Quality Of New Hires and Recent Grads 44

[Wolves1]

I was hoping I could get some feedback from some of my fellow civil engineers on this board. I am an engineer working for a small firm. I have grown as an engineer over the years and have been fortunate enough to be able to aid in the hiring process for our firm. What I have come to notice is that the quality of new hires/recent grads have been less than desirable. I'm not saying that they aren't bright or not motivated because they are. However, in my humble opinion colleges today are just not doing a good job preparing these graduates for the work force. And I don't think this is anything new. I didn't feel particularly prepared for the work force when I graduated either and I had a leg up on most of my classmates. I was a second generation engineer and worked through college at an engineering firm.

In most cases the new graduate lacks the following skills.

[ul]
[li]Limited if any CAD skills[/li]
[li]Lacks practical knowledge of most types of design[/li]
[li]Does not have a good grasp of the design process[/li]
[/ul]

Again, I don't want to seem like I"m coming down hard on these people as I was probably in a similar state when I first graduated. From talking with my family (many of whom are engineers) this just seems to be the norm and has been this way for many years. In our case it seems like we have to spend 1-3 years training the person up to be an effective engineer for us.

With that being said, I would like to get hear some of your opinions on hiring new graduates for your firms. I realize we are in a small market and that could affect the talent pool, but in general I would be interested to hear what some of your experiences have been and if you have any solutions that helped you train your employees.

Also, is there anything in particular you do to reduce training costs and get them up to speed quicker? Do you have a specific training program for new hires? etc.

Thanks in advance for your advice! It is greatly appreciated!

 

[KevinDeSmet]

Ultimately, to be the fixer. A lead expert within soils & water.

That's very interesting. Are you intrinsically motivated to become an expert on soils & water? It's not because you have no other choices, or the pay is really good?
To me the only instrinsic motivator are aerospace and automotive. Of course, different people like different things. That's great!

 

[morgwreck243]

Kevin DeSmet,

I have always enjoyed getting my hands dirty and I have enjoyed these projects more than highway design type of work.

I have also observed that most engineering is roughly the same. The major difference is what do you like to tinker with? motors, airplanes, electronics, or in my case: building dams in creeks with the rocks or wooden structures for pioneering merit badge, etc.

One challenge I have given myself with projects is using as little silt fence as possible for stormwater & erosion control.

--morgwreck243

 

[MartinLe]

i think I'm early to middle of my career, with about 6 years experience (<1 at one place, 5 at another and now started at the third*) + semesters of internships during school.

What do you want out of your career?
I want to solve problems and learn new things. I want to have a well rounded view of the things I work on. I don't want to spend much time with things I'm very bad at like managing other people and playing power games. I also want to make a decent living and a life outside of work. Would not mind working part time if it worked out financially for my family, actually.
How much of your education do you remember?
Not too much. I tend to think that most of the work I've done so far could be done by anyone for 75% of the time, no engineering education required, but the remaining 25% are ful of traps this 'anyone' won't recognize. Maybe my image of anyone is weird, take with a grain of salt.
The parts important from my education where a) the foundations of math, chemistry, thermo, physics as applied etc. that I would not get around to learn now and b) understanding and analyzing things using abstrac concepts.
What I would have profited from would be simple design projects that cross discipline boundaries and involve communication of the result (drawing, writing) and building something. I don't know if schools should train using excel or script languages to solve and model problems numerically, or if this is one of the things where you learn the basics (=math as applied to <problem>) in school and the application as you go.
How well have you been mentored?
Not much. In my experience you have to learn yourself or pester others to teach you. I don't think this is the way it should be, but it is this in all places I've been so far.
How fast are you moving forward?
Hard to say. See my goals above, I think I'm mostly on track since they are basically to do what I'm doing now, but being better at it. The 5 years at my last job had very little progression, which was more of a problem because ultimately the job was more limited.



*A while back I asked here about making the jump to a consultancy. Did, am happy with the change & the discussion here was helpful, thx.

 

[thaidavid40]

I think that the subject of mentoring is related not only to the mindset of the older engineer(s) at a company, but also to the company size. At small companies, the interactions between older and younger engineers are naturally and more often on a more personal, and directed, basis. This gives an opportunity for better mentoring (if the older engineer is so inclined). And at large firms, there is often a directed program for mentoring, which at least keeps it on everyone's mind. I find that it is the middle-sized companies where mentoring seems most often to fall by the wayside. For companies in that size range, it becomes important that they address mentoring in a more directed fashion, just like the larger companies. At some point - and I'm not exactly sure how to quantify this - a company becomes more than a "little" firm, and has to begin to act like a larger firm in some respects. And I think that mentoring younger engineers is one of those aspects that must be addressed with some corporate specificity, and not to await attaining some arbitrary size and momentum.

