Options 10 years after graduation 2

[livingston]

Hello all,

I just met a woman who graduated with an electrical engineering degree 10 years ago. She has not ever had a job in her field. She has just recently begun to realize the value of the degree. Is she too late to the game? What can she do to make herself marketable? Classes, certifications? Would anyone be willing to hire a person as entry level ten years after the fact?

 

[EricatNordic]

I think you are a little unrealistic about her gloomy prospects.

There is huge shortage of engineers right now, and an equally large contigency of industries, not yours apparently, who readily employ "engineers" who barely finished highschool. I've run across many of them.

Those industries would jump at a person with a degree who could sell the idea of choosing hands on or well rounded experience over being a desk jockey. Its spin, but I've watched it work over and over again. The pay won't be what a green recent grad could bring in. But it makes a fresh engineering resume from that point on.

As far as the idea that she is not really sure she wants to be an engineer. Any sharp person can explain that away in an interview. Probably half the recent grads aren't that sure they want to be engineers.

The real question is if she has any competence left. If she no longer knows anything about engineering, she will need to retrain herself somehow. the FE worked well for me after 5 years. If she still knows what she is doing, she can show that in the first contact with a perspective company.

My experiences anyway.

-Eric