Differentiating Between Different Engineering Industries

[roca]

I am at present living in Perth, Western Australia having lived and worked most of my life in Europe.
My trade is a Static Equipment Engineer – pressure vessels, shell and tube heat exchangers, ACHE’s, columns, flares, etc,etc.

In Europe I could be working at one of the major world engineering contracting companies on say a refinery project. The next project might be a chemical plant or an LNG project or a pharmaceutical plant, an FPSO, a rig, etc

Here in Oz they have the strange habit of pigeon holing people.
If you have worked on refinery projects you can only work on that type of project, if you are from a mining / minerals background or have offshore experience again you are placed in a box and are not allowed to work on other types of projects.

I find this bizarre to say the least and it makes it difficult to move around the workplace. Maybe its just people protecting their little empires.

In my discipline for example a pressure vessel is a pressure vessel. The only difference will be the vessel contents, design pressure and temperature, materials of construction and design code. It does not basically matter whether it is going onshore / offshore, on an LNG plant, a mining project, a chemical plant, etc. There are of course some slight differences for each project based on the project and client requirements.

Has anyone else come across this sort of attitude before?

 

[sms]

I agree it is crazy, the only small justification for it is that the service requirements, appliciable codes, and the sorts of things that can go wrong are a bit different in a chemical plant vs LNG, vs offshore, vs a power plant. But I agree the differences are not enough that you could not be effective in any of those industries. Here in the US we have the same tendancy, and I find it irritating as well.

-The future's so bright I gotta wear shades!

 

[0707]

I agree with you Roca!

I always work in the oil refining industry but I think that the most experience you got from the diverse projects others than Refining, it enriches you! And as much different the projects you deal with it gives you more secure background and knowledge to work in different areas.

 

[prost]

I think part of the reason you are pigeonholed once you get into certain industries is the sometimes large disparity in pay between industries. For instance, in aerospace, salaries are generally higher for engineers relative to many other industries. This really works to your disadvantage if you look for career opportunities in other industries, which pay less generally, because hiring authorities in those other industries know that you are from aerospace, and that you have been relatively well paid--so even if you are willing to start at a lower salary, they suspect you will bolt when the higher aerospace job comes. Anybody else get that impression when looking for work in other industries?

 

[Ashereng]

There are a lot of differences in regulations, codes, authorities that govern and such.

It can vary from industry to industry, location to location, onshore offshore, etc.

It takes time to get up to speed on the differences. It is much quicker to get someone already familiar with the particulars to do it again. This is one benefit of specializing.

Just a thought.

"Do not worry about your problems with mathematics, I assure you mine are far greater."
Albert Einstein
Have you read FAQ731-376 to make the best use of Eng-Tips Forums?

 

[KENAT]

While I was in the UK but working with US companies it seemed the US engineers tended to specialize a lot more than most of the people I dealt with in the UK.

Since I've moved to and started working in the US I realize it may have been more a large company/small company difference but think there is still an element of truth.

I don't know if it's similar in Aus.

 

[opsops]

yes it is common practice. Check with recruitment agents and will see that they tend to look for people from the same industry.


The reason I found is that they cannot weed people based on technical skills, ( most recruiters are similar to car or real estate agents) due to limited technical knowledge if any.

It is usually a sure bet if they can hook some guy from the same industry.


I had to replace agents number of times when I looked for people because they could not understand what we were looking for.






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