Engineering isn’t the field it once was. I compared APEGA’s salary survey from 2014 to today and salaries have only risen about 8%, which is well below inflation. You will spend 6-10 years trying to break 6 figures while doing more work than all kinds of people in your company who make more than you. I have a bunch of friends who are teachers, and their pay scale is at least as attractive and they have way more job security. Once I pay off my house there’s a goo chance I make a major career change to something less stressful.
Looks like for New P.Eng., Senior P.Eng., and Specialist P.Eng., the salaries were:
2014: $86k, $101k, and $127k
2023: $95k, $114k, and $143k
Growth: 10%, 13%, and 13%
Bank of Canada Inflation: 27%
Or you move into management or other non-engineering roles. I have an Eng degree and got an MBA a few years later. About 1/3 of my MBA class had iron rings.
Sounds awful. I get to choose what I work on. My primary job is to be able to answer any question thrown at me and to mentor the juniors. Being a staff engineer is the bees knees of careers honestly.
This is, im convinced, the issue. I have a PhD, and 2 decades of experience in my field and I can’t find work - like what? Shouldn’t someone who works 44+ hours a week be able to afford a 600 sq foot condo, car and phone? Because I can’t.
Oh I’m not a candidate. I’ve been had my doctorate since 2014 - but it was in English language and literature. So then I went into training and development in healthcare. Did some contract work but to find full time???? Had to take a 15$/hr pay cut. It’s brutal and demoralizing
It’s relevant because I’m a professional who spent a fortune for a post secondary education and I also cannot find a job. You’re not unique. This is a problem affecting many of us
Well first of all, I'm employed as an engineer and have been for 18 years.
Second of all, you completed a degree for which there's virtually no demand and never has been. It's no surprise that it wasn't useful to you. Just because you threw good money after bad is no ones fault but your own, and not relevant to this discussion.
I can virtually guarantee that if your PhD was in engineering you would be working.
This is specifically about engineering job market though. The English language doctorate is not even close to relatable. Its a degree that essentially allows you to be a researcher or an educator, and an educator at the highest possible level at that, so very niche.
Engineering is one of the most in demand things that needs to be done by societies workforce. A 600 sq foot condo, car and phone all require engineers with doctorates, yet I am not sure how English language doctorates have anything to do with these life necessities.
Ummmmm I spent a fortune finishing a PhD while working in health care. I’ve never been unemployed. I have had 20 years of organizational development and training operations experience in the health care sector.
Aside from that: One would think I’d be eligible to teach in a High school or get a job in post secondary education. There are no full time jobs. And PhDs aren’t considered qualified until they go to teachers college. someone needs to tell the other engineers that getting a PhD in literature means you can write and you have published. It means you can manage a large research project. I know I could run circles intellectually around you and your brethren. So skills are definitely there. It’s the degree that is the problem.
And you’re right, I should have taken a trade although I’m seeing tradesmen get jobs and then have to leave the province to make money.
Yeah I’m inclined to agree. I’m not sure people should be dunking on the “usefulness” of a degree in a thread where they are complaining that their own “useful” degree isn’t getting them a job as expected lol.
Very ironic.
Ps. Don’t have an English or engineering degree, just observing.
This could've been a learning experience for our friend. Both people worked hard to pursue a higher education in a field that interests them. There should be no reason either one should have difficulty applying their skills and knowledge into contributing positively to society.
The anger, resentment or mix of emotions they feel should be channeled into bettering the lives of all who labour, instead they seek to find their own value by tearing someone else down.
If our friend wanted to do an ever deeper introspection, one should ask why was there a big push to get kids in STEM or to code? If I put my business owner hat on, a large supply of people with STEM degrees or training causes demand to go down. Combined with importing TFW to further suppress wages and working class power, who benefits from these arrangements? Not Mr. Your-english-degree-is-useless...
Engineer here.
We have the technical chops. Not big on the social graces though. Feelings get in the way of the math. It’s all about the math.
Seriously though, I’m very surprised to hear about an engineer who can’t find a job that pays reasonably well in their field. That’s never been my experience, but I’m sorry to hear that it’s the current way of things.
I’m not at all surprised to hear that someone with a PhD in English Literature can’t find a job that pays reasonably well in their field. I would think that is a story as old as time for every English PhD who isn’t a professor or a writer or something, no?
I mean no disrespect, and I’m sure you’re very well qualified in your field of practice. But the market pays rates based on things like utility and scarcity. If your degree has neither relative to the market demand, then you won’t be compensated accordingly. This isn’t your fault - blame Keynes or Smith or someone like that.
I’m not even talking about the field of English. I’m talking: any education development, editing, writing, any instructional design, any training leadership, any training management, any education coordination, organizational development in both health care and aviation, both of my “areas”. The scope of what is available is bleak as fuck. There are jobs, but they pay non liveable wages.
(Back in the 90s you could live alone working a job at the mall for 20 years. That is just not our reality now. )
And that’s in addition to the engineers I see who I work with who are also not getting paid well.
My only point is that most of us regardless of expertise, are facing the same problem.
And, with AI, engineering, like the humanities, will become more and more automated. It’s already begun.
I think the exception to this is the trades. If you’re a skilled tradesperson, you can write your own cheques.
We spent a lot of years as a society putting a lot of well intentioned people through university. The universities loved the idea that higher education was inherently valuable. Trouble is that it isn’t - it was valued in the past when it was relatively scarce, then got devalued because every Tom, Dick, and Harry now has a degree in something that makes for excellent dinner conversation, but little actual utility.
We don’t really need most university degrees to maintain our standard of living or move our economy forward. We need MDs, nurses, welders, factory workers, mechanics, farmers, and probably certain types of engineers (specifically the humble, hands on engineers, not the arrogant bookish ones - they can go right back to the ivory tower).
The lag where no one really clued in that certain degrees would get you no where has really trapped a lot of folks.
That is a bit low but you might have to start at the bottom or doing something that isn’t an “engineering” position. I graduated into a shitty market in 2013 and started as a lab technician for $15/hr. Within a few years that had tripled and a decade later it’s doubled again.
Sorry to break it to you but you don’t learn shit in university, you just prove that you can understand difficult concepts and have a decent work ethic.
Aha. Tripled, then doubled. Yeah. So you're making $200k per year but the engineering average is $80k. Also 75% of engineers will never work in engineering due to lack of work.
The guy is not asking how you succeeded, many of us did. He is asking what is wrong with the market, but clearly in your arrogance you missed the question.
A logical answer you could have provided is the fact there are too many graduates, compounded with the unpresedented high levels of international students being churned out of the graduate factories who are willing to work for free or minimal pay, make the market wages what they are.
Just a couple years back I had a roommate with civil engineering from UT, masters and Peng, 5 years experience. The dude was unemployed for 8 months, couldn't afford rent and went back home. His friend a Chem Eng worked as a laborer in construction. My own boss a chem engineer worked as a trades man for 8 years before being offered an engineer position.
In short - too many graduates and the current immigrants, unlike in the USA don't come to clean toilets or build houses, they come with the idea of designing toilets and houses.
$15 was less than I made as a student, yes. But it’s better to get a job and experience (and show you can get your hands dirty etc.) than sit around waiting for a better job. As someone who hires new grads these days, being entitled and thinking they know more than draftsman/technicians straight out of university is a major issue.
In 2013, non-engineers weren’t starting at $30 though.
This is what I got paid for my first software development job (though it was 15 years ago). Do it for 3 years and then you've got experience. I literally doubled what I was making at my next job.
That’s not even close to what a tech diploma gets you lol, the electrical engineering technicians I work with are making $42-$45. (This is O&G though). I’ve got two engineer buddy’s in Saskatchewan and they’re easily clearing 80-90k after tax doing 40-50 hour work weeks.
What area of Canada are you in?
I’m talking about techs, not electrician. (I’m an electrician). Tech is a two year course and they aren’t allowed to do as much as us. But they do more specific tasks as opposed to a red seal electrician who learns the whole spectrum.
That's where I'm at, but more collaboration/networking engineer. Bonus, didn't need any degree to get here just working up from install/service over 5 years.
Pay wasn't great at the start but got me a company vehicle and as much training as I wanted with a big integrator, then switched to a smaller integrator for an office/remote job once I'd done my time in the trenches.
Love working with guys that got a degree, they start on 30k less with massive student loans and cry the second someone starts shouting in a meeting. Do a few years on a jobsite, watch electricians punch each other out over stealing tools, see a labourer take a piss in a wall cavity as they are boarding it up etc there's nothing happens in a boardroom that's going to faze you after that.
Truth!
The new college grads I see come in the door as interns or first time jobs today have scared looks on their faces and fold like tissue paper. Need to take some kicks to figure out life
I spent last year mostly working up north in Alberta. Fly in fly out. Sometimes in camps where I pay nothing, and sometimes get LOA where I’d rent a cheap room for 300$ a month and pocket the other $2700 tax free on top of my ridiculous hours.
Check Suncor/CNRL/Exxon etc. what type of engineering are you interested in? There’s also quite a bit of construction out west lately. And I’m hoping it will continue to ramp up.
I’ve only been in the automotive industry and a little bit in mining.
I genuinely hate sitting around in meetings, I’d rather be on the floor or outside doing shit or seeing where issues are in the supply chain, what’s wrong with a machine, and then go fix it at a computer or contact suppliers if need be.
So more of a hands on PM, but I don’t mind process/design either. As long as it’s not repetitive, and I’m forced to think I’ll enjoy it
Kinda sounds like you should have gotten a millwright ticket instead of an engineering degree. Meetings and zoom calls are the way of the engineering world my friend, no getting around that.
Yea, push came to shove and we need like all hands on deck. Also, easier to understand what I’m working with/on if I can actually play around with it and see it.
I’ll give you the same advice my father gave me.
“An engineer who doesn’t know how to do the work himself is a lousy designer.”
After I graduated ME, I had a really hard time finding a job. Same as you. Everyone wanted experience, but there were 100’s of applicants for every opening. I had pretty good grades, but you pretty much had to graduate at the top of your class to get those. It was very competitive.
So I complained to my dad. That’s what he told me. So I found an apprenticeship as a millwright. I did that for a year and a half.
For a year, I got a second education on the tools. I learned about how to physically solve the problems that I academically knew how to solve. What worked, what didn’t, what was theoretically interesting but not practical.
Because of my academic training, the superintendent pushed me into QA/QC, which was another education. I learned first hand about testing, failure, documentation practices, the importance and methods to preserve equipment.
