The future of entry level jobs and U.S. engineers 3

[sharp21]

I graduated with a BSEE in 2007 and am having a hard time finding an entry level engineering job.

Whether it's on job sites or a company's careers page, there's practically no entry level jobs available.

I've read that outsourcing and automation are the main problem (due to cheaper labor) and will unlikely go away.

Will the future of U.S. engineers be comprised of mainly h1b workers?

If there are no entry level jobs for U.S. graduates then how can they even begin a career?

If India and China were 1st world countries, would finding an entry level job still be as difficult?

 

[spongebob007]

"grad school for those that do not want to pursue an academic career is a waste if time and money"

I could not disagree more in the case of a Masters Degree. You can get an MS degree full time in under two years and it will mean higher pay and better quality jobs. As far as a PHD goes, the problem is that you will make boat loads of money in industry, but your education will shut the door on 90% of the jobs in industry. No one wants to pay a PHD salary for a job that really only requires a BS.

 

[KENAT]

And yet many places will pay BS salary for jobs that don't need even an AA.

KENAT,

Have you reminded yourself of faq731-376 recently, or taken a look at posting policies:

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

 

[sharp21]

I started this thread in order to gain information about the future of the engineering profession by asking professional engineers their opinion, not so much about what recent graduates need to do in order to land an entry-level job (since that topic has been covered many a times), but instead:

since companies are continually trying to reduce costs by outsourcing jobs (entry-level), which in turn creates experienced workers giving companies a reason to opt for more H1B visa workers, U.S. engineers, both experienced and unexperienced will eventually be replaced (yes, no, maybe).

I can't blame companies for trying to reduce costs, nor am I angry at H1B workers, but it leaves me wondering if engineering will continue to be a rewarding career or just an expensive hobby.

There was also a thread in this forum, back in 2004, related to the outsourcing of jobs (a little less than 5 years from now), I didn't see a problem of starting a new thread in order to talk about the next 5 years.

I've done searches on job websites (monster.com, indeed.com, careerbuilder.com...etc) for entry level engineering jobs and most searches return less than 500 matches. If the U.S. produces ~80,000 engineers annually (from kchan711's numbers) then the chances of an individual getting an entry level job is less than 1%(0.625%). Of course that's assuming all entry level jobs are posted through these sites to begin with.

I've considered moving, but I would think living in the silicon valley would give you better opportunities.

I was also considering going back to school, not for a Masters Degree, but some sort of vocational school where you can get hands on training working on projects.

 

[Twoballcane]

Like any industry, the best place I would think that would be fertile ground for entry level would be hot new jobs of today that would continue into the future versus jobs that are becoming obsolete to our society and has been around for decades. For an electrical, I would focus on information technology jobs (

http://www.boston.com/jobs/galleries/industry_information_technology/).

If I was 20 something again I would probably go into this. As a Mechanical, I am focusing on electronic packaging the technology that this field is producing but from an Analysis and Test perspective. To answer to your question I guess is that yes there are many opportunities for entry level jobs, however, once you get hired, you are some what a professional and your next job (even a year later) you will be applying as a professional. So in a way your question is a fleeting one, it is only the time between coming out of college and then finding your first job in your field. Everybody will find that entry level job sooner or later. If not ever, it is not the industry’s fault but the person for not trying hard enough which I think everybody in this thread is echoing.

Tobalcane
"If you avoid failure, you also avoid success."

 

[kchan711]

Sharp21,

I completely see where you're coming from. However, I don't think nearly the amount of available jobs are even posted on sites such as Monster and Careerbuilder. I say this for a variety of reasons.

I went to a Big Ten university to get my ME degree. Our engineering Expo, having over 400 companies, was hiring interns, seniors and recent graduates. Each year this University puts out near a 1000 engineers of some sort with a job placement over 95% in the first 6 months out of school. Now those are pretty uplifting numbers. That doesn't mean they're great jobs but just jobs within their field.

Some of the companies I work with now claim that for every job you find on sites like Monster, there's another 5-10 available. Usually these jobs are kept in house, on their website or simply "You gotta know someone".

Just to let you know, there are almost 1.5 million engineers employed in the U.S. according the Dept. of Labor with a pretty decent growth rate. Check it out.

http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos027.htm

There is always one thing an engineer can rely on to keep his job or, better yet, grow in a company. Make the company money (innovation, lean manufacturing, you name it).

