Career Road Block

[purplemonkey]

Friends,

Currently I have been working for an employer (who will remain nameless) in the manufacturing industry for the past 2 years. As a mechanical graduate, I was delighted to score the job, although very low paying, due to the fact that it would give me significant design experience.

As time has progressed however I have realized this career choice has been more of a hindrance than a blessing. My work consists of the following:

1) Sheet metal design & layouts
2) Turn-around drawings
3) Drafting and detailing drawings
4) Simple cost analysis

There is no analytical spectrum to the job and no concern given with strength of materials, analysis of the designs or even the opportunity to conduct any analysis with any sort of guidance from senior engineers.

The job is very much suited for a college graduate as opposed to an engineering graduate, and I feel as if I had more technical knowledge coming out of university than I currently possess now.

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One benefit of the job however is that education is funded. This of course is another road block however (this time by my own doing). In university my marks dropped drastically in second year, and while I worked my butt off to pull them up in third and fourth years, my cumulative average was a C+, with a my last two year averages being B- and B respectively. Pursuing a masters degree seems impossible now since my academics are less than stellar.

----

It seems like getting out of my current job as fast as possible is the only way to make a positive step in my career and get into a company that can provide me with solid engineering experience. The trouble is that after being with this company for two and a half years, I have very little "actual engineering experience" to show for it. Getting an interview is difficult and when interviews do come, the common notion of my lack of experience with analysis of any sort is apparent.

I am not one to lie and say I know something I do not. I refuse to claim or take credit for work I have not done myself and I feel like I am truly at a career road block.

Either I stay at my current company till I get my P.Eng and hope at that time things will change, or I find another job (although the later is proving to be very difficult).

Any advice from fellow engineers would be greatly appreciated!

Regards,

Truly Frustrated

 

[livingston]

Manufacturing is not a place (usually) for analytical engineering. In manufacturing, engineers tend to be firefighters..... Keep the line running and make sure the product is in spec. Unless your facility has a design group attached to the manufacturing facility, there probably aren't any PEs around either. You need a PE to vouch for you in taking the PE exam.

Now is probably not the best time to try to find a new job but for what you want, you need to get out of manufacturing. IMHO.

 

[purplemonkey]

Thanks for the advice. We actually do have a bunch of PE's in our facility. Most are useless when it comes to actual engineering as their roles are project management and scheduling; paper pushing if you will.

We do have an FEA group however that ensures major structural components we manufacture are to spec and wont reach catastrophic failure on the job site.

The problem is integrating myself into that group is impossible right now due to my scope of work (or lack there-of). The tasks I am given are remedial at best and unfortunately, it seems to get a head in this company, you must dedicate 10+ years of your career. The gains are far outweighed by the losses considering what one can achieve in 10+ years of their professional career...

 

[purplemonkey]

I should also add that no one has ever been denied gaining a P.Eng from this fascility since there are ample PE's to sign off on whatever work you do.

My issue is that I am not thrilled about having a P.Eng title and having less technical knowledge than more recent graduates coming fresh out of university.

I am a strong believer in the "use it or lose it" mind set and as far as my technical prowess is concerned, I definitely feel as if I am losing it.

 

[braxtonlewis]

"The spirit and effectiveness with which you tackle your first humble tasks as a young engineer will be carefully observed and is certain to affect your entire career." ~ W.J. King

http://braxtonlewis.blogspot.com/

Braxton V. Lewis
Morgantown, WV

 

[TED7]

I once took a job under the pretense there would be 'engineering' involved. After I started I was shown the industry standard we have to design to and given a couple of training projects to work through according to the standard, I learnt plenty about how the engineering had to be carried out (although the standard took almost all the thinking out of the process) a fortnight in I was introduced to the in-house software which 'streamlined the process'. It essentially did all the engineering for me leaving just drawings to be done. Multiple diameters of tube welded together or sheet pressed into conical tubes.

If I learnt anything it was that 'use it or lose it' holds very true. Squeeze yourself into assisting another department doing what you want, invent a new position for yourself (I have seen this done) or leave.

Designer of machine tools - user of modified screws

 

[KENAT]

I feel your pain nperera86. Like you I also struggled at uni.

Despite occasional efforts I've also done relatively little hard core analytical work as taught at university. I've even discussed goals with managers about wanting to do more/get mentored by someone in the area etc but for reasons not necessarily anyone fault it didn't pan out.

That said, I haven't had an unrewarding career, I've done well at both places I've worked and got some above average raises, relatively early promotions/offers of promotion...

However, it looks like I'm now being pushed into a project management role, which while I don't mind doing a bit of I don't want it to be my main task.

Take every opportunity you get to flex your mental muscles. Maybe on some of the parts you're working on, do some analysis even if it's on your own time. Make sure that management know you'd like to do some more analytical work.

Also, learn to excel at what you are doing. There is potentially a lot of intellectual work to be done on drawing/MBD preparation especially as regards tolerancing and related aspects.

Posting guidelines faq731-376

http://eng-tips.com/market.cfm?