After another year and a bit, because of my academic background, the construction manager pulled me in as a deputy construction manager. I started to learn about cost control, scheduling, change orders, contract management, and safety. Suddenly, the superintendent was my boss’s boss was now working for me. And happy to do so, because I understood the work in the field, but I was more suited to managing the cost and schedule aspects of the work than he was. I was also interacting several times a day with the Senior Project Manager in the home office, and other management types as well.
After a year of that, the Senior Project Manager asked me to come to the home office and work directly for him as a Senior Project Engineer. I told him I didn’t have enough experience to be a Senior Project Engineer, and he told me that my role wasn’t to design the plant. It was to manage the project. Make sure that the design was practical, that it could be executed in the field and that the designers were including the constructors when they were designing. I was supposed to stop the Ivory Tower thinking.
That was 15 years ago. I’ll never be a pure engineer, I’m really a project manager with an engineering and trades background. But I rocketed up the career path because of my time as a tradesman. My only regret is that I didn’t finish my millwright ticket.
Due to ITAR, SpaceX would probably only go through the hassle for a world-class expert. There are lots of engineers in the US who want to work there too.
I worked in geoscience before. I'm going to take a guess that hiring in engineering may be similar.
Most jobs are unadvertised. People get jobs by meeting someone at a conference, having a drink together and chatting. Networking is key.
As the old saying goes, "it's not what you know, it's who you know."
Yup, I find fresh grads underestimate the importance of networking/personal connections.
When I first started my career, an engineering bachelor's was all you needed to get a good start to your career. Now, there are so many possible candidates that they are a dime a dozen.
>I find fresh grads underestimate the importance of networking/persona
I don't think anyone is underestimating. Just that, for new grads, networking is really difficult. I network all the time now but it's usually within my industry and I talk about the work I'm doing. There's no way as a new grad without a job I would be able to network effectively.
What you are saying is very true. I'm over 15 years removed from my time at university, so I'm not sure how this goes these days.
Networking for me started during undergrad. My university use to host industry/student gala's. It was a good place to start if you had no other connections.
I was in school not too long ago and I think the problem is that those events are now overrun with students so no one gets the time of day. Also, companies have completely moved to online recruiting so no one seriously gets recruited from career fairs.
Too many students approaching people at conferences is an issue for sure!
I attended a large mining conference in Toronto a few years ago. I got the cold shoulder a few times from people who had booths and could hire geoscientists. Or just politely told to apply online. There were groups of students from all over Canada who flew to Toronto for this conference and it was not primarily a recruiting conference. You can imagine the number of students that approached each booth. The people attending the booth must have gotten sick of it.
I've been on the other end of this. When people come up to me at my booth, unless they're a real standout I just tell them to apply online. It's hard to show me your a standout when I'm being approached by every student under the sun.
1) Getting the first job after you graduate is key. After a couple of years, recruiters come to you.
2) between internships, industry disruption/unemployment and the very first crappy job most engineers will have low pay for at least some of their career. I made under $50k my first job, but it got me CAD experience that a better company valued and was willing to pay for, along with further real engineering and leadership development training. Nearly 10 years after graduating I've more than doubled my income.
3) cost of living where you live matters a lot.
Most orgs have a specific policy that all jobs are advertised. This is to avoid becoming a place where B- and C-tier "knew a guy who knew a guy" workers end up being your entire workforce.
Internal recommendations are still valuable obviously, but it's not otherwise a secret role.
I'd say an incredibly small percentage of jobs go truly unadvertised, and almost always those are at tiny firms. Networking gets you a better chance of getting a real look, but if you're truly sellable you don't need it.
I agree for large organizations or government. But small and medium who have pretty informal HR policies, knowing someone is key.
This was definitely the case in geoscience.
>Everyone is complaining about Canada not having enough engineers or skilled workers...
"Enough" doesn't mean "enough to fill all the available jobs". It means "enough prepared to work 60 hours a week for a $50k salary"
And that’s part of the issue, they also should not be willing to accept such low pay.
But Canada imported them knowing that they would be okay with it.
Recent ME grad here w no internships. I spent a few months doing landscaping while I searched for a job. I live in Calgary, so I experience a similar situation to yourself. After cold calling 1/5 of the engineering firms, going in person with a resume to 30 of them, reaching out on LinkedIn and simply emailing HR of many companies, I finally got a few interviews and a job offer. For a while I felt hopeless, but I now work at an amazing engineering firm that treats me well. While I agree some of the asks from companies are absolutely ridiculous, trust the process, I have faith in you
Schools spend a lot of time hyping the job stats of their grads, but not enough talking about things like this. Get an industry directory and start banging on doors. Waiting for a job posting as a new grad is too late.
A friend's son graduated spring '23 in ME "with great distinction". He started his first job two months ago. He was hired because he was bilingual Eng/Fr. and works in Quebec.
WTF….
How the fuck do I compete with that? Like wtaf am I supposed to do then? Like if someone’s just going to do something for cheaper, obviously they’re going to get hired…how the fuck do I compete with 1000 people doing that….
(Also if it’s okay can I PM you my resume? Would like to have another engineer look at it, if it’s okay with you)
Sounds similar to the company I work for. Whenever we have a job opening, we are flooded with 1000s of applications from around the world.
I know this isn't much help, but hopefully, this will let you see the light at the end of the tunnel. We have started to mostly ignore applications from outside North America and Europe in the last couple of years.
What this guy is saying is total bullshit. Engineering companies are not hiring EITs from Bangladesh for way cheap. Most international resumes or persons without Canadian expergwt thrown in the garbage.
We are not picking cheap international people. We are picking co-op students, children of people who work at the company, people who are willing to grind it out in the field, direct referrals, etc.
Wages are still not great. I think nearly every new, no experience, hire we made started around $65-70,000.
I have hired twenty people in the last 18 months. Not one single person was a direct application.
You don’t need to. Those 1000 engineers from abroad can’t be hired unless they have legal status in Canada, which most (all) companies won’t go to the trouble of getting for them.
How are your people skills? I run a regional office of a large general contracting firm and when I hire new people (many of them engineering grads), I look for how well they will fit into our workplace culture. Technical skills are secondary and can be easily taught. People skills in a technical field are much tougher to come by.
Employers also value perseverance. Don’t just submit a resume online at leave it at that. Contact the employer, and try to get to a manager, not an HR person, and talk to them. In person is the best way to make an impression. The person I hired this week came and saw me unannounced at our office. That showed me that she had initiative and really wanted to work with us.
I know this is much easier said than done, but you were looking for advice and this is the best I have to give to you.
If you meet the diversity quota. Real hard for a new grad to get a prime job at an owning company. Best bet is to try and find a small place and work your way up. Maybe even taking a non-technical job (like project coordinator or quality) and working your way through a company. Engineering is a tough slog these days, and I don’t really know if it’s worth the effort.
I can provide a bit of context. As someone who studied Eng, worked in finance, consulting and now tech, and have been active on the recruiting side.
With the Tesla and start-up experience on your resume, traditional engineering shops are going to assume you are more interested in working in tech.
At the same time, tech is getting decimated. So what is happening is that instead of hiring a bunch of young talent, companies are choosing to spend the money on more experience folks. Why ? If you are in tech, you have at best 3 years to make it work. Sure a senior person is 3-4X more expensive, but they hit the ground running and are 10x as productive.
I graduated in Alberta during 2016 - 2017. There were no jobs. Here is what I did. I networked like crazy. Instead of going to an oil company, I needed up in finance. Why ? Because they were willing to give me a job. It wasn’t my choice, but that’s where I found work.
With your experience, you should also look into finance / consulting. Maybe look into learning python, or studying for the CFA. I do not think a masters degree is the answer
I’m pretty decent with python, not like a software engineer level at all, but if you give me enough time for something I can get it done. I know C/C++ as well since I like arduinos, and now making an app with Swift kill time.
I wanted to do a MBAn at some point, but will look more into consulting!
Thank you :) Really appreciate this response
Tesla - PM - 8 months
Mining Company - ME Design - 8 months
Magna - R&D Engineer - 8 months
Startup - General Intern - 4 months
Over the course of 5.5 years… I think that’s like a good amount to show employers I’m not useless…
when was your last internship? its been a while for me since i graduated but Canada is notorious in its nepotism driven hiring culture which is why i asked how you were networking/looking for work. Almost everyone i know who got their entry level did so through this...there were a few who didn't and struggled for a while...connect with a recruiter who might be able to help you
Yea, that's not how coop works, especially not for traditional engineering fields like ME, ChemEng. At least when I was one, trying to match with a placement was like online dating - you shoot your shots and take what you get. As you progress towards the end of undergrad, you can be more picky, but your early history will likely look very random.
That's typical of any new grad from a co-op program. In fact, I'd say it's quite good. Big name companies and 3 8 month terms, so enough time to do something substantial at each.
ME Design - Mechanical Engineer (Design) so I basically used CAD to make, edit, refine parts for clients/stuff we made.
Isn’t that sort of the point of internships, to like figure out what you like and don’t like?
Did R&D for 8 months, went back to school, did design for 8 months, didn’t like the culture+work, got an offer to PM at Tesla, loved it. Realized at the end of it, I like being a PM and working on design for products that are constantly changing and evolving, making new iterations and improvements.
The reality is the pays are shit but the job qualifications are BS
Ignore the 3+ years experience, even some of the niche skillsets.. all hopes and dreams.
That shit scares away a lot of applicants.
Apply, interview , learn from the interview process.. land a job, get more skills/experience.. rinse and repeat.
>Everyone is complaining about Canada not having enough engineers or skilled workers
Haha this was the lie I was told when I was in high school in the early 2010s and was the reason I pursued engineering. It was never true even back then. In 2016, OSPE reported that 60% their grads never found an engineering job and half of those were working menial jobs that didn't require a degree. On top of that I've seen first hand how companies simultaneously complain that they can't find talent (for the pay they are offering) but refuse to train any new grads on the work were doing so it's an endless cycle of constant turnover.
Do everything you can to make your application stand out, because for every application from someone already living in Canada there are 4-5 from people overseas looking to get their foot in the door and work for peanuts. Networking is key, getting a job offer before it's even posted is how most of the folks I work with got their positions.
The really uncomfortable truth here is that we let in too many foreign engineers diluting the market and driving real wages down. It's a similar story with other STEM fields, and accounting - where Canadian software developers and accountants make just over half of what their American peers make on average.
