Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="StreamOfTheSky" data-source="post: 4592624" data-attributes="member: 35909">What?  No pre-breakfast update? <img src="http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/laugh.png"  class="smilie" loading="lazy" alt=":lol:" title="Laughing    :lol:" data-shortname=":lol:" />Good, and I understand.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.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.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").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. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />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.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.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.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.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.Ok, let's see...<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">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! <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /> (He brought it up, I try not to ask about dress code and specifically tie-wearing, though I'd like to)</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">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.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">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.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">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.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">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.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">I am extremely fidgety, always have been, don't see that getting "fixed."</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">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. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />  When I try and force myself to hold eye contact, I'm sure it comes across as staring.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Never yet left my cell phone on, thank god.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">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.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">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.</li> </ul>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?</blockquote>

Verification