(probably not aimed specifically at you)
What is Engineering anyway: faq1088-1484​

 

[Twoballcane]

So I’m a little confused. Did you get your ME degree before the job or after getting hired? In any case, what you learn now, even if it seems small, will help you in the future. Its experiences like these that you must build upon. We all started from somewhere, for myself, I was designing brackets and shelves for racks in my first year and then five year later I am doing analysis and test on cutting edge stuff. In any career (or any point in your career), you first start preparing yourself on what you want to do (most of this will be on your free time). Next is to get somebody to “notice” you and that you have “enthusiasm” with what you want to do. Once an opportunity arises, and you have the endorsement of a few managers, you will be suggested to be a candidate for that task or position. Thus recapping you must prepare, get noticed, look for opportunities and then ask. Asking is the important part. If you don’t speak up on what you want to do, nobody will help you.

Tobalcane
"If you avoid failure, you also avoid success."
“Luck is where preparation meets opportunity”

 

[MiketheEngineer]

If you want a Masters - look into it. You might be surprised and get accepted.

My first two years of grades were barley a 2.0 - my last two years after taking a year off were much closer to a 3.6.

More than one professor asked me to stay on a get a Masters.....

 

[btrueblood]

Early in my career I was put into a "project management" role, which I later managed to navigate back out of. In that early job/company analysis was done by analysts, drafting by drafters, design by designers. My role was to guide, direct, track, schedule, report, etc. etc. what tasks the specialists were doing. Fairly quickly I got a reputation (good or bad) of nitpicking the analysts, designers, and drafters - because I would be doing the analysis myself on the backs of napkins/envelopes, and double checking what they were telling me. Dunno if doing so helped or hurt said persons, but it definitely helped me, and I think helped the products that we were designing. As projects got more complex I'd often just show the napkins to the head analyst/designer and more often than not they would incorporate my work directly (ok, they would occasionally also point out where my mistakes lay, and that helped me learn too).

 

[ajack1]

It is not uncommon for young grads to expect to be doing stellar projects early in their career and feel they are being held back. Often it is a few years later that they realise what a plus a good grounding it was in what seemed basic and boring work at the time.

On the flip side of that it is also easy to just sit back and all of a sudden wonder what has happened to the last few years, I have not moved forward. As with most things in life it is all about the balance.

It does seem like there are opportunities within your current employer, even if not immediately. It is probably a good time to try and talk to your manager, HR or however the company is structured and discuss where you are going and where you want to be in a given period of time and what paths might be open to you.

To just leave (even if the opportunity arouse) based on the grass is always greener is seldom a good idea. Try to set achievable goals and targets and work to them, either at your current employer or elsewhere.

 

[purplemonkey]

Thank you everyone for the input. I appreciate all the view points given. I think the best strategy is to sit down with my immediate managers and discuss (as it was stated) if there is in fact an opportunity to move ahead.

From being with this company for the period I have, I've realized there is a high turn over rate in the office staff. In the last year alone, six people from engineering have quit.

Unfortunately, promotions are few and far between and whenever openings do arise, it seems that management chooses to hire externally before even considering to promote internally (at least in the engineering department)

Regardless, I am going to talk it out with my managers and see if any changes do happen in the near future. As the adage goes, "if the baby doesn't cry, the mother won't feed"...lol.

 

[MiketheEngineer]

Maybe you need to "apply" for the open positions.

Our company does that - but you must apply - or better yet - pre-apply. Tell your manager or HR that you want such and such job and if it opens - will you please consider me.

Works for us.

 

[bigTomHanks]

Given that you have 2.5 years of experience and are getting interviews tells me that you are not doing a good job of selling yourself during the interviews. You state that you don't like to take credit for others work but just because you aren't the one getting pat on the back from the big boss doesn't mean that you weren't an important part of the project. Give yourself a little more credit and in order to convince someone to give you a higher position you have to act like someone who can handle the job. Someone who isn't willing to take ownership of something is not going to be volunteered for a big project or promotion. How are you performing in your current position? Do you work diligently to complete all task as minor as they may seem? Any entry level employee needs to adopt the attitude that I'm here to pick up all the pieces so I can contribute to the overall effort in a positive way. Managers appreciate someone in your position who they can rely on to do the maintenance work effectively. The quickest way to annoy your manager is to do your actual job poorly while trying to throw in your 2 cents on his job. Or worse not do your job to the point where they have to get involved in getting your work done.

 

[purplemonkey]

I will be the first to admit I do underestimate my contributions and definetly blow my own whistle in interviews...this is something I am sincerely working on.

That being said, I feel the hurdles in all my interviews have been when it comes to experience related questions. I got an interview at a dream company which I fought tooth and nail to even get. Despite my best efforts however, when questions like "what kind of calculations have you done" or "what analysis did you conduct" arise, I have no honest answer.

Now one may clearly say it is my fault for not branching out on my own to do the analysis. I am guilty of that to an extent however I don't agree that I am solely responsible. The environment I work in is largely based on putting out Engineering Change Requests. The volume and speed in which an ECR gets completed is what matters, not necessarily the content or even the quality.