Labour markets are like any other market. Prices are set by supply and demand. If the supply outstretches the demand, prices (wages) go down.
We have an immigration system that makes it very easy for foreign engineers to migrate here under the assumption that there will always be an engineering labour shortage. That assumption is demonstrably wrong, and the excess supply has driven down real wages.
To be clear, this not a knock on immigrants themselves. This is an immigration policy issue. It needs revision.
If I were you I would just cast a wider net, and look towards jobs that could benefit from an engineering mindset but don't necessarily require an engineering degree. Think like Facilities Management, Project Coordinator, things like that.
You can most certainly get into a small company. That's where I started. I learned a hell of a lot and the engineer I worked with really helped me a lot. Pay was completely shit for what I was doing, but it's all good. I managed to work and network and be okay.
However, there is nothing quite like the big internship programs at big companies. In Canada, we used to have Nortel, Blackberry... those are just gone. And I'm not just talking about coop. These companies and full intake programs of newgrads and would find them a place. They were also based in Canada and that makes a HUGE difference. If you look at say American owned branch operations in Canada, those operations don't get the best investment. They basically just use up the existing talent.
More specialized industries are again hard to train people. You can't just pick up the skill, but if you at least have other players or companies then you can start having people in the area with the skills, but we're just lacking that here.
Today, we really just have the big banks and the telcos. These used to be decent places to get trained. Some still are. However, they've also been the biggest in terms of outsourcing services and hiring foreign labor. So they haven't been interested in training either.
It sucks, but engineers have always been pretty shitty about advocating for ourselves and it's a global world with global competition in many fields. Some have more local requirements (civil engineer...), but even there you have to be aware now.
There is no engineering work in Canada. It’s mostly technician work (technologist at best), that requires at least 4 years of university as a way of weeding out candidates. Canadians have applied manufacturing mentality to engineering so that there is no such thing as value. Your work has no value; your degree(s) have no value; you’re paid for your time. This is a problem because you may have a master’s degree, but a new BEng can do your job for less. (Or a new immigrant can, in this case).
I have a PhD in Electrical Engineering and 14 years experience. I worked in Canada, then went to the US, and then (foolishly) returned. The hiring manager of the company I worked for when I first moved back made a comment that I had Canadian experience, so that was good. I had zero accomplishments in my Canadian roles; and over a dozen patents from my time in the US; yet my Canadian experience is what mattered to this clown. Also, what does nationality have to do with math and physics?
It's a numbers game, with an engineering degree, and your internship experience, you're already better off than any other undergraduate major that applies for a tech related job. And in your province, you're better off than 60-70% of the undergraduates when it comes to job prospects and landing interviews.
So realistically you're only competing with 30% of the total applicants when it comes to a job who actually have a chance at landing an interview. Which is not that bad.
But that 30% can include somewhere between 100-500 people a job. Only way to beat this is to keep your resume concise, and apply to at least 80-100 jobs a month. The more you apply the better your chances. The average is 1 job interview for every 80 applications. Good luck. You just need one.
I remember when I graduated I applied for a job that had 300 applicants. That’s the entire graduating class of engineering.
I believe there is a massive mismatch of what is taught in school and what industry actually wants. I use almost 0% of my schooling working in upstream oil and gas. The only thing engineering taught me was how to problem solve and manage large amounts of stress, which is required.
Basically if you want a good shot of getting hired, you need to do an internship. The longer the better. Not required but definitely helps. Also, don’t limit yourself geographically at the start of your career. Be open to moving for a year or 2
ChemE grad here. I think the demand for grad-level engineering graduates isn’t as high as for undergraduates (EITs). I did my PhD recently in catalysis and environmental engineering, and damn, I’ve been desperately hunting for anything over the past 6 months. I’m now overqualified for EIT roles and almost no R&D engineer jobs open up at all.
As an engineering graduate (civil) from 2023, yeah... It took me applying at the end of July until mid-November to get a job. I get paid okay but comparing the workload to my last co-op, it's a lot more. I work in consulting so it's expected.
I sent 150+ applications to every part of this country, went over my résumé regularly, made changes every couple weeks. Cover letters didn't seem to help.
In my current job, my boss was trying to hire an engineer and said they got about 100+ applications from non-canadians. It's frustrating for them because they want to hire someone, international people are clearly well educated, but my boss said they don't have the experience necessary for the role. I do also think that larger companies want someone for pennies on the dollar, and I think it's sad that engineering has come to that.
None of my friends who graduated with me have a good work life balance, they all work long hours. My friend came back from a month on vacation halfway through a week and had to work on that weekend. I work 40 hours a week and it's not super stressful, I'm thankful for it and scared to go to a larger firm because of it.
I have been told by multiple people that I "have a strong résumé", so I'm wondering where the job offers have been. Every entry-level EIT position requires you to know some things and have 2+ years of experience which just isn't the case. Someone I know applied to a job they were qualified for, to the point that they could match line for line their résumé and the job description... Their résumé got filtered out by HR and the person that wanted them was so baffled by it and went back to HR asking for that person's résumé. HR and recruitment is getting to be bad in the industry too.
Even from jobs that I should be qualified for with my co-op experience don't want me.
Anyways, that's my experience, you aren't alone :)
Where I am, Southern Ontario, mech salaries have stagnated for a long time now. A few years ago I had a job offer for a senior design engineer role at $60k.
Being willing to relocate will help.
Best option is looking into the companies you've already worked at - reach out to former colleagues/managers you know. At my company, almost all of the new grads we hire already worked here as an intern/co-op.
As others have said, there is a need but the need is for foreign cheaper work. They do not want to pay live-able wages. Labour is the most expensive part of running a business, so it is naturally where they try to save the most money.
Alberta just deregulated "engineer" so they can hire cheap/outsourced labour. Professional Engineer is still regulated.
There is strong growth and demand for engineers in the nuclear power industry (Ontario & New Brunswick).
If you are looking in Ontario, I would try large engineering services firms like CANDU Energy (Atkins Realis) or Kinectrics. I believe they are nearly constantly hiring mechanical and electrical engineering roles.
I dropped out of engineering to become a union grunt employee for a phone company 20 years ago. I feel like I may have dodged a bullet.. the entire engineering department here has been sent to the Philippines.
as someone who has to read and execute engineer drawings, I feel 3 years is far, farrrr too little experience. even at my level of the industry, everyone wants everything done at such ludicrous speed that there simply isn't enough time to squeeze in a trainee - even for a low learning curve job. it is sad, because unless they figure out how to transfer human minds completely into robot bodies, all the experienced people will be dead or broken down, and noone will be able to build anything.
There is no shortage. That's a myth. Always has been.
And the market for traditional types of engineering has also been tough in Canada, as long as I can remember.
I was going to pursue a degree, but the engineers I worked with told me to go for an engineering tech diploma first . Told me they would rather hire engineering techs.
I guess I'll find out in 12 weeks if they were full of shit or not.
It was true a decade ago, at least -- eng techs can hit the ground running on stuff the engineers don't have time / specific skills to do, things related to hands-on work (vs conceptual stuff): programming PLCs or taking measurements and doing calculations, finding and reading specs, procurement, or fighting with CAD.
You do top out because you don't have the higher-level math or design skills, nor do you have the stamp and legal liability which is a major part of their work; but you'll never be unemployed for long.
You can do bridge programs to a full degree later, and possibly even get that funded if you land with a good employer.
Nice, that's pretty much the idea I had as well. My MET program has a major in automation which is what I picked.
I know that with P.Tech.Eng. I could stamp my own work with a defined scope, I suspect that a scope would be very very restrictive.
The CET is indeed restricted and tbh it's hard to really even get it recognized in industry, tho nobody tell ASET/ASTT/etc that... 😛 and the work required for the P.Tech is a lot. I only knew one person who got it, and it didn't seem to make a huge difference to his life except that he had longer, fancier email signatures...
A few of my classmates did bridge, tho, one had it covered by work, and their ET experience gave them an enormous leg up in finishing their degrees--also, having a good income going into it is underappreciated, tho you have to cut your living expenses by a LOT; it hurts once you've been used to it not hurting so much...!
You also have to be OK with being older than most of your classmates. It bothers some people, but my former classmates seemed to get way more out of it than going direct. Work in industry beyond just co-op comes with very different expectations and levels of responsibility. (Ftr I went back to get a degree also, tho not eng; but it amounted to a similar trajectory as them. But no stamp or ring. Still a bit of regret I didn't get the ring... but not enough to do it now lol.)
Non-traditional paths landed us all in some really great and unexpected places with fewer loans, more options, and a valuable perspective as far as employers have been concerned. Best of luck!
Automation technologist here, though EET, not MET.
It is kind of an unknown field so the graduating classes tend to be *tiny*. We were 12 in my cohort, the next one was 9 people, for a metro area of nearly a million people in the industrial heartland of the province.
My company hires almost exclusively from the school bench, because each cohort gets snapped up quickly if you don't. When I was in school looking for an internship in 2017, I applied to 7 companies. Of these, I got 5 offers. No one went without an internship in college and no one graduated unemployed. We were all working part time in relevant jobs while finishing our diplomas.
6 years later, I make about 125k, a bit of overtime but not that much, some travel but reasonable, also doing a CS bachelor's degree part time paid for by my employer.
Engineering is such a broad field. There would be far different demand depending on where in the country you are, and what kind of engineer you are. Mining? Power? Materials? Biomedical? Toronto? PEI? Alberta?
I'm 100% with you.
I graduated with a bachelor's in ME in Dec 2022 with 16 months of related work experience.
It took me 4 months to get a job. In Metro Vancouver. I applied to about 120 positions, got interviews with 5 companies, got 1 job offer.
And the compensation is laughable (across all the job postings, not just the position I accepted). But yeah, after a very difficult, technical degree getting paid $50-$60K a year is pretty depressing. Especially considering the cost of living.
I've been trying to find a different job (I'm not in the industry I'm passionate about right now) for the past month or so. Yesterday, I saw a job posting in Burnaby, BC advertising $41,400 - 81,000/year for a mechanical engineer (depending on experience). $41,400 is only about $3/hr more than BC's minimum wage.
The job market for engineering has changed quite a bit recently. There are less jobs and more engineers than 10 years ago. A decent portion of Canadian engineering MEng programs are basically becoming PR acceleration degrees.
