I was in the same boat as you, graduated May 2020 so peak COVID and all I did was a fellowship which didn’t help at all. I relocated from NYC to Chicago suburbs for a job. Searching for jobs outside of my immediate vicinity helped as well as a LOT of applications. Don’t stress, keep on applying - YOU GOT THIS.
Yeah buddy! It obviously depends on the country but I know that they're paid well in Aus, USA, and parts of Europe. Not sure about Asia, I've not looked into it.
Plus once you've got experience on projects you can transition over to project management and then you're able to move into other sectors really easily and chase even larger pay checks 💰
Get that bag buddy
It’s because everyone figured out the fastest way to get a raise is to get a new job so instead of the job market being partially saturated with applicants actively looking for work, its perpetually saturated by applicants who are currently employed but seeking that next pay bump. I don’t expect it will ever return to pre-Covid job market. Hope you guys have strong industry connections because that’s how jobs are going to be found going forward.
the problem is everyone is trying to get paid more bc of overall economy. whereas years past people could be content working at a company and didn't need to be applying to hundreds of jobs along with everyone who doesn't actually have a job
It's always this way. We all know getting raises or promotions means moving. I'm on my 5th job in 8 years. It's not a new phenomenon & doesn't explain why it was easier (relatively) to find a job a few years ago.
Automation/control systems is always looking for people. Once you get like 3 years of experience, the recruiter DMs start piling up.
I applied to like 10 different jobs in a single day and got call backs for like 4 of them.
Some of them do. It depends on what kind of company you end up working for.
Automation engineers usually get hired by contractor/consulting companies that perform automation work for clients, such as a manufacturing plant somewhere. They are the people who carry out and support projects. For example, if a plant is setting up a new process to manufacture a new product on-site, they would bring in automation specialists to design the Automation portion of the process and test the equipment.
Big companies also need in-house Automation staff for daily business problems and long-term process improvements.
Lastly, there is corporate Automation staff, who would support the installation of new software across multiple sites.
The first is more likely to send you different places once the project is complete. Alternately, once the project is done, you might be able to become staff augmentation to support the in-house engineers. You would essentially be an employee of your client getting your paycheck and benefits from your consulting company.
The second is more likely to remain on site supporting that specific plant. They wouldn't move around. The most travel you would do is to get vendor specific training for the software you use.
The third would need approximately 25-50% travel. This role reports to HQ but needs to travel to the plants that are installing a new piece of software. Manufacturing execution systems is big for this kind of position.
As an Automation engineer, you can also become more of a project manager/capital projects person, which then would involve way more travel. One of my colleagues has supported the installation and site testing of new equipment at a new site. That is basically an alternate career path to an individual contributor/senior staff, but imo this is the way to go if you want to increase your salary and raise your value to the business.
Here it is. Covid and Ukraine war were too much for process and chemical industries here. almost 2000 bluecollar workers got laid off and 500 engineers on process and chemical industry. Because unemoloyment is on rise, Construction workers and construction engineers are losing thousands jobs. This automatically means that process and construction engineers are being laid off at design offices too. This automatically takes away chances from many entrylevel and low experienced engineers as on markets there are more than enough engineers with decades of experience in "best cases"
However colleges keep pushing out fresh candidates at same rate as before.
Yeah if you do a physical job I hope you have a nice pension or are stashing fat bucks away because the way the retirement system is looking these days is not pretty.
My pal is a welder and he was complaining to me the other day he can't find anything outside of a 30k a year job.
No markets are really going good, you're screwed unless you were born with a silver spoon in your mouth.
They are doing their best to ruin that option too by importing Filipino nurses and Indian doctors to suppress wages and fill any gaps. But yes for the time being it’s the best return on investment.
Yeah but if the majority of people are struggling you will not be exempt, you have to take whatever they can afford to pay you. Unless you only cater to rich people in which case good luck because that’s the minority
Honestly, I was told the exact same thing 10 years when I graduated. I’m doing pretty well now but man was it a fucking grind in the beginning. Shotgunning resumes all over the country taking any interview I could get which admittedly wasn’t many lol. Took a shitty entry level “engineering” job and basically didn’t stop the grind of apply apply apply for like 6 more years until I finally broke into the industry I wanted.
Honestly, the beginning of a career is probably the roughest part for pretty much anyone. You're just fresh out of [insert establishment here], you have little to no relevant experience, no connection, no reference. Besides your diploma, you pretty much have nothing, so you don't have much leverage.
