Laborer to Civil Engineer Advice 2

[Barb84]

I have a BS in Civil Engineering from a very good school; however, upon graduation I went to work as a laborer for the same heavy/highway contractor that I had worked for during summer vacations throughout college. They had picked up a lot of work at the time, including a large bridge project that I wanted to be a part of, and as of this coming May it will be my sixth year working heavy construction full time.

It's gone by rather quickly, and what keeps me going is that I continue to learn. Every new project I'm always learning something new and interesting; gaining more experience and knowledge that for some reason seems valuable to me, even though I don't want to this for a living. So I find myself not wanting to leave for fear that I might miss something, but I know that at 28 years old, if I want to have a professional career I need to make a move now.

Worthy of note, is that even though I have been working as a laborer, I have kept up on my education and continued to educate myself in civil and structural engineering using old textbooks, new textbooks, handbooks, manuals, magazines, papers, engineering journals, and webinars; you name it, I've used it to do my best to stay on top of things. With that said, I took and passed the the FE/EIT exam in October, and am now a certified EIT. I would love to start a career as a civil engineer and get on the design end of things. I'm certainly capable, and to have an opportunity to learn from a good mentor and work towards becoming a licensed PE would really be something.

My question is: How do I take experience working as a laborer and make it sound attractive to a potential employer? I mean, I've built bridges, rehabilitated bridges, demolished bridges, rehabilitated dams, built deep foundations, built roads, etc. But never have I used structural analysis software, had an office internship, or shadowed an engineering professional; all experiences that 22 and 23 year old kids applying for the same entry level positions have done. Somehow, I have to differentiate myself from recent grads enough to get an interview. Anyone have any suggestions as to how I can do that effectively? What do owners or hiring personnel of civil engineering firms want to see that someone with experience as a laborer can leverage? I appreciate any and all advice or suggestions. Thanks.

 

[dvd]

My minority opinion is if you are in the Laborer's union you should try to work as an engineer for the International Union, or work as an engineer/project manager for a union contractor, but demand to be paid your union benefits - keep your card, pay your dues, negotiate your salary at some amount above scale and keep building your pension. You won't be able to find the retirement benefit that comes with your union participation at many engineering companies. Also, I find that the people in the trades are mighty interesting characters, that aspect alone makes it worthwhile to continue to stay in that environment. I am proud to have construction trades union affiliation.

 

[berkshire]

Barb84,
Have you considered moving up through the ranks in the company you now work for?
B.E.

You are judged not by what you know, but by what you can do.

 

[Ron]

dvd...don't get me started on Unions and whether professionals should be in a Union. NO!

Barb84...your experience is invaluable. Being the you have an engineering degree, I'm sure you got were able to see a lot more than a typical laborer would see....you looked for the "why" not just the "how". You worked for a large civil contractor. I see two things. One, you were part of a construction team, so you don't have to simply bill yourself as a laborer. You worked there before you graduated and found the work to being of continued interest and thus, stayed to gain more "ground floor" experience. Now you're ready to move on. Two, as berkshire noted, you might have an opportunity to move up within the ranks of your company; however, you need to find an engineering mentor within if you want to pursue professional licensing, which apparently you do. Otherwise, proudly display your practical experience and get an entry job into a design firm. They'll be pleased to get your experience, particularly a bridge design firm!

Good luck.

 

[tygerdawg]

What wonderful experience. As Ron states: "invaluable". You should develop your verbal scripts and resume entries to emphasize this aspect of your knowledge. Communicate your desire to move out of "labor" and into "Engineering" tasks, else they'll never know. Or choose to ignore.

As a young boy in my formative years, growing up in a rural lower middle-class or even "poor" area, I never had much exposure to what engineering was or how to achieve the knowledge & skills. One day our world-travelling family doctor brought a visitor to visit one day. He was a Civil Engineer from Switzerland. From the perspective of my rural environment, he might as well have been from Pluto. He told me about how part of his training was actually doing the manual labor work. This experience provided much-needed context to the theoretical studies and allowed him to travel the world on construction jobs. I always thought that was a very practical approach to learning the art of Engineering.