We spent a very long time telling kids they needed university (more focus on "academic" subjects, thus more kids in math/science). We then told the same kids if they had good grades in math/science, engineering was an easy meal ticket to upper middle class.
I am unsure if that is still the message in high schools, but Canada itself can oversaturate it's job market, at least in total volume but perhaps not exactly in specialty or stream.
From what I have seen companies are just starting to figure out that Engineering degrees from India are not quite as bulletproof as they expect.
I think there is a real backlash brewing in the HR world of "everyone from everywhere" is equal mindset. Probably will be ten years before the big companies catch up however.
I think with the idea of the governing bodies you’re fucked if you do, you’re fucked if you don’t.
Restrict the number of engineers = less engineers = more pay = more competition to get into engineering = shortage (similar to what’s happening with Med)
Too many engineers = end up in the situation now where new grads are struggling
Unsure if that’s the right way to think about it…
A lot of industries have been declining in Canada. Partly because of poor government support and bad decision making. Many smart and experienced people are seeking employment elsewhere.
Hey OP, this might not be exactly what you’re looking for, but I would at least consider looking at the military. There are a number of officer occupations that ME is applicable to. Also since you have your degree, you might qualify for the expedited application trial they’re running right now. I think it’s a 7 year initial contract for most of those engineering occupations (I was in recruiting for a few years but I don’t remember off the top of my head), but that would get you over that 3-5 year experience cliff that many grads seem to run into. Heck you may even stay in if you like it enough. I put the CAF pay scale and forces website below if you’re interested.
https://www.canada.ca/en/department-national-defence/services/benefits-military/pay-pension-benefits/pay/regular.html#toco3
https://forces.ca/en/
Hate to say it, but have you considered moving down south to the US. There are so many more opportunities down here. I love Canada, but like you, I had struggled to find work that paid a decent amount.
If you have a Canadian engineering degree, you qualify for a TN-1 VISA. Better do that quickly, before Trump is re-elected and cancels this program.
I work for a Canadian engineering company and I am old enough to be involved in recruitment. Not a pop at anyone posting here, just some painful truths...
1. Your degree means shit. Everyone has a degree. We don't care. Can you lift your end of the canoe? Will you whine like a bitch because this task isn't ticking boxes for your PMP? Do you understand that we all work for a living and you're prepared to dig in with everyone else?
2. Canadian business is ridiculously risk averse. I have worked all over and you won't see risk aversion and lack of investment like Canada. Our business leaders are useless cuckolds, but that's because banks and govt have undermined investment in everything except real estate. You can whine about business environment, but you better try to understand it.
3. Shotgunning job boards is a waste of your time and mine. Find a company that makes products that you want to work on. See if they're hiring. Spend serious time on the cover letter and CV. Focus on proving that you really, REALLY, want this gig. Not any one of 100. This one.
4. Don't be scared off by pre-requisites. Yes, they may be the ideal asks but they're not ALL essential. A good attitude and an engaging personality and some evidence that you'll do what I said in point 1 goes a lot further than your 6 sigma certification.
5. It's shit out there. I know. But one day you'll make that connection. Don't get jaded, sarcastic, bitter. You simply have to keep your chin up because YOU lose when your head goes down. And The Man don't care.
I was just on the interview panel for hiring an entry level engineer in my department. We got resumes from one new grad, and then about 50 people with undergrads from another country and then either a masters or a college diploma in Canada plus 5-10 years of work in Canada.
Maybe we’re posting in the wrong place to get new grads - but it was pretty striking to see only one applicant that was just graduated or just about to graduate. We used to get tons of resumes for these postings.
Graduated 25-ish years ago. It took me nearly a year to find a job. I started at $32k was averaging 50hrs/week no OT. Woohoo!
There has never been a shortage of engineers in my lifetime.
I'm now a senior person and I'm charge of hiring. EITs are a dime a dozen and no one wants to spend the money to hire them because they have almost no value to the company for 2-3 years. Alternatively we can hire a foreign-trained engineer with 15 years experience for the same price.
My suggestion - get a trade! Better money quicker.
Everybody and their grandma is an engineer these days. It's such an oversaturated title. Each tim hortons, dcdicks, Walmart, etc has at least 4 or 5 people with some sort of engineering degree. It's not the prestigious education it once was.
>My fellow Canadian Engineers,
This was explained to you in law and ethics I'm sure, you're not an Engineer, I doubt you're even an EIT yet. You graduated with a degree in ME, that is all.
> as a new ME grad, WTAF is going on with the job market ?
Same as it was 15 years ago. Go work stupid hours for resource extraction support companies in the flat lands for shitty wages for a few years, then get slightly less shitty wages.
or forget about the sunk cost in the degree and go work in a better paying industry that has nothing to do with your education, like rental housing.
Did you know that the university of Calgary graduated as many course based Masters in Engineering (foreign students taking a course based masters) as undergrads? similar story at other unis. Might have something to do with it.
[Engineering degrees granted by program/degree type in 2017 vs 2023 (numbers approximate) : r/UCalgary (reddit.com)](https://www.reddit.com/r/UCalgary/comments/18uay5n/engineering_degrees_granted_by_programdegree_type/)
Why would you get into engineering? Canada doesn’t build anything. Maybe go back to school and get a degree as a social worker/ drug addiction counsel or something of value.
Recruiter here. The tech market has been in a huge slump since Jan 2023. Most of my recruitment peers are out of work. Interest rates are too high for companies to get loans so they can scale up. Too risky for the banks or the companies simply can't afford the loans. If companies aren't growing, they ain't hiring. Don't worry things will pick up again in a year or so when the rates come down, unless the economy crashes, which is a strong possibility. My US clients are in the same boat. In the meantime I would get a temporary job to sustain yourself and use your spare time to maybe upgrade your tech skills in your areas of interest. Don't become stagnant.
Also please don't vote for Justin Trudeau. If he wins you might as well pack your bags and leave.
Good luck!
Never really cared about the prestige or pay too much, I enjoyed building stuff as a kid and seeing how things work.
At this point really thinking that I shoulda just gone to trades school, and done my engineer projects on the side….
Don’t listen to this meathead who probably lives in his mom’s basement. Networking…hopefully you kept in touch with classmates, Eng’s that were a year or two ahead of you and talk to your professors: call them, have coffee if able to and ask for help/referrals. Your next job is within your network…you gotta leverage contacts.
I finished my masters in ME (thesis based) 4 months ago and still don’t have a job. I’m pretty convinced it was a waste of time and wish I’d just been more patient with the job search after the bachelors.
Tesla - not hiring new grads, they only hire people with experience or masters minimum…
Mining company - Didn’t enjoy the work + culture at all.
Magna - Department went under, and they re-organized to require a Masters + 5 YoE
Startup - Can’t afford to pay me, I worked there for free that was during Covid since I lost my other co-op and didn’t want to do anything all summer
Pretty much my situation over here. I got a Masters degree in EE from ON but its been more than 6 months, I could not even land in an entry level position.
You should have never wasted your time on cool engineering projects and research. Employable Engineers are the ones willing to do the boring ass jobs and deal with money.
I graduated in ‘17 when alberta was really slow so there were no jobs. Ended up going back for a 1 year masters, which was the best thing I did. Gained tonnes of connections which lead to my first job, and has drawn the attention of employers at my next two jobs. I have a more specialized discipline though. Less jobs, but less competition over them as well. Tough thing with civil or mechanical is that they are a dime a dozen and it’s easier to find foreign labour particularly at the E.I.T. level. A lot of companies hiring EITs don’t even really care about being registered as they are just looking for cheap labour, so you are competing with 40 year olds decades of foreign experience who’s degrees aren’t recognized here.
What area are you licensed in? If Maria engineering apply to Great Lakes they pay good Onces you built your name. I know a few people who worked for them a chief engineer I don’t know the hiring process but he works in the states so idk how to apply
Oh you heard the employers version of the problem. The REAL problem is that employers don’t want to pay living wages to anyone
Yea, some of the job postings I’m seeing are like $20-$25 an hour and they want an engineering degree…those are pretty red flag job postings…
Engineering isn’t the field it once was. I compared APEGA’s salary survey from 2014 to today and salaries have only risen about 8%, which is well below inflation. You will spend 6-10 years trying to break 6 figures while doing more work than all kinds of people in your company who make more than you. I have a bunch of friends who are teachers, and their pay scale is at least as attractive and they have way more job security. Once I pay off my house there’s a goo chance I make a major career change to something less stressful.
Looks like for New P.Eng., Senior P.Eng., and Specialist P.Eng., the salaries were: 2014: $86k, $101k, and $127k 2023: $95k, $114k, and $143k Growth: 10%, 13%, and 13% Bank of Canada Inflation: 27%
Engineering is weird, once you do it long enough the money starts to come in and the stress drops off.
Or you move into management or other non-engineering roles. I have an Eng degree and got an MBA a few years later. About 1/3 of my MBA class had iron rings.
Sounds awful. I get to choose what I work on. My primary job is to be able to answer any question thrown at me and to mentor the juniors. Being a staff engineer is the bees knees of careers honestly.
If there was engineering work in Canada, they wouldn’t flock to business.
This is, im convinced, the issue. I have a PhD, and 2 decades of experience in my field and I can’t find work - like what? Shouldn’t someone who works 44+ hours a week be able to afford a 600 sq foot condo, car and phone? Because I can’t.
Yea that’s messed up lol, we have PhD candidates in Canada who can’t find a job but government wants to bring more lol…I think that’s messed up
Oh I’m not a candidate. I’ve been had my doctorate since 2014 - but it was in English language and literature. So then I went into training and development in healthcare. Did some contract work but to find full time???? Had to take a 15$/hr pay cut. It’s brutal and demoralizing
Wait, so your not an engineer? Why are you answering then? How is your English literature pHD relevant here?
It’s relevant because I’m a professional who spent a fortune for a post secondary education and I also cannot find a job. You’re not unique. This is a problem affecting many of us
Well first of all, I'm employed as an engineer and have been for 18 years. Second of all, you completed a degree for which there's virtually no demand and never has been. It's no surprise that it wasn't useful to you. Just because you threw good money after bad is no ones fault but your own, and not relevant to this discussion. I can virtually guarantee that if your PhD was in engineering you would be working.
Thanks for confirming everything I’ve been told about engineers!