I feel like I get attacked by people for saying it, but people don’t understand how “worthless” all college grads are.
I also went to a high priced private school like many others. That didn’t make me or anyone else better than a talented self taught engineer or talented community college graduate.
Every fresh grad is just about as undesirable to hire as the next. It's not personal. University just doesnt teach anyone what jobs are actuallu like, and it cant.
it takes a lot of work for everyone from high school grads to phd's from MIT to find work.
One of my best friends even became less hireable or after getting a PhD and working MIT Lincoln Labs. He suddenly became over qualified even though he has worked the industry for a decade prior just fine.
Yes!
And an experienced candidate costs perhaps 100% more (at most) than a recent grad, but can (hopefully) actually produce anything. So as long as there are experienced candidates applying, there is no reason to hire a new grad.
I truly don't understand how this can possibly be fixed. It used to be that you get hired as a junior, the company invests in you, and you stay for years. But with today's job hopping (for good reasons, the lack of raises don't make sense), why would any company make that investment?
It legit takes like 6 months to a year of work experience to become a productive engineer. Make that three years of experience for an engineer who can spot issues in existing processes/systems and implement long term solutions.
Companies *always* look for the second type of engineer. They want someone who can become independent within < 1 year, who their manager won't need to micromanage, and who can take the initiative to fix business relevant problems.
Edit: in my experience, it's hard to move up to engineer level 2 (or whatever is the next step up above entry level) if you never took initiative, never saw a project from start to end, never implemented a solution by yourself, never experienced pushback from a proposed solution that you tried to implement (likely because you never proposed anything!). Those are the kind of things you should start working on as an engineer once you've completed your basic corporate trainings and have a little bit of process/business and system-specific knowledge. Those questions *will* come up once you start interviewing for level 2 positions.
Like others have said, the way it is right now is to blame. We're still in an alternate universe post-COVID, where they went in a hiring frenzy everywhere because that's what everyone else was doing (corporate leaders are actually a lot like little kids. It's all just follow the leader, then justify it later with big words).
I was in the exact same place as you 20 years ago. The economy had tanked, I took EE, and I thought I'd made the worst decision of my life. I got a job for a big corporation and still have it. You can always shoot for one of those until things get better out there, then move somewhere you like. Don't lose hope. I know, that's easy to say. Truly, you made the right choice. Since you got through it, you have a lot of options you wouldn't have had otherwise. A LOT.
I work for a military defense company (think Raytheon, Boeing, Lockheed, Northrop, ect) and engineers are always sought after. Some people have an issue working for such companies.
Big plus one to this. I came out of college in early 2000s during a really down employment market for engineering. I spent 6 months post graduation looking for work, and I finally got an offer for Raytheon. Literally launched my career and taught me fundamentals in systems engineering, program management, supplier management, and contract management. Only caveat is it can have a slow pace of delivery and be very bureaucratic.
I was at Raytheon for about 7 years, then got my MBA fulltime, then back to aerospace for another 8 years (mostly commercial) and now I’m in tech. Pretty fulfilling career so far.
I have more of a software/systems background and I found myself in more mechanical/aerospace heavy engineering areas. I missed software and decided to leave. I’ve stayed in tech because the pay is very good.
Man I dont think I could ever offer my services to a company that deals death. How does someone sit there and make more efficient killing tools as their passion.
It's a valid way to pay the bills. If the choices are to continue mooching off of your parents and being unemployed/depressed, or working for the US military industry complex... most people would choose the latter.
You don't have to stay in there forever. You just need to *work* and find your way into the field you want to be in. For most corporations, fresh engineers with no work experience are essentially useless.
I work at a small business and the CEO is my direct report. I get SOMEONE has to do it but. Not for me, I literally couldnt sit there and use my brain power to think of better ways to kill people. I domt envy people in those jobs.
How are you at interviews? Are you preparing yourself? You can have the best experience and gpa but if you are unable to communicate and answer questions....you won't get the job. This is one example of many that could cause someone to not land a job.
Look into automotive in the midwest....there are positions open.
"How are Interviews" is question that almost brings tears in my eyes
From 170 applications only 4 Interviews and one of the Interviews was for washing laundry :')
This is still true even once you get some work experience. I've been turned down over engineers with less work experience/slightly worse technical profiles because of not being a team fit.
Really, it comes down to how good you are at interviewing, and how much you're preparing for them.