Kyle

Kyle Chandler

http://www.chiefengineering.net

"To the Pessimist, the glass is half-empty. To the Optimist, the glass is half-full. To the Engineer, the glass is twice as large as it needs to be!"

 

[jimgineer]

My thoughts on engineering are from a new, young engineer who is going to soon sit for my PE exam.

I think most people get into engineering for the right reasons: the right reasons involve that they really are curious about how the physical world works, not because they want to make boatloads of money. In the past few years I’ve noticed a distaste and distrust for those who aren’t participating in the ‘real’ economy. Engineers ARE the real economy. Everything in this world that is of value was designed and created by an engineer (of sorts). The BS in engineering is a stamp that says you want to create, design, and be part of the real economy.

Finance, academia, and a number of other ‘supporting fields’ have their share of clout and respect that go along with them, but thankfully the clout of those intelligent financiers who produce nothing for the ‘real’ economy is going away.

If you have a BS in any engineering field, you have made the first step. Entry level jobs are out there – and engineers will always be the ‘backbone’ of our greatest companies (and no, that doesn’t include the kind of companies that package and sell insurance/financial instruments).

So, keep your head up and enjoy the ride as much as you can.

 

[HEHurst]

I keep tabs on a number of finance / Wall Street message boards and it seems a building sentiment among the young Wall Street types is "Crap, I wish I would have studied/entered a field like engineering where I'd actually have some tangible skills.

 

[HgTX]

Heh. I got some major crap from my family when the son of friends, 10 years younger than I was, got some $100k job right out of school while I was working my state engineering job for under $40k. Where was the kid working? Lehman Brothers. Hah!

Hg

Eng-Tips policies: faq731-376

 

[Twoballcane]

I,m feeling you HgTX, and now they are going to bartending school as their next career (

http://www.boston.com/business/arti...treets_jobless_flocking_to_bartending_jobs/).

This tells me that they have no skills that they can transfer to another career.

Tobalcane
"If you avoid failure, you also avoid success."

 

[jimgineer]

In high school we did these interesting assignments where you had to select a group of X number of humans to be with you to 're-inhabit' the earth in some apopcalyptic scenario.

When it really comes right down to it, you end up selecting the engineers and the young fertile women.

That gets society back to where it needs to be ASAP!

 

[Hotown]

Check your local colleges for Career Fairs. At my college we had an Engineering specific career fair twice a year and a general fair three times a year. It's how I found my current job, and now they pay me to go back and stand on the other side of the booth!

 

[456xyzabc123]

"but it leaves me wondering if engineering will continue to be a rewarding career or just an expensive hobby."

Sharp21, if you really really really love engineering and you adamantly want to work in this field and you're willing to live with the risk that it poses in terms of job instability due to offshoring and automation, then by all means go for it...look harder and harder for jobs. Who knows, you may even become one of the lucky few that manage to avoid periodic layoffs and find a good long term and highly rewarding job.

If you however have tried looking for a highly rewarding jobs in your engineering field for long enough...moved to a couple of different cities in search of your goal and exhausted every possible alternative....then look for another job/career. But remember that in the current economic environment finding work in most careers isn't necessarily going to be easy regardless of whether they're engineering related or not

Best of Luck!

halherta

 

[csd72]

Sharp21,

Your 2 major misconceptions need to be cleared up.

1. In order to get an H1B visa for a person a company needs to prove that the salary of the visa applicant will not be lower than that of a local american worker.
2. Most companies will not advertise entry level jobs purely because there are 80000 of them and they dont have the time to sift through resumes. You need to look deeper than the nearest employment website.

 

[lovethecold]

I haven't read all the posts, but the points made above make it clear that you need to expand yourself a bit. It could be you are in a hard hit area and simply won't find a job locally where you want. Not all of the US is in deep. To start, you may have to go to another part of the country to get experience until things stabilize and start going forward.

If nothing else, check for companies in ND. They currently have an unemployment rate of about 2 percent. With the oil going bonkers, pipelines going through, wind turbines and new power plants going up, there is work. I would imagine there is work for EE's as well.

Good luck.