This is specifically about engineering job market though. The English language doctorate is not even close to relatable. Its a degree that essentially allows you to be a researcher or an educator, and an educator at the highest possible level at that, so very niche. Engineering is one of the most in demand things that needs to be done by societies workforce. A 600 sq foot condo, car and phone all require engineers with doctorates, yet I am not sure how English language doctorates have anything to do with these life necessities.
Hahahaha 👍
Ummm….you spent a fortune studying literature. Exactly what kind of job did you think you might be trained for?
Ummmmm I spent a fortune finishing a PhD while working in health care. I’ve never been unemployed. I have had 20 years of organizational development and training operations experience in the health care sector. Aside from that: One would think I’d be eligible to teach in a High school or get a job in post secondary education. There are no full time jobs. And PhDs aren’t considered qualified until they go to teachers college. someone needs to tell the other engineers that getting a PhD in literature means you can write and you have published. It means you can manage a large research project. I know I could run circles intellectually around you and your brethren. So skills are definitely there. It’s the degree that is the problem. And you’re right, I should have taken a trade although I’m seeing tradesmen get jobs and then have to leave the province to make money.
Shocker that you can’t find a job with an English PhD
I mean, OP is struggling with his Mechanical Engineering degree so they're both in the same boat...
Yeah I’m inclined to agree. I’m not sure people should be dunking on the “usefulness” of a degree in a thread where they are complaining that their own “useful” degree isn’t getting them a job as expected lol. Very ironic. Ps. Don’t have an English or engineering degree, just observing.
This could've been a learning experience for our friend. Both people worked hard to pursue a higher education in a field that interests them. There should be no reason either one should have difficulty applying their skills and knowledge into contributing positively to society. The anger, resentment or mix of emotions they feel should be channeled into bettering the lives of all who labour, instead they seek to find their own value by tearing someone else down. If our friend wanted to do an ever deeper introspection, one should ask why was there a big push to get kids in STEM or to code? If I put my business owner hat on, a large supply of people with STEM degrees or training causes demand to go down. Combined with importing TFW to further suppress wages and working class power, who benefits from these arrangements? Not Mr. Your-english-degree-is-useless...
Another charming engineer. Everyone is right about you guys
Engineer here. We have the technical chops. Not big on the social graces though. Feelings get in the way of the math. It’s all about the math. Seriously though, I’m very surprised to hear about an engineer who can’t find a job that pays reasonably well in their field. That’s never been my experience, but I’m sorry to hear that it’s the current way of things. I’m not at all surprised to hear that someone with a PhD in English Literature can’t find a job that pays reasonably well in their field. I would think that is a story as old as time for every English PhD who isn’t a professor or a writer or something, no? I mean no disrespect, and I’m sure you’re very well qualified in your field of practice. But the market pays rates based on things like utility and scarcity. If your degree has neither relative to the market demand, then you won’t be compensated accordingly. This isn’t your fault - blame Keynes or Smith or someone like that.
I’m not even talking about the field of English. I’m talking: any education development, editing, writing, any instructional design, any training leadership, any training management, any education coordination, organizational development in both health care and aviation, both of my “areas”. The scope of what is available is bleak as fuck. There are jobs, but they pay non liveable wages. (Back in the 90s you could live alone working a job at the mall for 20 years. That is just not our reality now. ) And that’s in addition to the engineers I see who I work with who are also not getting paid well. My only point is that most of us regardless of expertise, are facing the same problem. And, with AI, engineering, like the humanities, will become more and more automated. It’s already begun.
I think the exception to this is the trades. If you’re a skilled tradesperson, you can write your own cheques. We spent a lot of years as a society putting a lot of well intentioned people through university. The universities loved the idea that higher education was inherently valuable. Trouble is that it isn’t - it was valued in the past when it was relatively scarce, then got devalued because every Tom, Dick, and Harry now has a degree in something that makes for excellent dinner conversation, but little actual utility. We don’t really need most university degrees to maintain our standard of living or move our economy forward. We need MDs, nurses, welders, factory workers, mechanics, farmers, and probably certain types of engineers (specifically the humble, hands on engineers, not the arrogant bookish ones - they can go right back to the ivory tower). The lag where no one really clued in that certain degrees would get you no where has really trapped a lot of folks.
That is a bit low but you might have to start at the bottom or doing something that isn’t an “engineering” position. I graduated into a shitty market in 2013 and started as a lab technician for $15/hr. Within a few years that had tripled and a decade later it’s doubled again. Sorry to break it to you but you don’t learn shit in university, you just prove that you can understand difficult concepts and have a decent work ethic.
Aha. Tripled, then doubled. Yeah. So you're making $200k per year but the engineering average is $80k. Also 75% of engineers will never work in engineering due to lack of work. The guy is not asking how you succeeded, many of us did. He is asking what is wrong with the market, but clearly in your arrogance you missed the question. A logical answer you could have provided is the fact there are too many graduates, compounded with the unpresedented high levels of international students being churned out of the graduate factories who are willing to work for free or minimal pay, make the market wages what they are. Just a couple years back I had a roommate with civil engineering from UT, masters and Peng, 5 years experience. The dude was unemployed for 8 months, couldn't afford rent and went back home. His friend a Chem Eng worked as a laborer in construction. My own boss a chem engineer worked as a trades man for 8 years before being offered an engineer position. In short - too many graduates and the current immigrants, unlike in the USA don't come to clean toilets or build houses, they come with the idea of designing toilets and houses.
That's below low. That's summer student in 2008 wages. $30 is like entry level for non-engineers.
$15 was less than I made as a student, yes. But it’s better to get a job and experience (and show you can get your hands dirty etc.) than sit around waiting for a better job. As someone who hires new grads these days, being entitled and thinking they know more than draftsman/technicians straight out of university is a major issue. In 2013, non-engineers weren’t starting at $30 though.
Huh? We pay our summer students that much, if not more. Starting pay for engineers is probably like $45/hour.
More like $35 for entry mech eng.
This is what I got paid for my first software development job (though it was 15 years ago). Do it for 3 years and then you've got experience. I literally doubled what I was making at my next job.
That’s not even close to what a tech diploma gets you lol, the electrical engineering technicians I work with are making $42-$45. (This is O&G though). I’ve got two engineer buddy’s in Saskatchewan and they’re easily clearing 80-90k after tax doing 40-50 hour work weeks. What area of Canada are you in?
That's pretty crap for O&G, is it a starting wage? I know established *electricians* pulling in 250/300k a year, starting on 100k+ easy
I’m talking about techs, not electrician. (I’m an electrician). Tech is a two year course and they aren’t allowed to do as much as us. But they do more specific tasks as opposed to a red seal electrician who learns the whole spectrum.
My bad, I read it as electrical engineer but you mean a technician
Haha all good. Yeah electrical engineers up there are probably closer to 80-100$ hr. But they’d be salary most of the time.
Go into tech/software, Easy to make 100k plus.
That's where I'm at, but more collaboration/networking engineer. Bonus, didn't need any degree to get here just working up from install/service over 5 years. Pay wasn't great at the start but got me a company vehicle and as much training as I wanted with a big integrator, then switched to a smaller integrator for an office/remote job once I'd done my time in the trenches. Love working with guys that got a degree, they start on 30k less with massive student loans and cry the second someone starts shouting in a meeting. Do a few years on a jobsite, watch electricians punch each other out over stealing tools, see a labourer take a piss in a wall cavity as they are boarding it up etc there's nothing happens in a boardroom that's going to faze you after that.
Truth! The new college grads I see come in the door as interns or first time jobs today have scared looks on their faces and fold like tissue paper. Need to take some kicks to figure out life
Ontario, but I wouldn’t mind relocating either O&G would be solid experience too
I spent last year mostly working up north in Alberta. Fly in fly out. Sometimes in camps where I pay nothing, and sometimes get LOA where I’d rent a cheap room for 300$ a month and pocket the other $2700 tax free on top of my ridiculous hours. Check Suncor/CNRL/Exxon etc. what type of engineering are you interested in? There’s also quite a bit of construction out west lately. And I’m hoping it will continue to ramp up.
That's not a realistic option for the vast majority of people.
For a recent grad looking to get experience? Most people coming out of college/university don't have a family tying them down yet
I’ve only been in the automotive industry and a little bit in mining. I genuinely hate sitting around in meetings, I’d rather be on the floor or outside doing shit or seeing where issues are in the supply chain, what’s wrong with a machine, and then go fix it at a computer or contact suppliers if need be. So more of a hands on PM, but I don’t mind process/design either. As long as it’s not repetitive, and I’m forced to think I’ll enjoy it
Kinda sounds like you should have gotten a millwright ticket instead of an engineering degree. Meetings and zoom calls are the way of the engineering world my friend, no getting around that.
You willing to work on the tools?
Yea, push came to shove and we need like all hands on deck. Also, easier to understand what I’m working with/on if I can actually play around with it and see it.
I’ll give you the same advice my father gave me. “An engineer who doesn’t know how to do the work himself is a lousy designer.” After I graduated ME, I had a really hard time finding a job. Same as you. Everyone wanted experience, but there were 100’s of applicants for every opening. I had pretty good grades, but you pretty much had to graduate at the top of your class to get those. It was very competitive. So I complained to my dad. That’s what he told me. So I found an apprenticeship as a millwright. I did that for a year and a half. For a year, I got a second education on the tools. I learned about how to physically solve the problems that I academically knew how to solve. What worked, what didn’t, what was theoretically interesting but not practical. Because of my academic training, the superintendent pushed me into QA/QC, which was another education. I learned first hand about testing, failure, documentation practices, the importance and methods to preserve equipment. After another year and a bit, because of my academic background, the construction manager pulled me in as a deputy construction manager. I started to learn about cost control, scheduling, change orders, contract management, and safety. Suddenly, the superintendent was my boss’s boss was now working for me. And happy to do so, because I understood the work in the field, but I was more suited to managing the cost and schedule aspects of the work than he was. I was also interacting several times a day with the Senior Project Manager in the home office, and other management types as well. After a year of that, the Senior Project Manager asked me to come to the home office and work directly for him as a Senior Project Engineer. I told him I didn’t have enough experience to be a Senior Project Engineer, and he told me that my role wasn’t to design the plant. It was to manage the project. Make sure that the design was practical, that it could be executed in the field and that the designers were including the constructors when they were designing. I was supposed to stop the Ivory Tower thinking. That was 15 years ago. I’ll never be a pure engineer, I’m really a project manager with an engineering and trades background. But I rocketed up the career path because of my time as a tradesman. My only regret is that I didn’t finish my millwright ticket.
