Electrical engineer looking for first job 1

[EITsingh]

SO here i am, after 6 months of continous effort in finding a entry level position in my field (power systems or consulting field in building design)to no use.

Graduated with BEng-electrical in Dec 2010, from dalhousie university. i have completed two co-op terms one was in a electrical consulting firm and other is building design group in TIR (Public Works).

Since January i have applied to hundreds of companies to no avail,i have even tried some cold calling and following up with companies. got a few interviews but none called back.

any tips where am i going wrong with my JOBHUNT???????

 

[FeX32]

I see you are a fellow Canadian.
Try not to over worry yourself right now. This is how we all learn. How's your resume? Have you had it looked at by a professional?
Are you applying to certain types of jobs only? Or only ones located in your province?


Fe

 

[EITsingh]

Yes FeX32, Canadian- though International Student been here for 5.5 yrs.

I have gone to career services to get my resume straighten out in fact,i worked for them too. i am applying to all the electrical related jobs which i qualify for in whole of the nation. so far got interviews from Enmax, schlumberger, Lafarge cement but unfortunately for first two i got rejected and for lafarge had a phone interview then 2nd one in person with the plant manager, when i followed up with them they told me that the position has been out on hold.

 

[lacajun]

Broaden your search beyond power systems and building consulting. Many of us end up working in fields we didn't plan on. It's a first job and perhaps later you can move into your area of interest. It might work but if you don't try, it really won't work.

 

[EricDS]

welcome to the party no one wants to attend. i see posts like yours all over the internet. after spending years pursuing engineering degrees, new graduates are finding out no one wants to hire them.

it's not your fault. finding a job in engineering right now is like going snipe hunting. there's just not much demand anymore for new engineers. i always get a chuckle out of these news articles promoting various engineering disiplines as the best paying degrees when no one is hiring engineers.

i graduated over a year ago with a BSEE and have not found a job yet. it's tough. i've been working at a dry cleaner since january. the job isn't all that bad but it doesn't pay all my bills even though i live a very meager existence. i'm going to apply for welfare next week to try to avoid defaulting on my student laons and ruining my credit. i did meet a great girl at my dry cleaning job, so maybe this is all for a reason.

i see former engineering classmates all the time working non-engineering jobs. i picked up a pizza last night and the guy behind the counter was our ieee student section president.

i'm sorry i don't have any adivice for you. this is probbaly the worst time in history to be a new engineer. i took my diploma off the wall last month and put it away becuase i couldn't bear to see it every day. it reminds me of all the work i put into my degree only to be left with a piece of paper in a frame and a mountain of debt.

anyway, good luck to you and let us know if you find a job.

eric

 

[FeX32]

ouch!
You know. Without writing a essay on this I can say one thing that does go a very long way in this regard.
Attitude, regardless of situation, goes a long way. You attitude makes you who you are and can help others (even potential employers) see you as an engineer passionate about the field wether employed or not.
If you just got the degree and scrapped by b/c you wanted a good job in the end that doesn't cut it !



Fe

 

[EITsingh]

Hey people,

its very depressing to know that we engineers toil for years and when its time to actually go in and get to know what we did theoretically in School and apply that to real world, we cannot even secure a engineering job.

anyway i am trying to broaden my search and looking for any job which fits into my qualifications will hope everything works out soon .

Any suggestions if moving to big cities like Toronto or Alberta might help???????

Keep comments flowing.....

ishpreet singh minhas

 

[EricDS]

with the way things are now passion and attitude aren't enough. i consider myself very passionate about engineering. i finished school with a 3.9 gpa and was very active in my school's IEEE chapter. i always thought i could continue my passion uninterrupted after graduating but i instead hit a brick wall.

i have friends who are engineers and they get tired of how much i talk about engineering. i'm always asking them about their projects but they never want to talk about their work. i guess they want to do something else during their time off. or perhaps they get tired of the inexperienced advice i offer them to improve their work.

if i didn't need money, i would do engineering for free. in fact i'd love to do engineers without borders if i could afford to. engineering like a hobby to me. it is an elegant magic to me to put things together in an intelligent way and watch them become something greater than their sum.

people like to say you should do what you love regardless of how much it pays. i always felt extremely fortunate that what i love to do pays enough to get by on. well, at least i did before i learned that life tends to force you to do things other than what you love.

in fact, i've looked into unpaid internships, but even those are hard to come by. obvioulsy i am limited to my local area since i can't afford to move to take an unpaid gig. finding additional time to work a paying job to pay the bills isn't easy either. still it is strange because i get the feeling companies see fresh engineers as a liability instead of an asset.

someone was telling me the other day that there was a time when companies looked farvorably at new engineers. apparently they felt they could bestow their corporate culture on new engineers before other companies had ruined them or something. i'm skeptical there was ever a time like that, but it must have been awesome if there was.

i lurk a lot in engineering forums but i thought i would say somethign in this thread to let people in my situation now it isn't their fault. demand for new engineers had dried up. unless you are a genie, you couldn't have possibly known this would happen at the start of your education. who knows what the job market will be like in another 4 years. maybe companies will be hiring new engineers again.