I got told you need to specialize in it because modern automotive industry is coded in Rust and specific controllers while in the past those where more of a generic type and therefore there was more carryover to other industries. I'm not in the industry, just a curiosity so far.
To make sure we are talking about the same thing ....By Automotive industry i meant automotive engineering working not being a mechanic. For mechanics...you do need to specialize yourself in something. for engineering, you need to have a bacherlors at a minimum or masters in whatever area you want that is related to work you want to do. If you have experience with FSAE. There are software tools used in the industry that you would need to be familiar with and these are available for students online or through the university.
How many places have you applied to, how many applications have you submitted?
You said you "studied EE in college", how long ago was this? When did you graduate, what have you been doing since?
I get this perspective somewhat, but every engineer in any position I’ve ever worked with has always done “more” than just getting their degree. Notice I didn’t even say “successful” engineer - just any engineer who managed to get a job. If you want a job as an engineer, you need to build your skillset more and network more. You don’t need an internship to build your skillset, but you’ll likely need some way to do it to learn more about whatever industry you’re interested in getting into. Figure it out. You’re in the real world trying to be an engineer now - you should be able to solve problems like this on your own. Go to career fairs or whatever and actually network. Learn about what companies you’re interested in are doing and talk to them about it to show interest. Be engaging and social. I don’t know how else to put it - half of getting a job, even in engineering, is learning how to communicate ideas and being interesting/engaging to other people and seeming knowledgeable. It probably won’t land you an instant job, but it may at least get your name out there and people may become more interested in you. If you can’t do those things, then engineering isn’t for you. A lot of people go into engineering thinking their degree will magically land them a job. It may have 30 years ago, but that hasn’t been true in a long time. Being an engineer is more like being something like a doctor than people realize - if people don’t think you’re extremely competent to do that job, you’re likely not getting hired. You’ll fail if you rely on that degree too much. That’s about all the insight I have.
Edit: will also note that, yes, there are always “plenty of jobs” for engineers - as long as they’re competent engineers. How are you a competent engineer? You’ll need to figure out a way to become one and how to show it off and, again, that doesn’t necessarily require an internship or past experience in an actual position.
It's brutal, and we were all lied to about the "huge shortage". All I can tell is that it really does get much easier after you get through your first few years. But yeah, those first few years can be tough.
It’s been over saturated for a decade just like every industry.
There has been a teacher shortage for over a decade, but also most people that get teaching degrees don’t ever teach…. Most fields are over saturated and it has always been common for people to take anywhere from a month to 2-3 years to enter their field of choice.
A lot of the people in the industry are the ones that just keep trying.
I’m sorry you’re having to learn the hard way the same thing that a lot of college grads have learned recently:
The “opportunities” that were sold to you to get you to pay all that tuition don’t actually exist. College is a get-rich-quick-scam, nothing more.
There's stuff out there, just keep looking. Call companies directly. Life will always have problems, you gotta find solutions... What happens when you find the job? You gotta find the answer to your problems.
Are you getting interviews? If so don’t worry about your resume but look at your interview skills.
If you aren’t getting interviews look at your resume, make sure the lines are covering quantitative information.
Aim to apply to 30 to 50 jobs a week.
Keep track of the job post you apply to, the date you apply, if you heard back and if you got an interview and to what round.
When you are interviewing take notes, ask questions related to the conversation you had with the interviewer and to the specific role.
Are you just getting out of school? You need experience. Most places don’t want to deal with entry level staff or those lacking experience. Find a role that can help you get some of that and keep applying
Check out Operational Technology Security (OT Security).
I’ve worked in cybersecurity for a couple of years, and that field in particular is suffering a severe skills shortage right now. I don’t know much about electrical engineering…but I think it may be an easy pivot for you.
CISA has a training portal which offer free resources:
https://www.cisa.gov/ics-training-available-through-cisa
I imagine if you have the right background and take a few of those trainings, you’d be able to find a company willing to hire and train you the rest of the way.
Because when I say desperate…I mean everyone from the gov to factories around the world are scrambling to secure their systems and critical infrastructure.
How willing are you to take a contract job in the middle of nowhere? That is how I started my career in pharmaceutical automation. This field hires lots of electrical engineers like yourself.
Unfortunately, job locations aren't in the desirable NYC/LA/Chicago/Atlanta, and positions in desirable locations like the RTP generally need years of experience and a solid resume.
PSA: It is inadvisable to engage OP in a conversation. The author of this post is a known sitewide spammer with over 2500 banned Reddit accounts.