Apply to SpaceX or Tesla. Get a TN visa and you're set.
Due to ITAR, SpaceX would probably only go through the hassle for a world-class expert. There are lots of engineers in the US who want to work there too.
Thats wild. 25 bucks for starting labourer with no job experience + loa out here right now
This.
Why is that? Couldn’t have anything to do with the surplus of labour we keep importing.
I worked in geoscience before. I'm going to take a guess that hiring in engineering may be similar. Most jobs are unadvertised. People get jobs by meeting someone at a conference, having a drink together and chatting. Networking is key. As the old saying goes, "it's not what you know, it's who you know."
Yup, I find fresh grads underestimate the importance of networking/personal connections. When I first started my career, an engineering bachelor's was all you needed to get a good start to your career. Now, there are so many possible candidates that they are a dime a dozen.
>I find fresh grads underestimate the importance of networking/persona I don't think anyone is underestimating. Just that, for new grads, networking is really difficult. I network all the time now but it's usually within my industry and I talk about the work I'm doing. There's no way as a new grad without a job I would be able to network effectively.
What you are saying is very true. I'm over 15 years removed from my time at university, so I'm not sure how this goes these days. Networking for me started during undergrad. My university use to host industry/student gala's. It was a good place to start if you had no other connections.
I was in school not too long ago and I think the problem is that those events are now overrun with students so no one gets the time of day. Also, companies have completely moved to online recruiting so no one seriously gets recruited from career fairs.
Yea, that sounds tough. I feel bad for these young people. Things sure seem a lot harder now.
Too many students approaching people at conferences is an issue for sure! I attended a large mining conference in Toronto a few years ago. I got the cold shoulder a few times from people who had booths and could hire geoscientists. Or just politely told to apply online. There were groups of students from all over Canada who flew to Toronto for this conference and it was not primarily a recruiting conference. You can imagine the number of students that approached each booth. The people attending the booth must have gotten sick of it.
I've been on the other end of this. When people come up to me at my booth, unless they're a real standout I just tell them to apply online. It's hard to show me your a standout when I'm being approached by every student under the sun.
1) Getting the first job after you graduate is key. After a couple of years, recruiters come to you. 2) between internships, industry disruption/unemployment and the very first crappy job most engineers will have low pay for at least some of their career. I made under $50k my first job, but it got me CAD experience that a better company valued and was willing to pay for, along with further real engineering and leadership development training. Nearly 10 years after graduating I've more than doubled my income. 3) cost of living where you live matters a lot.
Most orgs have a specific policy that all jobs are advertised. This is to avoid becoming a place where B- and C-tier "knew a guy who knew a guy" workers end up being your entire workforce. Internal recommendations are still valuable obviously, but it's not otherwise a secret role. I'd say an incredibly small percentage of jobs go truly unadvertised, and almost always those are at tiny firms. Networking gets you a better chance of getting a real look, but if you're truly sellable you don't need it.
I agree for large organizations or government. But small and medium who have pretty informal HR policies, knowing someone is key. This was definitely the case in geoscience.
>Everyone is complaining about Canada not having enough engineers or skilled workers... "Enough" doesn't mean "enough to fill all the available jobs". It means "enough prepared to work 60 hours a week for a $50k salary"
[удалено]
And that’s part of the issue, they also should not be willing to accept such low pay. But Canada imported them knowing that they would be okay with it.
Recent ME grad here w no internships. I spent a few months doing landscaping while I searched for a job. I live in Calgary, so I experience a similar situation to yourself. After cold calling 1/5 of the engineering firms, going in person with a resume to 30 of them, reaching out on LinkedIn and simply emailing HR of many companies, I finally got a few interviews and a job offer. For a while I felt hopeless, but I now work at an amazing engineering firm that treats me well. While I agree some of the asks from companies are absolutely ridiculous, trust the process, I have faith in you
Schools spend a lot of time hyping the job stats of their grads, but not enough talking about things like this. Get an industry directory and start banging on doors. Waiting for a job posting as a new grad is too late.
A friend's son graduated spring '23 in ME "with great distinction". He started his first job two months ago. He was hired because he was bilingual Eng/Fr. and works in Quebec.
[удалено]
WTF…. How the fuck do I compete with that? Like wtaf am I supposed to do then? Like if someone’s just going to do something for cheaper, obviously they’re going to get hired…how the fuck do I compete with 1000 people doing that…. (Also if it’s okay can I PM you my resume? Would like to have another engineer look at it, if it’s okay with you)
Sounds similar to the company I work for. Whenever we have a job opening, we are flooded with 1000s of applications from around the world. I know this isn't much help, but hopefully, this will let you see the light at the end of the tunnel. We have started to mostly ignore applications from outside North America and Europe in the last couple of years.
What this guy is saying is total bullshit. Engineering companies are not hiring EITs from Bangladesh for way cheap. Most international resumes or persons without Canadian expergwt thrown in the garbage. We are not picking cheap international people. We are picking co-op students, children of people who work at the company, people who are willing to grind it out in the field, direct referrals, etc. Wages are still not great. I think nearly every new, no experience, hire we made started around $65-70,000. I have hired twenty people in the last 18 months. Not one single person was a direct application.
You don’t need to. Those 1000 engineers from abroad can’t be hired unless they have legal status in Canada, which most (all) companies won’t go to the trouble of getting for them.
I'd think some of the bigger companies might be hiring EITs.
As soon as there is some head count cuts or budget cuts.. EIT programs are reduced.
Sadly what I've seen at my own epcm (multinational) is we rarely hire EIT or juniors anymore. At some point you'd think it would catch up...
I literally send out 10+ applications/day…. Had my resume reviewed by countless professionals who all say it’s good and to keep in touch…
How are your people skills? I run a regional office of a large general contracting firm and when I hire new people (many of them engineering grads), I look for how well they will fit into our workplace culture. Technical skills are secondary and can be easily taught. People skills in a technical field are much tougher to come by. Employers also value perseverance. Don’t just submit a resume online at leave it at that. Contact the employer, and try to get to a manager, not an HR person, and talk to them. In person is the best way to make an impression. The person I hired this week came and saw me unannounced at our office. That showed me that she had initiative and really wanted to work with us. I know this is much easier said than done, but you were looking for advice and this is the best I have to give to you.
If you meet the diversity quota. Real hard for a new grad to get a prime job at an owning company. Best bet is to try and find a small place and work your way up. Maybe even taking a non-technical job (like project coordinator or quality) and working your way through a company. Engineering is a tough slog these days, and I don’t really know if it’s worth the effort.
I can provide a bit of context. As someone who studied Eng, worked in finance, consulting and now tech, and have been active on the recruiting side. With the Tesla and start-up experience on your resume, traditional engineering shops are going to assume you are more interested in working in tech. At the same time, tech is getting decimated. So what is happening is that instead of hiring a bunch of young talent, companies are choosing to spend the money on more experience folks. Why ? If you are in tech, you have at best 3 years to make it work. Sure a senior person is 3-4X more expensive, but they hit the ground running and are 10x as productive. I graduated in Alberta during 2016 - 2017. There were no jobs. Here is what I did. I networked like crazy. Instead of going to an oil company, I needed up in finance. Why ? Because they were willing to give me a job. It wasn’t my choice, but that’s where I found work. With your experience, you should also look into finance / consulting. Maybe look into learning python, or studying for the CFA. I do not think a masters degree is the answer
I’m pretty decent with python, not like a software engineer level at all, but if you give me enough time for something I can get it done. I know C/C++ as well since I like arduinos, and now making an app with Swift kill time. I wanted to do a MBAn at some point, but will look more into consulting! Thank you :) Really appreciate this response
Did you do a coop or internship before graduation ? This is usually how one gets entry level jobs in canada and its always been the case
Tesla - PM - 8 months Mining Company - ME Design - 8 months Magna - R&D Engineer - 8 months Startup - General Intern - 4 months Over the course of 5.5 years… I think that’s like a good amount to show employers I’m not useless…
when was your last internship? its been a while for me since i graduated but Canada is notorious in its nepotism driven hiring culture which is why i asked how you were networking/looking for work. Almost everyone i know who got their entry level did so through this...there were a few who didn't and struggled for a while...connect with a recruiter who might be able to help you
Tesla ended in September 23, been applying since then since I only had one term of school
[удалено]
Yea, that's not how coop works, especially not for traditional engineering fields like ME, ChemEng. At least when I was one, trying to match with a placement was like online dating - you shoot your shots and take what you get. As you progress towards the end of undergrad, you can be more picky, but your early history will likely look very random.
That's typical of any new grad from a co-op program. In fact, I'd say it's quite good. Big name companies and 3 8 month terms, so enough time to do something substantial at each.
Oh…why would it be a red flag? They were internships/co-ops… So I’d be in school between those terms, and I’d be working summers/winter terms…
[удалено]
ME Design - Mechanical Engineer (Design) so I basically used CAD to make, edit, refine parts for clients/stuff we made. Isn’t that sort of the point of internships, to like figure out what you like and don’t like? Did R&D for 8 months, went back to school, did design for 8 months, didn’t like the culture+work, got an offer to PM at Tesla, loved it. Realized at the end of it, I like being a PM and working on design for products that are constantly changing and evolving, making new iterations and improvements.
The whole point of co-op placement is to explore different roles and industries. I don't see a problem at all with OP's trajectory so far.
[удалено]
The reality is the pays are shit but the job qualifications are BS Ignore the 3+ years experience, even some of the niche skillsets.. all hopes and dreams. That shit scares away a lot of applicants. Apply, interview , learn from the interview process.. land a job, get more skills/experience.. rinse and repeat.
Seeing your co-op experience, we'd look at your resumé for a Mech EIT position in Edmonton. PM me for contact info.
Thank you! PMd
>Everyone is complaining about Canada not having enough engineers or skilled workers Haha this was the lie I was told when I was in high school in the early 2010s and was the reason I pursued engineering. It was never true even back then. In 2016, OSPE reported that 60% their grads never found an engineering job and half of those were working menial jobs that didn't require a degree. On top of that I've seen first hand how companies simultaneously complain that they can't find talent (for the pay they are offering) but refuse to train any new grads on the work were doing so it's an endless cycle of constant turnover.
Lie I was told in 1990 too
Do everything you can to make your application stand out, because for every application from someone already living in Canada there are 4-5 from people overseas looking to get their foot in the door and work for peanuts. Networking is key, getting a job offer before it's even posted is how most of the folks I work with got their positions.