I pretty much pursued that method myself, getting down & dirty, crawling around machinery twisting wires, turning wrenches, punching keys, and making things work in the middle of the night. The experience has served me well. But sometimes it backfired: some of my employers kept me held back as what I considered a "supertech" and would not promote me because I was so effective. So it can be a double-edged sword unless you learn how to promote yourself to your management. Your company SHOULD recognize this and move you up as a wonderfully experienced graduate of technical studies. Be ready to move on if they don't.

TygerDawg
Blue Technik LLC
Virtuoso Robotics Engineering

http://www.bluetechnik.com

 

[oldestguy]

In reading your story I am wondering about your "drive" or "ambition". On the job you say you "did all these things" or were you just a cog in the work, but where in the group would you put yourself? Right now, with your words, I'd have to assume you didn't progress. Were you a grunt that just took orders, never asking why and never progressed? An assistant to the foreman, later being the foreman? Held the rod or provided elevations, line and grade? What was your motivation to stay there? Needed quick cash to pay bills? Why did that company keep you as a laborer? Perhaps explain more about where in the gang did you progress to. Any prospective employer will ask these questions and unfortunately may hold the answers as reason to question your "drive" as a potential engineer. I will say there sometimes are differences in pay on jobs where the engineer is actually the lowest paid guy and maybe that (pay) difference was the reason. In getting started, I think Ron is right to find a mentor, but not going that way, I'd opt for a technician job in an engineering company and it may even first require having to go to a tech college to get that background. I liken this to the college engineering students we used to hire for summers, but we trained them. Year's later they came on as engineers. They started at the bottom, but drive and the obvious wish to advance helped. You may have to recognize that now.

 

[a2mfk]

Lots of good comments, but Oldguy has me wondering a bit as to why you were doing this for so long also? What were you doing exactly and why not go get a better paying and easier engineering job? Or why not get a field engineer type position with that company instead of doing labor work?

With that said, I agree with Ron, you got a lot of practical and invaluable experience. If you were involved with bridges and you enjoy that work, there is a whole career in project engineering on the construction side of the business. You could start our on the site as a field engineer and work with the engineer as his go-between with the construction office, and then you can work your way up from there. There are construction companies I see hiring entry level BS Civil graduates for this type of work.

If there is one thing I could change about my education I would have gotten summer jobs doing something more practical like you did.

 

[oldestguy]

Me again. I thought about your statements again and somethings are missing. This day and age, it seems that technology is moving very fast. Where do you sit in that race? For instance, in your company there must be one or two that do the take offs and the project cost and schedule estimating. The drawings these days are on CAD and I wouldn't be supervised that the "take off" of quantities is already in a memory somehwere to be down loaded. The least one would have to do is scale that beam on the screen, etc. What I am getting at is what is your background now in all these computer related fields that apply to construction? Who does the layout on the job for a bridge job and what equipment is used? It ain't the transit I took surveying courses with I bet. Do you subscribe to magazines related to Civil Engineering or belong to a professional organization, such as ASCE? You said nothing about these aspects, yet they are right at the top of the list for what is needed these days in civil engineering. If you are an active member of ASCE as well as the State professional Engineer's society, I would bet there are potential other employers there to rub elbows with. Some societies even have mentoring activities.

 

[Barb84]

Thank you all for your responses. I should have detailed my experience a bit more. The company I work for is not like a Kiewit or Granite where you have the project manager, assistant project manager, project engineer, assistant project engineer, and the assistant to the assistant project engineer. It's not top heavy at all. The company I work for does around 10 to 20 million worth of work a year, has 3 project managers (who also do their own estimating), 5 superintendents and each superintendent has their own little clique of guys they want on jobs, guys they want as foreman, and guys they want to do this and that and so on. Not to mention, all of these guys have been in the business for AT LEAST 25 years, and some have been doing it since BEFORE I WAS BORN. In construction, just because you have a degree doesn't mean you're going to move up in the organization right away, and with the industry being so cut throat now that in order to get a job you have to work on razor thin margins and to pay me to stand there with a shiny hard hat and track quantities and such as a field "engineer" is hardly justifiable when I can track quantities and work at the same time. In this company, the attitude is: it's great you have an engineering degree, buy you're going to learn how to do things just like I did."