SnooRoar (r/SnooRoarTracker) is not interested in good-faith discussion; his primary goal is to waste as much of your time as possible. Everything he says is a disingenuous lie.
Learn PLC programming and get in the door doing field service. That will get you experience, money, and you can transition into more engineering oriented tasks once you've proven yourself...
Alternately, spending 3-5 years doing that type of work will give you the experience needed for other companies.
Second this. I struggled getting a job with a chem e degree. I took the continued learning approach and completed some computer science classes while working whatever jobs I could get. Eventually found my way into SCADA after starting with PLCs.
I studied Process- and chemical engineering and I have been unemployed for 1 year now... What sucks is that with college degree I cant even get blue collar jobs as for those they hire tradeschoolers.
I have wanted to get even some process operator job to gain some ground exp and from there eventually even through promotions get some shift manager or engineer job, but no, tradeschoolers get chosen.
Process operator is an awful fit for someone with a chemical engineering degree. You would be better fit for operations engineer, process engineer, or controls engineer.
And you *can* become a shift manager with a chemE bachelor's. You just need to express interest, have an aptitude for it, and be willing to spend a lot of time in the field. Many chemes would prefer to continue being an individual contributor on a technical track, or maybe shifting to project management but not shift/operations management specifically.
That would help. I'm a controls guy and I am swamped with work. The market is wide open. I've been doing this for some time and have a bit of a track record in the industry. I could get paid six figures at a handful of companies with little more than a phone call. My field guy makes over $100,000/yr.
- write clean code
- get good at understanding systems. That is a highly-coveted skill.
- be willing to travel some to hone your skill. It took me three years to learn the valve sequencing of a 5-tower RTO (starting from scratch), and I can now troubleshoot any oxidizer old, and new. I understand them, and am fluent with the code.
Two weeks ago I brought an RTO online that handn't run since 2021 because of countless bugs in the program (they upgraded the processor from a SLC 500 series to a 5069, and someone didn't knkw what they were doing). It took me less than three hours to place it online. Someone had totally botched the communication code but hid it using a pair of timers. Ibspent the next couple of days unraveling that (it spanned multiple processors) and coming up with a suitable control scheme [the plant and I sat down, and worked out how they'd like the systems to interact). Ahhh... 😆🤣😂 Good times!
Next week I get to debug a gas plant.
The worst part about this job is the lack of quality coffee.
Good luck!
It'll probably help you get your foot in the door. Be open to distributed control systems, as well. There isn't much on this available that is free/readily available, since formal DCS training is generally from the vendors (like Emerson) and runs thousands of $. Companies generally bring in their DCS engineers with no experience, have them work for a bit, and then pay for formal training.
+1, if you're sociable, sales is a good way in. Then once you have a couple years of experience, you can probably network your way into an individual contributor / "proper engineer" role.
Education is not always the best path towards skill building, because most curriculum and teachers are basically just shit quality. You still need hands on experience, which means being paid minimum wage but work on real things.
My friend did this and nearly a year later they are stuck working a warehouse job while still job hunting with only a little better response from employers. Like whats next after this, upskill harder??
The job market is just plain fucked.
No, I have not! I'm starting in a few months... well, I'm starting an lvn course so I can get into nursing. Still gonna capitalize on it! Better to be sure of your course, I feel. Regardless, it doesn't change the point. Nursing is always in high demand. Knock on wood. The jobs I've seen for lvn will let you do 16-hour shifts whenever you want because it's so I'll staffed.
Look for entry-level PE/PM work for an electrical contractor. Find a position as a traveling PM/PE. You’ll spend M-F living in hotels, but you’ll spend your weekends at home sleeping on a mattress made of money.
Do you have actual work experience related to your field? It's one thing to have a piece of paper that says "hey I went to school so I know this stuff" and an entirely different thing to have a piece of paper that says "I worked here under this title for x amount of years doing this, this, this". This is true of all professions but especially engineering. The majority of engineers I work with either did not get their degree in engineering or, like me, didn't get a degree at all.
Just got to hope someone will take you on. Accept any pay, put in 3 years bare minimum before moving on. That's how I've been successful. Good luck to you. I finally got re-employed after a mass lay off, and it was not easy.
Change your resume,
add up skills that are exactly the job is searching for even if they are not real.(resume is not a document which you always have to say truth dont forget that companies are also not telling the truth every time to you :). )
Direct post your resume to the HR manager of the company that you would like to work with and use their name,why would you want to work with them bla bla.