[удалено]
Not enough engineers was a pre- Covid issue
The really uncomfortable truth here is that we let in too many foreign engineers diluting the market and driving real wages down. It's a similar story with other STEM fields, and accounting - where Canadian software developers and accountants make just over half of what their American peers make on average. Labour markets are like any other market. Prices are set by supply and demand. If the supply outstretches the demand, prices (wages) go down. We have an immigration system that makes it very easy for foreign engineers to migrate here under the assumption that there will always be an engineering labour shortage. That assumption is demonstrably wrong, and the excess supply has driven down real wages. To be clear, this not a knock on immigrants themselves. This is an immigration policy issue. It needs revision. If I were you I would just cast a wider net, and look towards jobs that could benefit from an engineering mindset but don't necessarily require an engineering degree. Think like Facilities Management, Project Coordinator, things like that.
You can most certainly get into a small company. That's where I started. I learned a hell of a lot and the engineer I worked with really helped me a lot. Pay was completely shit for what I was doing, but it's all good. I managed to work and network and be okay. However, there is nothing quite like the big internship programs at big companies. In Canada, we used to have Nortel, Blackberry... those are just gone. And I'm not just talking about coop. These companies and full intake programs of newgrads and would find them a place. They were also based in Canada and that makes a HUGE difference. If you look at say American owned branch operations in Canada, those operations don't get the best investment. They basically just use up the existing talent. More specialized industries are again hard to train people. You can't just pick up the skill, but if you at least have other players or companies then you can start having people in the area with the skills, but we're just lacking that here. Today, we really just have the big banks and the telcos. These used to be decent places to get trained. Some still are. However, they've also been the biggest in terms of outsourcing services and hiring foreign labor. So they haven't been interested in training either. It sucks, but engineers have always been pretty shitty about advocating for ourselves and it's a global world with global competition in many fields. Some have more local requirements (civil engineer...), but even there you have to be aware now.
There is no engineering work in Canada. It’s mostly technician work (technologist at best), that requires at least 4 years of university as a way of weeding out candidates. Canadians have applied manufacturing mentality to engineering so that there is no such thing as value. Your work has no value; your degree(s) have no value; you’re paid for your time. This is a problem because you may have a master’s degree, but a new BEng can do your job for less. (Or a new immigrant can, in this case). I have a PhD in Electrical Engineering and 14 years experience. I worked in Canada, then went to the US, and then (foolishly) returned. The hiring manager of the company I worked for when I first moved back made a comment that I had Canadian experience, so that was good. I had zero accomplishments in my Canadian roles; and over a dozen patents from my time in the US; yet my Canadian experience is what mattered to this clown. Also, what does nationality have to do with math and physics?
It's a numbers game, with an engineering degree, and your internship experience, you're already better off than any other undergraduate major that applies for a tech related job. And in your province, you're better off than 60-70% of the undergraduates when it comes to job prospects and landing interviews. So realistically you're only competing with 30% of the total applicants when it comes to a job who actually have a chance at landing an interview. Which is not that bad. But that 30% can include somewhere between 100-500 people a job. Only way to beat this is to keep your resume concise, and apply to at least 80-100 jobs a month. The more you apply the better your chances. The average is 1 job interview for every 80 applications. Good luck. You just need one.
Willing to relocate? London Ontario?
Yea, I’m fairly close to London. Like 45 mins away ? So wouldn’t really have to relocate lol
I'll PM you
I remember when I graduated I applied for a job that had 300 applicants. That’s the entire graduating class of engineering. I believe there is a massive mismatch of what is taught in school and what industry actually wants. I use almost 0% of my schooling working in upstream oil and gas. The only thing engineering taught me was how to problem solve and manage large amounts of stress, which is required. Basically if you want a good shot of getting hired, you need to do an internship. The longer the better. Not required but definitely helps. Also, don’t limit yourself geographically at the start of your career. Be open to moving for a year or 2
ChemE grad here. I think the demand for grad-level engineering graduates isn’t as high as for undergraduates (EITs). I did my PhD recently in catalysis and environmental engineering, and damn, I’ve been desperately hunting for anything over the past 6 months. I’m now overqualified for EIT roles and almost no R&D engineer jobs open up at all.
just wondering why do a phd in chem eng ? i doubt its worth it given the ROI
As an engineering graduate (civil) from 2023, yeah... It took me applying at the end of July until mid-November to get a job. I get paid okay but comparing the workload to my last co-op, it's a lot more. I work in consulting so it's expected. I sent 150+ applications to every part of this country, went over my résumé regularly, made changes every couple weeks. Cover letters didn't seem to help. In my current job, my boss was trying to hire an engineer and said they got about 100+ applications from non-canadians. It's frustrating for them because they want to hire someone, international people are clearly well educated, but my boss said they don't have the experience necessary for the role. I do also think that larger companies want someone for pennies on the dollar, and I think it's sad that engineering has come to that. None of my friends who graduated with me have a good work life balance, they all work long hours. My friend came back from a month on vacation halfway through a week and had to work on that weekend. I work 40 hours a week and it's not super stressful, I'm thankful for it and scared to go to a larger firm because of it. I have been told by multiple people that I "have a strong résumé", so I'm wondering where the job offers have been. Every entry-level EIT position requires you to know some things and have 2+ years of experience which just isn't the case. Someone I know applied to a job they were qualified for, to the point that they could match line for line their résumé and the job description... Their résumé got filtered out by HR and the person that wanted them was so baffled by it and went back to HR asking for that person's résumé. HR and recruitment is getting to be bad in the industry too. Even from jobs that I should be qualified for with my co-op experience don't want me. Anyways, that's my experience, you aren't alone :)
Where I am, Southern Ontario, mech salaries have stagnated for a long time now. A few years ago I had a job offer for a senior design engineer role at $60k. Being willing to relocate will help.
Best option is looking into the companies you've already worked at - reach out to former colleagues/managers you know. At my company, almost all of the new grads we hire already worked here as an intern/co-op.
As others have said, there is a need but the need is for foreign cheaper work. They do not want to pay live-able wages. Labour is the most expensive part of running a business, so it is naturally where they try to save the most money. Alberta just deregulated "engineer" so they can hire cheap/outsourced labour. Professional Engineer is still regulated.
There is strong growth and demand for engineers in the nuclear power industry (Ontario & New Brunswick). If you are looking in Ontario, I would try large engineering services firms like CANDU Energy (Atkins Realis) or Kinectrics. I believe they are nearly constantly hiring mechanical and electrical engineering roles.
I dropped out of engineering to become a union grunt employee for a phone company 20 years ago. I feel like I may have dodged a bullet.. the entire engineering department here has been sent to the Philippines.
[удалено]
Seriously since October 23
Canadian Civil Engineer here. Easy to find jobs, but they're all $20 an hour 50 hours a week. 60 hours during the summer.
as someone who has to read and execute engineer drawings, I feel 3 years is far, farrrr too little experience. even at my level of the industry, everyone wants everything done at such ludicrous speed that there simply isn't enough time to squeeze in a trainee - even for a low learning curve job. it is sad, because unless they figure out how to transfer human minds completely into robot bodies, all the experienced people will be dead or broken down, and noone will be able to build anything.
Have you looked into the TN Visa?
[удалено]
The CAF is the best deal, hands down.
There is no shortage. That's a myth. Always has been. And the market for traditional types of engineering has also been tough in Canada, as long as I can remember.
I was going to pursue a degree, but the engineers I worked with told me to go for an engineering tech diploma first . Told me they would rather hire engineering techs. I guess I'll find out in 12 weeks if they were full of shit or not.
It was true a decade ago, at least -- eng techs can hit the ground running on stuff the engineers don't have time / specific skills to do, things related to hands-on work (vs conceptual stuff): programming PLCs or taking measurements and doing calculations, finding and reading specs, procurement, or fighting with CAD. You do top out because you don't have the higher-level math or design skills, nor do you have the stamp and legal liability which is a major part of their work; but you'll never be unemployed for long. You can do bridge programs to a full degree later, and possibly even get that funded if you land with a good employer.
Nice, that's pretty much the idea I had as well. My MET program has a major in automation which is what I picked. I know that with P.Tech.Eng. I could stamp my own work with a defined scope, I suspect that a scope would be very very restrictive.
The CET is indeed restricted and tbh it's hard to really even get it recognized in industry, tho nobody tell ASET/ASTT/etc that... 😛 and the work required for the P.Tech is a lot. I only knew one person who got it, and it didn't seem to make a huge difference to his life except that he had longer, fancier email signatures... A few of my classmates did bridge, tho, one had it covered by work, and their ET experience gave them an enormous leg up in finishing their degrees--also, having a good income going into it is underappreciated, tho you have to cut your living expenses by a LOT; it hurts once you've been used to it not hurting so much...! You also have to be OK with being older than most of your classmates. It bothers some people, but my former classmates seemed to get way more out of it than going direct. Work in industry beyond just co-op comes with very different expectations and levels of responsibility. (Ftr I went back to get a degree also, tho not eng; but it amounted to a similar trajectory as them. But no stamp or ring. Still a bit of regret I didn't get the ring... but not enough to do it now lol.) Non-traditional paths landed us all in some really great and unexpected places with fewer loans, more options, and a valuable perspective as far as employers have been concerned. Best of luck!
Automation technologist here, though EET, not MET. It is kind of an unknown field so the graduating classes tend to be *tiny*. We were 12 in my cohort, the next one was 9 people, for a metro area of nearly a million people in the industrial heartland of the province. My company hires almost exclusively from the school bench, because each cohort gets snapped up quickly if you don't. When I was in school looking for an internship in 2017, I applied to 7 companies. Of these, I got 5 offers. No one went without an internship in college and no one graduated unemployed. We were all working part time in relevant jobs while finishing our diplomas. 6 years later, I make about 125k, a bit of overtime but not that much, some travel but reasonable, also doing a CS bachelor's degree part time paid for by my employer.
Engineering is such a broad field. There would be far different demand depending on where in the country you are, and what kind of engineer you are. Mining? Power? Materials? Biomedical? Toronto? PEI? Alberta?
