Where did all of the MEP engineers go? 17

[jmbelectrical]

I work for a somewhat large MEP (Mechanical, electrical, plumbing/piping) consulting firm in the United States and we're having what I perceive to be as an incredibly difficult time filling the numerous open positions that we have available. I may be completely wrong about this, but I don't recall this problem really existing before 2007-2008. I suspect that many who were laid off after the economy took a nosedive either relocated or found new careers entirely. There's talk about the possibility of conducting a search nationwide and, if the right candidate is found, paying him or her to relocate to one of our offices. While I understand that this is not uncommon, I don't think this much effort was ever necessary in the past.

To anyone else working in the MEP consulting industry, have you noticed significantly increased difficulty in finding talented mechanical and electrical engineers with experience in building systems?

 

[iceworm]

I'd guess two things
Quit being cheap
Quit being aftaid of the 50+ year olds

But those are just guesses

Harmless flakes working together can unleash an avalanche of destruction

 

[TenPenny]

Everyone wants to hire 'experience', but nobody wants to pay for it. I think it's the same in many industries.

 

[PEDARRIN2]

If you limit yourself to a region, you are likely to only find people from local firms. Based on my experience, these type of individuals are wanting more money, or they were let go due to insufficient work or insufficient skill/performance. There are engineers i know of that have worked for several firms in the area, for one or more of the previous reasons.

Doing a broader search will likely mean increased compensation package for the move, but that might be what it takes to get good employees. So if you are willing to pay more, you only have to be concerned with making sure they really do have the ability to do this. And remember that 20 years experience can mean 20 years worth of doing one thing well or 20 years of doing many things not so well.

And also remember that a PE does not necessarily mean a skilled engineer. It sometimes means they know how to take a test well, but not design a building system well.

Some of the best MEP engineers I know do not have their PE.

 

[jmbelectrical]

iceworm,

You do raise an excellent point about the current state of wages in the engineering industry. A year or two ago, I saw a job posting seeking an experienced mechanical (HVAC, plumbing, and fire protection) designer. The starting pay was somewhere between $12 and $14 an hour. I honestly hope that no one actually applied for it.

 

[1gibson]

Here's one:

http://eng-tips.com/viewthread.cfm?qid=356677

 

[CarolinaPE]

After 5 years and no rebound in the industry, my guess is they had to move onto something else to put food on the table. Several EE's I know moved off to power generation for example.

 

[MortenA]

Strangely enough when I read this post yesterday the lyrics to "where have all the flowers gone" came to my mind - today I read the Pete Seeger is died yesterday. May he rest in peace. I love that song.

 

[jmbelectrical]

1gibson,

I've followed that thread on and off. I'm still not quite sure how I feel about the original poster's predicament. I will say this: I'd be pretty ecstatic about a 4% raise and a 4% bonus.

 

[moltenmetal]

jmbelectrical: you are no doubt trying to recruit the people you and your (our?) industry didn't hire 10 years ago as fresh grads. You can't find them because they've moved on.

Fix the problem at least a little by hiring fresh grads and training them. When we expected to do "just in time" hiring of experienced people well trained by others in our niche, we had a hell of a time. Now we hire co-op students, pick the best ones and hire them, and pay them well and give them interesting work so they don't leave, and we never suffer from shortage.

 

[HornTootinEE]

But moltenmetal, that requires forward manpower planning... heaven forbid! I agree with you 100%, do lots of co-ops, make a job for the best ones, and train them and keep them happy. I'd add be very quick on opportunistic hires. If you hear of a good one on the market, you snatch them up-job or not. Obviously that depends on the size of your company to carry that person, but if you have the ability, those opportunistic hires are usually good catches.

 

[btrueblood]

"Now we hire co-op students, pick the best ones and hire them, and pay them well and give them interesting work so they don't leave, and we never suffer from shortage"

Sounds like a formula for success. Been begging management (along with several other engineers) for hiring of this sort to assist (and, eventually, replace) some of us older, tireder engineers. Instead, we see a steady stream of new managers, and a growing backlog of engineering challenges with no time/resources/talent to really tackle them. I am beginning to think Snorgy is the new messiah.

