interviews.

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

I don't know what your feelings are on graduate study, nor do I know your financial and academic situations. If you don't happen to find something in your time frame you may want to consider graduate study as an alternative. An advanced degree (MS or PhD) is more likely to get you noticed (ie, your resume not thrown out at first glance) in a field where most new hires have at least a BS. It typically counts as work experience if you look at government jobs (ie, USAjobs or the like), and if it includes research experience you can talk about that at interviews.

I may have to consider that, but I'd really rather not.

I decided before graduating whether to go to graduate school right away or not. I even considered it before getting engaged, which only made the proposition less ideal still. I could not come up with a reason why I should for my situation. I wanted to work, I wanted to get a start on my career as soon as I could. Graduate school could be expensive, and if when I get out I still have no industry experience, I question if I'd even really be out of the current predicament. I didn't want to be "overqualified," that is a major concern for me. If I get a MS, I may be better off than anyone with a BS, but I also won't be competing with them for the most part anymore. I'll have to compete with other MS graduates, and if I try to apply for a job meant for entry level BS degrees, I'll be asked why. It's not too dissimilar from how I currently have trouble finding non-engineering tech jobs, because, "why can't you get a job appropriate for your education level?" Add to that the fact that nearly all engineering jobs will pay for you to take graduate classes every so often, and it really seemed silly to continue. I could just gradually get a masters, and for no money if I got good grades. On the other hand, going immediately into graduate school would be just throwing a whole bunch of money (tuition) at the real problem, only to delay its coming. That's my view, at least. Right now, the ONE big thing i have going for me is that by going to an in-state school w/ a full academic scholarship, I have no debt hanging over my head. I'd like to keep it that way.

On a more personal note, going back to school after spending a year determined to get a job and failing would be rather crushing pride-wise. It's basically giving up to me.

 

[Michael Dean]

In case it wan't clear: I've had interviews. I just haven't gotten a job.

I think this says it all in a nutshell. Your problem is you really need help with interviewing skills. There are an enormous amount of resources available for job hunting; just go to your local Barnes and Noble or Borders, and start reading. I recommend "What Color is Your Parachute" for starters as it is a pretty good description of what the job search entails and how to deal with some of the psychological problems that come from job searches (i.e. depression). But I've seen literally dozens of good books on the subject.

Looking for a job is more than just preparing for interviews; it involves a lot of work, dealing with anxiety, and planning out the best way to do the search. A good job search book will help you deal with all of that and show you how to give yourself some support and confidence, because your confidence level is critical to getting a job.

Some of your previous posts kind of tell me that you're just shrugging your shoulders and saying, I suck at interviews so there's no use trying to get better at them. Not true! The impression you make in the first few minutes of an interview makes all the difference in the world. There are very good books that tell you how to structure an answer for every problem you've mentioned; I know, because I've read them and used them myself. Don't know how to answer the "Why haven't you worked in the industry in a couple of years," question? Find a book that tells you how.

I know it's really hard at this point because it seems hopeless in this economy and you're depressed and frustrated, but that's why you need to learn how to do the job search properly. Good luck!