With that said, there are some things that only I do in the company. I'm the only one that knows anything about CPM scheduling AT ALL. So any cost loaded scheduling that needs to be done using Primavera P6 software, I take care of that. Any surveying that needs to be done using the GPS, I handle that. If there are any breaks or issues with a model that a surveyor had prepared, I'm the one that gets on the phone and talks with him to troubleshoot and fix the problem. After an issue we had in 2011, I'm the only guy allowed to run any structural lifting operations. I'm the only guy that isn't afraid to set up our new bridge deck finisher. I'm always designated as the signalman when working with a crane on whatever job I happen to be on (which is more difficult and carries a lot more responsibility than people think). I take care of any and all layout and/or quantity measurements that that exceeds the superintendents math capabilities. I typically take care of any critical layout on whatever job I'm on as well. I actually watched the owner of the company chew out one of our superintendents when he wanted to hire a surveyor to do some easy construction layout for him. The superintendent said "I just don't understand, why not have a surveyor lay these points out?" The owner pointed at me and said "I want him running that total station and doing the layout on this job!" "He has the background to do it, we don't need a surveyor out here! Have him do it." In the winter, I'll do takeoffs for jobs they're bidding, and I'll put numbers together using HeavyBid. During January of 2012, we had a superintendent walk off a small dam job (making us look awful in front of a client) and the PM selected me to finish it. That following spring, we had 2 small bridge rehab projects (within a few miles of each other) in the inner city that this same guy was supposed to run. I was chosen to run them after he left and I ran $600,000 worth of work in 3 months. However, after that I went over on a good size bridge job we had just started, working under our best superintendent, and I was back setting up traffic, setting jersey barriers, cutting guide rail, etc. But once it came time to start getting the staging and scaffolding set up to lift and shore the bridge, I all of the sudden was back in charge had a bunch of responsibility again. Following that, I'm back with a rivet buster busting out pedestals. So my role both on the job and in the company changes and it depends on what we're doing and what the company's needs are at the time. Its hard to describe to people, especially in an online forum. So no oldestguy, I'm not a "grunt" that "takes orders" and never asks questions, but when I'm not in charge, I do take direction from superiors and only ask questions when what they're saying doesn't make sense or I think I have a better approach to something. I'm not the type of guy that creates problems where the aren't any.

At the Christmas party, I was talking to the owner and he told me he'd like me to run a small, but complicated culvert project in the spring. I also shared with him that I passed the FE exam, and am now a certified EIT. He was so happy he almost started crying. I told him I'd like to move on to the design end of things and start working towards a PE, but that if I can't land a job with an engineering firm by March, I'd be happy and thrilled to run this project for him. He has a high regard for engineers, and says that if he had to do it all over again he would be an engineer. He's almost 70, and he hates the way the construction industry is now, and that he tells young people to stay out of it. He would like to see me practicing engineering, he thinks I would make a good one.

Oldestguy, I'm a member of the ASCE, but I have not taken advantage of any networking services they offer so I will definitely look into that. I am also a member of the ACI.

 

[HornTootinEE]

In my short career, I'd say you have great expierience. I friend of mine worked for a heavy contractor during college, learned alot that applies directly to his Civil Engineering degree. He was a great engineer right out of the chute because he understood how what he was doing was actually built.

I'd prepare for a pay cut if you are doing all the things you say you are doing as a worker. As an entry level engineer you'll probably be making less than you are doing what you are doing-and you will be very likely coming into a salary type position where overtime may or may not be compensated. If the money is a big issue, be sure to figure out your finances first. Many will say you need to do what you love, which I agree with 100% but make sure you can make the jump to a lower wage before you actually do it. And who knows, maybe a construction company, major contractor, etc. will hire you as an engineer above entry level because of your pracitcal expierience.