 

[moltenmetal]

btrueblood: we did have to hire a few more experienced folks too, to keep the training/supervisory ratio reasonable- but our primary growth in our engineering team (more than double in under 5 years) has been by means of hiring former co-ops. The more senior folks we've hired have been hit and miss, probably because of a tendency to settle for Mr. Right Now rather than Ms Right etc., but also to some degree because of what I'd call "cultural lack of fit".

The best thing about hiring your former co-ops is that they know you, and you know them- you both have a chance to figure out if the fit of personality, motivation and skill to the needs and peculiarities of the business is good before you've made a big commitment to one another.

 

[BillPSU]

Manufacturing companies lament, our schools suck.
We can't find anybody with the skill and knowledge(experience).


Of course they would never consider hire, train, and retain.
Hey, a new acronym HTR


HR do you hear me??!!


Seems no one is listening.

Oh well.......

 

[Enginerd9]

Bill, I would like to expand on one statement... "we can't find anyone with the skill and knowledge." I would argue that the skill and knowledge exists and is easily accessible, but hiring managers / companies don't want to pay for it. Nor do they want to invest in training and development of their existing talent such that the gap can be filled. With such a top-heavy bias regarding "experience," I wonder when it will all come crumbling down? That heavy top end is dwindling as they all retire or move on to other things. What will be left? Young engineers who weren't mentored / trained / give the chance to move up the ladder, so to speak. Some may argue the younger engineers need to take that initiative... which is true. But from my experience, the older generation could do a better job of receiving that initiative, and basically training their replacements. What I've seen is stuffy people in management positions who just want to protect what they have until their retirement so they can make sure to keep their comfortable nest egg. That's kinda why I have this perspective that while some younger people need to show some initiative, some older people need to show some foresight and willingness to invest in the future generations.

Experience: accumulated knowledge over time.

Talent: the ability to use experience.

Which is more valuable?

 

[Gymmeh]

Like Moltenmetal, I have worked for a company that had a strong co-op and mentorship program, and it truly showed. I have yet to work for a company with so much available Engineering manpower.

For Fam and glory (read money)I jumped over to the Consulting world for Mechanical. The quote that sticks on my head is "we can hire for that." They could get "Engineers", but with no long term planing and development system, they were lost. They would hire and fire on a whim, basically any failure to meet a managers expectations and you were gone. I lasted a year. The problems run deep and I get the impression, that in my area of the country, this is a common problem and things have not recovered enough to stabilize the consulting industry.

Assumably ( <--I think that's a word), like many others that want a stable job, I have left the consulting world for this reason. I interviewed with a few consulting firms, but they never impressed me with their answer to "How do you manage fluctuations in you work load?"

There are three ways to get talent...
Good pay w/ stability w/ a future, or great pay to make up for lack of stability or make them yourself.

Hope this helps.

 

[PEDARRIN2]

My MEP firm has weathered the down turn very well. We have actually grown over the last few years.

1. We are lean on staff so we don't hire/fire on a whim. In the last 10 years, we had one layoff of about 5 people. We were at about 100 people when I started and are at about 150 currently. It can sometimes mean a bit of frenzied chaos when thing get busy, but the chaos tends to not be for very long.
2. We have a diversified client base (military, higher education, government, health care, etc.) so when one market gets slow, we still have projects.
3. We diversify, i.e. get into commisioning, LEED services, etc.
4. We tend to hire a lot of co-ops and brand new graduate engineers and train from within.
5. We may not offer the highest salary or hourly rate compared to other MEP firms, but make up for it in the benefit package, i.e. extremely low health insurance payments for a fairly good family plan.

 

[jmbelectrical]

moltenmetal,

In my defense, I'm not the one doing the hiring. Our firm does often recruit fresh out-of-college BSME and BSEE graduates. I believe they're called "graduate engineers" at our firm. Could we stand to hire more? That's a difficult question that I'm unable to answer. I do agree with Gymmeh about the consulting industry being extremely volatile - at the time being, anyways. Quite literally, in a matter of weeks, we went from being adequately staffed to suddenly winning several major projects and coming to the realization that we need to hire additional staff within a very short time frame. As far as I know, there was just no way to forecast it and plan accordingly.

 

[jmbelectrical]

Gymmeh,

A similar quote that I keep hearing get thrown around is "we need to staff up for these projects." My initial thought is always, "And when the projects are finished...?"

By the way, is there still even such a thing as a stable job?

 

[GregLocock]

23 years sat within 100m of the same GPS location says yes

Cheers

Greg Locock


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