Since that interview I have done a CFD analysis on an exhaust system (right or wrong I can't comment since it was my first time doing one to get an idea of pressure differentials within the system). This was done on my own time and submitted to my managers who could have cared less. More recently, I did a quick FEA using COSMOS (also on my time) on a steel beam with altering geometry to verify which geometry would be the most beneficial. That data too was discarded completely.

One can only imagine the frustration that surmounts when continuous efforts to show ambition go undetected. I have lost all motivation to even do my job to the best of my ability.

Anyways, enough of my sob story. I have no one to blame but myself for letting myself down academically. Despite the low paying nature of my job, I see so much potential within the company in areas I can truly make our product better. It's just difficult to stay motivated in an environment that seems to crush all efforts of ambition.

 

[jmw]

I would suggest that the first few years of "use it or lose it" are helpful in shedding a lot of dead weight.

The thing you should carry in the front of your mind is that what you learn in college cannot equip you with all the knowledge you need for the next 40 years.

It is also a mistake to think that what you learned and forgot cannot be relearned. If you need it and need to relearn it you will learn it better where there is a need to know and you will retain it far better.

What you should have brought from college is attitude and discipline. Learning and thinking skills is what college can give you and the self-knowledge that you can learn.
Most everything else will quickly be out of date if it isn't already.

Most of what you do you will be learning as you go.
What you should have is a willingness and self confidence to tackle new and challenging tasks for which there is no prior knowledge. You have to learn and innovate as you go.

Once you get established you will find that you are being called on to solve problems using your brain, not simply look it up to see how everyone else did it, though there will be much that is like that.

This is when, in any field, it gets satisfying, when you find solutions no one else has found; especially satisfying if everyone else says it can't be done and you do it.
But don't expect this straight from college. You may need to work a good few years before anyone trusts you on leading edge stuff.

The workplace should be about as current as it gets (unless your company still makes buggy whips using 100 year old methods that no one dare change).

I would expect that there is no one in these forums who left education fully equipped for the outside world and never had to learn another thing.
I expect most forgot a lot of what they learned and never used it or had a use for it.
What you need is ability not a "sealed for life" knowledge pack issued to new grads.

Oh yes, and if you've been dumped into a boring routine unchallenging job, its your responsibility to (a) do it well and (b) demonstrate ambition to get out of there.
Its a filter.
It sorts out those with some life from the 9-5 no drive types.

JMW

http://www.ViscoAnalyser.com

 

[purplemonkey]

Situation Update:

I took everyone's advice to heart and sat down with our vehicle engineer here to have a little heart to heart.

I told him specifically I understood that my current position entailed only so much responsibility and that I was looking to integrate myself more into the calculation side of things. I made it very clear this could be done on my own time and that I had no problem coming in early, or staying after work later to be able to learn and gain useful experience doing even basic hand calcs where necessary.

The response I got was less than ideal. I basically got the old "we don't have anything you can do right now but I'll keep you in mind".

I think at this point its time I start to organize myself and what I've done better and start revamping my resume to reflect any little achievements I have gained through this job.

I'm going to stick it out till the holiday season to see if there is any positive change but from the reaction and body language, it seems as though my request fell on deaf ears.

On a positive note, I do feel better for have verbalizing it though!

Thanks again to everyone for their valuable insight.

 

[ajack1]

Don’t take that as a complete negative, he may well keep you in mind for the future.

These are tough economic times and you cannot just magic jobs out of thin air and generally speaking employees need to generate income for the employer.

By all means explore other avenues but always do the best job you can in whatever position you are in, it will get you noticed.

 

[bigTomHanks]

I wouldn't beat yourself down. Eventually you will have the experience necessary when a new project comes up to get involved in the initial design. That is where you are going to be doing all your hardcore calcs. Remember that the mature phase of a design is when the company expects to get a return on it's investment of resources to develop it's product. Any major change would cut into that profit and nobody wants to get all carried away reengineering something that probably isn't broke. If you are working on ECRs then I think you are in a good position to eventually get into some serious design as you get older. You have to wait your turn because there are plenty of engineers at your company who have wanted to do exactly what you want and they have waited a lot longer. Now it is their turn and yours will come eventually. Your employment is based on a condition that you will perform work that the company chooses that you do to earn a profit, not based on what you want to do based on your personal interest. Sorry to be blunt.

 

[jmw]

The "times are hard and there is no work" routine is invalid here.
You don't necessarily need to work on new projects to learn and get a feel for what is possible.
You could ask that he give you the starting point for some previously completed projects.
Then you can do all the calculation you like. You can try out different ideas and then test them against the way it was actually done.
Differences will be interesting. Not wrong, interesting because there will be a lot of decisions made which could go either way engineering wise, but which are influenced by external factors.
Since this will be work done on your own time, they have nothing to lose and nothing to risk.



JMW

http://www.ViscoAnalyser.com