 

[oldestguy]

Barb: You now gave us a much better impression of your work. I was misled by the title "laborer". It would seem to me that, if you want to change, it should also be in construction, possibly your own company or a competitor. After all, not all civil engineers do any designing. Many a civil engineer in my experience have gone through the steps you have and eventually have moved up to a principal position. Since you feel those slots are filled, perhaps there are other firms that could use your expertise. Hey, it can be a real boost to your situation if the boss now is faced with replacing you and having you as a competitor. If not, what about State or county highway departments? In a DOT there is the need for engineers in the construction department and those with the background you have are much better prepared to deal with the contractors out there. I'm not talking about the beginner inspector job, but there are those. I'm talking about the central office where bids are handled and special problems are overseen. In some states there are exams for open positions where you compete with those already employed there. On the possibility of work in an engineering consultant office, well there can be DOT type jobs that are farmed out "to save engineering money" instead of in-house engineering doing the job. Many of these are bridge jobs.

Another advantage you display is a good grasp of the language and being able to communicate effectively. And when looking forget the word "laborer". I'd use something like "trouble shooter engineer supervisor". Gosh I have done jobs like digging test pits and even sweeping floors, but that showed ambition.

 

[a2mfk]

Barb- you should have posted the second post instead of your first.

Ditto to Oldest guy.

You have a ton of great hands on experience that sounds a lot like being a project engineer or project manager or whatever fancier title you want that is nothing like general labor (even if you do some of that). You have way more experience then 99% of other recent grads that is very applicable. If you like project managing bridge and civil projects, why not tell your boss that is what you want to do? If not, there are plenty of other companies I am sure that would want a young , go getter, with a BSCE and real industry experience!

And if you want to do design, you have field and construction experience, which is also invaluable on that side of engineering.

You are good to go!

 

[CivilEngineer401]

Just yesterday, I was thinking about leaving engineering and become a laborer. I don't mind the physical work, it seems a lot less stressful (as a laborer not a foreman), and with Prevailing Wages the income would be higher. Maybe it's a grass is greener thing.

 

[a2mfk]

Tim- you've lost your damn mind. You will mind the physical work after a few years if not a few months. Did you not have any crappy, hard jobs in high school or college? If you did, that would have beat that idea out of your head. Doing landscaping work in Florida summers in high school was all the motivation I needed...

I don't know where you are where you think the pay would be better. Most places in Florida at least with no skills you may get $10/hr to start as a laborer. Stress? Try living off that $10/hr while single much less with a family. Most construction work is sweaty, dirty, noisy work that can do long term damage to your hearing and lungs, and pretty easy to lose a finger or fall off a ladder. My hat goes off to any blue collar guy who does it day in and day out, but often that is because they don't have many other choices. You do.

Now if you really want to work with your hands, use your head too. Go to school to learn how to weld and get qualifications, or become an electrician, AC/heat repair and installation, or a plumber. Just doing residential work some of those trades bill out at over $75+ an hour. Those jobs cannot be outsourced and someone off the street cannot come take it since you need a license and high level skills.

 

[moltenmetal]

Awesome experience- unbelievably valuable for your future career- but I'm not sure how the heck you put up with the pay differential for six years, or with being called a labourer- that's Tradeless Joe's job title. Then again, maybe they're paying you a lot closer to what you seem to be worth to them, which is a lot. As to why your firm isn't using more of your capabilities,it sounds like they're already getting nearly the most out of you without calling you and paying you what you are- an engineer.

I would suspect that any heavy construction firm would be idiots not to hire you as a construction manager. They'd also be idiots not to get you into the design office- you could teach their staff a thing or four, while learning a whole lot yourself. The only question is, how to get your resume past the HR weenies. Personal connections are the best way. You must have some contacts with local engineers, and you need to work those until something pops up.