Thaidavid

 

[KevinDeSmet]

I think mentoring is a flawed system, it assumes the mentor is all-knowing and knows what he is doing. It puts him on a pedestal which he can only partially fulfill. I believe a better way to go are enterprise-wide formal training programs for engineerings, that are given by professional for-profit and/or not-for-profit institutions. Conferences are also an incredible way to learn, though in our Internet age getting less and less attended.

Not that I'm saying mentoring needs to go away. But it needs to take a step back instead of being shoved to the foreground as THE way to teach members of an organisation. It's a highly individual and manual process to mentor which highly limits its breath of applicability.

 

[thaidavid40]

I don't know of anyone whom I have met personally (in a working span of over 35 years) who considers themselves "all-knowing", or who is considered by others in their organization as "all-knowing". That sounds like some form of misdirected idolatry to me. Mentoring is not "THE way to teach", but it is one important way to teach. And the fact that it is individual (at least in its expression) makes it all the more attractive to me as a process.

Thaidavid

 

[moltenmetal]

KevinDeSmet: if you assume that the idea of mentorship is that the mentor is assumed to be all-knowing, then you're also assuming that the person being mentored is all-believing!

Mentorship may be a flawed system, but it is infinitely superior to throwing young engineers into the deep end without guidance or mentorship of any meaningful kind, which seems to be the default in a lot of workplaces.

Formal training is useful for building particular skills. It is but one tool in building a successful engineer though. If this were not true, you could crank engineers fully formed from universities. Some businesses seem to expect that this is not only possible, but actually happening right now- but I think most experienced engineers would see that as I do- as total bollocks.

The way mentorship works in our organization is that we have young engineers work on projects in turn with several senior engineers, gradually taking on more and more responsibility. The young engineers learn principally by doing and by example, and occasionally by being taught directly one on one. Sure, we also have technical sessions, both internal and externally led- but they're just icing on the cake, not the real substance of the learning experience. After seeing how several different successful people work, the young engineers have a good basis for developing their own work style and approach to problem solving, running projects etc. There is no one right way to do this.

 

[zdas04]

Moltenmetal,
Well said. Everyone learns differently and one of the more successful approaches to teach someone who has demonstrated an aptitude towards abstract thought (i.e., by finishing a university engineering program) is to make them part of a team, accountable to experienced engineers for specific tasks. In Oil & Gas I frequently see new hires given independent assignments and more often than not they fail because college doesn't (and can't) teach someone the important touchpoints ("culture" if you will) of the company that they new engineer has gone to.

David Simpson, PE
MuleShoe Engineering

In questions of science, the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual. Galileo Galilei, Italian Physicist

 

[Panther140]

"Your intrinsic motivator is irrelevant when I need a job done" ... "The low-level folks don't have the experience to see the project as a whole" ... "and the high-level people have experience that is too valuable to waste their time doing low-level work."

If taken too far, the quoted sentences above illustrate some fundamental flaws that crush departments. You are having humans do this work, not robots. A little bit of positive motivation and respect every now and then is probably THE best thing a leader can offer his team. Treating your entry-level employees as if they are too stupid to comprehend the project is disrespectful and will drive them out. I have news for you; 1- Your projects are not actually brain surgery 2- There are entry level employees with valuable ideas. 3- Including them in the process is necessary for you to get their help.
If you need me to elaborate on that theory, I can spell it out for you. Intrinsic motivation can provide your team with a high amount of energy, if you harness it. As an EE, you should probably be familiar with harnessing/converting energy. As a leader, you should be finding it in people, and wiring it into your projects.

 

[MacGyverS2000]

As I said, I give respect to those who are deserving of it (regardless of their position)... but if someone wants a pat on the head every time they show up for work, they're better off hanging on to their helicopter parents.

Jobs are an agreement... I pay you to accomplish work for me. Fail to provide that work often enough and I will fail to pay you. Is it nice to feel warm and fuzzy at work? Absolutely. But it's not part of the contract, it's icing on the cake. If you can find better icing elsewhere, then go get it. But it's not part of the contract. Warm and fuzzy is NOT the same as respect, and everyone deserves the chance to earn respect.

My comments were in direct response to Kevin's desire for an intrinsic motivator. What he failed to include in his equation was the job at hand. He wanted to be motivated regardless of the final product, and that's a disconnect that doesn't work.

Dan - Owner

http://www.Hi-TecDesigns.com

 

[MatthewL]

zdas,

LPS for you! This is on the wall in every job I have held:

"A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects." Robert A. Heinlein, Time Enough For Love

I have done all but four (five if conn a ship means a spaceship), and if I accomplish the last one, I won't be able to tell you about it. While I'm not necessarily good at all of them, I do feel that I excel at some.

Matt

Quality, quantity, cost. Pick two.

 

[zdas04]

I re-read that book late last year and enjoyed it as much as the first dozen times I read it. I've gotten more of my philosophy of life from Heinlein than Ayn Rand or Frederic Bastiat.

David Simpson, PE
MuleShoe Engineering

In questions of science, the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual. Galileo Galilei, Italian Physicist