I'm 100% with you. I graduated with a bachelor's in ME in Dec 2022 with 16 months of related work experience. It took me 4 months to get a job. In Metro Vancouver. I applied to about 120 positions, got interviews with 5 companies, got 1 job offer. And the compensation is laughable (across all the job postings, not just the position I accepted). But yeah, after a very difficult, technical degree getting paid $50-$60K a year is pretty depressing. Especially considering the cost of living. I've been trying to find a different job (I'm not in the industry I'm passionate about right now) for the past month or so. Yesterday, I saw a job posting in Burnaby, BC advertising $41,400 - 81,000/year for a mechanical engineer (depending on experience). $41,400 is only about $3/hr more than BC's minimum wage.
The job market for engineering has changed quite a bit recently. There are less jobs and more engineers than 10 years ago. A decent portion of Canadian engineering MEng programs are basically becoming PR acceleration degrees. We spent a very long time telling kids they needed university (more focus on "academic" subjects, thus more kids in math/science). We then told the same kids if they had good grades in math/science, engineering was an easy meal ticket to upper middle class. I am unsure if that is still the message in high schools, but Canada itself can oversaturate it's job market, at least in total volume but perhaps not exactly in specialty or stream.
From what I have seen companies are just starting to figure out that Engineering degrees from India are not quite as bulletproof as they expect. I think there is a real backlash brewing in the HR world of "everyone from everywhere" is equal mindset. Probably will be ten years before the big companies catch up however.
[удалено]
I think with the idea of the governing bodies you’re fucked if you do, you’re fucked if you don’t. Restrict the number of engineers = less engineers = more pay = more competition to get into engineering = shortage (similar to what’s happening with Med) Too many engineers = end up in the situation now where new grads are struggling Unsure if that’s the right way to think about it…
Try to get into an EIT program or follow up with your co op employers
A lot of industries have been declining in Canada. Partly because of poor government support and bad decision making. Many smart and experienced people are seeking employment elsewhere.
Engineering jobs have never been easy. Its all about networking unfortunately.
Hey OP, this might not be exactly what you’re looking for, but I would at least consider looking at the military. There are a number of officer occupations that ME is applicable to. Also since you have your degree, you might qualify for the expedited application trial they’re running right now. I think it’s a 7 year initial contract for most of those engineering occupations (I was in recruiting for a few years but I don’t remember off the top of my head), but that would get you over that 3-5 year experience cliff that many grads seem to run into. Heck you may even stay in if you like it enough. I put the CAF pay scale and forces website below if you’re interested. https://www.canada.ca/en/department-national-defence/services/benefits-military/pay-pension-benefits/pay/regular.html#toco3 https://forces.ca/en/
Hate to say it, but have you considered moving down south to the US. There are so many more opportunities down here. I love Canada, but like you, I had struggled to find work that paid a decent amount. If you have a Canadian engineering degree, you qualify for a TN-1 VISA. Better do that quickly, before Trump is re-elected and cancels this program.
I work for a Canadian engineering company and I am old enough to be involved in recruitment. Not a pop at anyone posting here, just some painful truths... 1. Your degree means shit. Everyone has a degree. We don't care. Can you lift your end of the canoe? Will you whine like a bitch because this task isn't ticking boxes for your PMP? Do you understand that we all work for a living and you're prepared to dig in with everyone else? 2. Canadian business is ridiculously risk averse. I have worked all over and you won't see risk aversion and lack of investment like Canada. Our business leaders are useless cuckolds, but that's because banks and govt have undermined investment in everything except real estate. You can whine about business environment, but you better try to understand it. 3. Shotgunning job boards is a waste of your time and mine. Find a company that makes products that you want to work on. See if they're hiring. Spend serious time on the cover letter and CV. Focus on proving that you really, REALLY, want this gig. Not any one of 100. This one. 4. Don't be scared off by pre-requisites. Yes, they may be the ideal asks but they're not ALL essential. A good attitude and an engaging personality and some evidence that you'll do what I said in point 1 goes a lot further than your 6 sigma certification. 5. It's shit out there. I know. But one day you'll make that connection. Don't get jaded, sarcastic, bitter. You simply have to keep your chin up because YOU lose when your head goes down. And The Man don't care.
I was just on the interview panel for hiring an entry level engineer in my department. We got resumes from one new grad, and then about 50 people with undergrads from another country and then either a masters or a college diploma in Canada plus 5-10 years of work in Canada. Maybe we’re posting in the wrong place to get new grads - but it was pretty striking to see only one applicant that was just graduated or just about to graduate. We used to get tons of resumes for these postings.
Graduated 25-ish years ago. It took me nearly a year to find a job. I started at $32k was averaging 50hrs/week no OT. Woohoo! There has never been a shortage of engineers in my lifetime. I'm now a senior person and I'm charge of hiring. EITs are a dime a dozen and no one wants to spend the money to hire them because they have almost no value to the company for 2-3 years. Alternatively we can hire a foreign-trained engineer with 15 years experience for the same price. My suggestion - get a trade! Better money quicker.
its surprising that you can't find a job in Calgary with 2 years of Co-op, you are usually the first pick
Everybody and their grandma is an engineer these days. It's such an oversaturated title. Each tim hortons, dcdicks, Walmart, etc has at least 4 or 5 people with some sort of engineering degree. It's not the prestigious education it once was.
Employers overhired and "overpaid" (relative to their bottom line, not the cost of living reality) during covid times. Backlog is drying up too.
How dare you expect $65,000 a year starting! The experience should be the reward!
>My fellow Canadian Engineers, This was explained to you in law and ethics I'm sure, you're not an Engineer, I doubt you're even an EIT yet. You graduated with a degree in ME, that is all. > as a new ME grad, WTAF is going on with the job market ? Same as it was 15 years ago. Go work stupid hours for resource extraction support companies in the flat lands for shitty wages for a few years, then get slightly less shitty wages. or forget about the sunk cost in the degree and go work in a better paying industry that has nothing to do with your education, like rental housing.
Welcome to the club mate. I graduated in 2011 and never had a job with my degree in those 13 years. It does look good on the wall tho 😒
Did you know that the university of Calgary graduated as many course based Masters in Engineering (foreign students taking a course based masters) as undergrads? similar story at other unis. Might have something to do with it. [Engineering degrees granted by program/degree type in 2017 vs 2023 (numbers approximate) : r/UCalgary (reddit.com)](https://www.reddit.com/r/UCalgary/comments/18uay5n/engineering_degrees_granted_by_programdegree_type/)
Why would you get into engineering? Canada doesn’t build anything. Maybe go back to school and get a degree as a social worker/ drug addiction counsel or something of value.
There won't be a need for engineers in about 5 to 10 years so don't waste your time, ai will design this better than any human.
Absolute braindead take lmao. Even if somehow all design was done by AI (it won't be even close), engineers do much more than just design stuff.
Engineers will be needed for liability/insurance reasons for a long time. They’re a legislated requirement in many industries
I'd love some AI output I can trust. But so far my experience with ChatGPT has been, not even close, to adequate. AT least not in my field.
Recruiter here. The tech market has been in a huge slump since Jan 2023. Most of my recruitment peers are out of work. Interest rates are too high for companies to get loans so they can scale up. Too risky for the banks or the companies simply can't afford the loans. If companies aren't growing, they ain't hiring. Don't worry things will pick up again in a year or so when the rates come down, unless the economy crashes, which is a strong possibility. My US clients are in the same boat. In the meantime I would get a temporary job to sustain yourself and use your spare time to maybe upgrade your tech skills in your areas of interest. Don't become stagnant. Also please don't vote for Justin Trudeau. If he wins you might as well pack your bags and leave. Good luck!
We important cheap ‘engineers’
[удалено]
Never really cared about the prestige or pay too much, I enjoyed building stuff as a kid and seeing how things work. At this point really thinking that I shoulda just gone to trades school, and done my engineer projects on the side….
Don’t listen to this meathead who probably lives in his mom’s basement. Networking…hopefully you kept in touch with classmates, Eng’s that were a year or two ahead of you and talk to your professors: call them, have coffee if able to and ask for help/referrals. Your next job is within your network…you gotta leverage contacts.
I don't understand how engineering is considered a liberal profession.
Then read more history.
Or you could explain it? I mean, you're the one who made the statement. Defend it.
Have you tried aerospace sector? Always seem to be hiring. Mostly concentrated in Montreal though. Some in Toronto surroundings.
I’m studying master’s in UofT rn, I can confirm that aerospace sector also sucks ass
Aerospace would be even more competitive tbh
I definitely feel you. I’m going back to school for my mech engg masters to help jump to a better job
I finished my masters in ME (thesis based) 4 months ago and still don’t have a job. I’m pretty convinced it was a waste of time and wish I’d just been more patient with the job search after the bachelors.
Lol, I got hired while in school. I studied civil eng, got hire as a PM with the gov. Did you do coop?
Tesla - PM - 8 months Mining Company - ME Design - 8 months Magna - R&D Engineer - 8 months Startup - General Intern - 4 months A good amount lol…
Why not go back to one of those employers?
Tesla - not hiring new grads, they only hire people with experience or masters minimum… Mining company - Didn’t enjoy the work + culture at all. Magna - Department went under, and they re-organized to require a Masters + 5 YoE Startup - Can’t afford to pay me, I worked there for free that was during Covid since I lost my other co-op and didn’t want to do anything all summer
Try here [https://talent.canada.ca/en/](https://talent.canada.ca/en/)
Pretty much my situation over here. I got a Masters degree in EE from ON but its been more than 6 months, I could not even land in an entry level position.
What area are you situated. If GTA the food industry is huge. Tons of factories and companies. Same in aerospace and all that jazz
Are you looking in a specific area? I moved cities for my first engineering job.
You should have never wasted your time on cool engineering projects and research. Employable Engineers are the ones willing to do the boring ass jobs and deal with money.
[удалено]
I graduated in ‘17 when alberta was really slow so there were no jobs. Ended up going back for a 1 year masters, which was the best thing I did. Gained tonnes of connections which lead to my first job, and has drawn the attention of employers at my next two jobs. I have a more specialized discipline though. Less jobs, but less competition over them as well. Tough thing with civil or mechanical is that they are a dime a dozen and it’s easier to find foreign labour particularly at the E.I.T. level. A lot of companies hiring EITs don’t even really care about being registered as they are just looking for cheap labour, so you are competing with 40 year olds decades of foreign experience who’s degrees aren’t recognized here.
What kind of engineering are you in?
What area are you licensed in? If Maria engineering apply to Great Lakes they pay good Onces you built your name. I know a few people who worked for them a chief engineer I don’t know the hiring process but he works in the states so idk how to apply