 

[DannyGlover]

If you really need a job, relocate to the southeast, mainly Houston. Oil and gas companies are staffing up for upstream work. Downstream work is dead right now. The money as of right now is pulling the stuff out of the ground and not in refining it. The demand isn't there for there to be good margins on the product.

If you are willing to travel 280 days a year, you can clear 150k doing journeyman electrician work on drilling rigs. The hours and lifestyle will suck but you gain a lot of valuable experience with motors, PLC's, wiring diagrams, and SRC's. If you are good, you'll get paid well because downtime is lost money. It isn't engineering work persay but it pays well and is good experience.

If you are looking for power systems work, Schweitzer Engineering is doing a big hire on. They are looking to staff up 200 people withing the next year. That is about 10% growth. There are a lot of consulting companies right now that are looking to add on people: Power Engineers, Black and Veatch, Burns and McDonnell, Dashiell, all the ISO's (NYISO, ERCOT, MISO, CAISO,SPP PJM), most utilities are slowly staffing up to replace their soon to be retired senior engineers. If you are willing to relocate and have taken some power systems courses, you are ahead of most people these organization are looking at.

I would recommend getting your resume looked at (HR people sift through resumes not engineers, looks matter), join IEEE IAS an PES socities, attend a IEEE PES or protective relaying conference if one is near you to learn about the industry but more importantly to meet people in the industry, get some business cards made up, take some graduate level power courses in the mean time to stay sharp and busy (online courses are available through several universities if your location is an issue), and be persistent with following up on leads and calls. There is more power systems work out their then the economy would leave you to believe. If you are willing to relocate, you'll probably have a job inside 6 months. If you are picky with what you want to do, it might take a little longer.


I am too old for this shit.

 

[KENAT]

There are lots of other job hunting threads on here, maybe take a look and see if anything is relevant.

Posting guidelines faq731-376

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

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

 

[EITsingh]

Do you guys think, its better to move out west(ALBERTA), if you are not getting interviews to the companies, do u stand a better chance there as the major oil and gas stuff is there.

also if relocating might work, what is the right time or season when companies do lot for hiring in general or does it goes 12 months a year??????


any suggestions will be helpful.

ishpreet

 

[FeX32]

I know many engineers that did move to Alberta for job prospects. They did not regret it.
Some good jobs and good pay.

One piece of advice: Relocate AFTER you get the job not before



Fe

 

[controlnovice]

Hiring can be at any time....

______________________________________________________________________________
This is normally the space where people post something insightful.

 

[racookpe1978]

Write properly and professionally.

Use capitals in the right place. Don't get in your apparent habit of "text messaging" idioms and IM abbreviations or shortcuts.

If you have the aptitude and attention to detail, apply for construction, installation, testing and field servicing of power plants and service industries (pulp and paper, power, gas, oil and oil refinery repairs (mentioned above), etc.)

 

[Twoballcane]

I so agree racookpe1978...

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

 

[IRstuff]

Everyone seems to be politely dancing around the elephant in the room, so I'll just go and blurt it out:

How well do you stack up against your competitors?
Do you have good grades?
How well do you actually interview? You're obviously from across an ocean, but are you obviously from across an ocean, i.e., how are your verbal and presentation skills?

At this point in time, it's a buyer's (employer's) market, i.e., there are more applicants than jobs. If you have the slightest deficiency compared to anyone else looking for that same job, you'd likely lose. Have you done mock interviews sufficiently well and often that you can do a good job of selling yourself?

Being a buyer's market, and you are hawking your wares, what makes your wares better than the next guy's? While "career services" sounds like a proper place, what's their track record; it's obviously poor in your case. Have you considered have other people look at your resume and cover letters?

TTFN

FAQ731-376
Chinese prisoner wins Nobel Peace Prize

 

[EITsingh]

@ IRSTUFF:

Thanks for all the info mate, just didn't get the part where you said the track record of career services is obviously poor, can you throw some light on it.

 

[GregLocock]

i think the bit where you wrote "I have gone to career services to get my resume straighten out" was what he was referring to. If they have straightened it out and you aren't getting to interview then by a process of elimination either they weren't much good or there is something wrong with your skills or expectations.

He was being polite.



Cheers

Greg Locock


New here? Try reading these, they might help FAQ731-376

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

 

[IRstuff]

wut he said ;-)

TTFN

FAQ731-376
Chinese prisoner wins Nobel Peace Prize

 

[MacGyverS2000]

Ugh... I loathe so-called "Career Services". If you want to collect unemployment in some states, you have to attend worthless classes, have them look over your resume, etc. They invariably want to change your resume format to fit what they think it should look like, completely ignoring the fact that it makes a complete muckery of what you have (had?). I smile and nod, but in the end I don't touch a single hair on my resume based upon their advice.

They fail to grasp that you're out of a job because some schmuck at the top of the ladder (probably someone who followed their resume advice) can't run a business properly and had to lay you off (along with the rest of engineering)... not because your resume was formatted incorrectly. But it makes them feel like they're doing their job.

The long-winded point being, be careful about the advice given on tweaking your resume... you may very well have a good one already, so make sure the person giving the change advice truly understands the field you're in (noooo generalists allowed!).

Dan - Owner

http://www.Hi-TecDesigns.com