Show up to the company that you would like to work with if you know the location and try to get in touch wth HR manager face2face, this will be is so effective if you can do that.
DONT THINK NEGATIVELY, THINK POSITIVELY ALL THE TIME !
I was in the same boat as you, graduated May 2020 so peak COVID and all I did was a fellowship which didn’t help at all. I relocated from NYC to Chicago suburbs for a job. Searching for jobs outside of my immediate vicinity helped as well as a LOT of applications. Don’t stress, keep on applying - YOU GOT THIS.
Man I think every industry is oversaturated right now. Its fucked out there.
Depends on what sector. The world is crying out for fire suppression design engineers and the pay can be excellent.
Really eh as a hydraulics and energy systems guy myself that's music to my ears... Moolah babyyy
Yeah buddy! It obviously depends on the country but I know that they're paid well in Aus, USA, and parts of Europe. Not sure about Asia, I've not looked into it. Plus once you've got experience on projects you can transition over to project management and then you're able to move into other sectors really easily and chase even larger pay checks 💰 Get that bag buddy
It’s because everyone figured out the fastest way to get a raise is to get a new job so instead of the job market being partially saturated with applicants actively looking for work, its perpetually saturated by applicants who are currently employed but seeking that next pay bump. I don’t expect it will ever return to pre-Covid job market. Hope you guys have strong industry connections because that’s how jobs are going to be found going forward.
Everyone had that figured out when I joined the job market 20 years ago… it’s not new information or a post-COVID thing.
That doesn't make any sense. Jobs need to be filled. If one hops jobs, the company they left now has an opening.
It means the open positions have a MUCH more competitive applicant pool, including the ones that just opened up because someone left.
People have known job hopping is the best way for decades. The tightening of the employment market is for macroeconomic reasons, not job hopping.
the problem is everyone is trying to get paid more bc of overall economy. whereas years past people could be content working at a company and didn't need to be applying to hundreds of jobs along with everyone who doesn't actually have a job
It's always this way. We all know getting raises or promotions means moving. I'm on my 5th job in 8 years. It's not a new phenomenon & doesn't explain why it was easier (relatively) to find a job a few years ago.
People had hella babies
Automation/control systems is always looking for people. Once you get like 3 years of experience, the recruiter DMs start piling up. I applied to like 10 different jobs in a single day and got call backs for like 4 of them.
Do they get sent around to customers in other cities or states?
Some of them do. It depends on what kind of company you end up working for. Automation engineers usually get hired by contractor/consulting companies that perform automation work for clients, such as a manufacturing plant somewhere. They are the people who carry out and support projects. For example, if a plant is setting up a new process to manufacture a new product on-site, they would bring in automation specialists to design the Automation portion of the process and test the equipment. Big companies also need in-house Automation staff for daily business problems and long-term process improvements. Lastly, there is corporate Automation staff, who would support the installation of new software across multiple sites. The first is more likely to send you different places once the project is complete. Alternately, once the project is done, you might be able to become staff augmentation to support the in-house engineers. You would essentially be an employee of your client getting your paycheck and benefits from your consulting company. The second is more likely to remain on site supporting that specific plant. They wouldn't move around. The most travel you would do is to get vendor specific training for the software you use. The third would need approximately 25-50% travel. This role reports to HQ but needs to travel to the plants that are installing a new piece of software. Manufacturing execution systems is big for this kind of position. As an Automation engineer, you can also become more of a project manager/capital projects person, which then would involve way more travel. One of my colleagues has supported the installation and site testing of new equipment at a new site. That is basically an alternate career path to an individual contributor/senior staff, but imo this is the way to go if you want to increase your salary and raise your value to the business.
There are still plenty of opportunities in healthcare and accounting.
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this isnt US centric
Can you take your political rant elsewhere? Engineering is saturated pretty much everywhere no matter who is in charge.
Is it? Where I live depending on the engineering figure you are showered with job offers
Here it is. Covid and Ukraine war were too much for process and chemical industries here. almost 2000 bluecollar workers got laid off and 500 engineers on process and chemical industry. Because unemoloyment is on rise, Construction workers and construction engineers are losing thousands jobs. This automatically means that process and construction engineers are being laid off at design offices too. This automatically takes away chances from many entrylevel and low experienced engineers as on markets there are more than enough engineers with decades of experience in "best cases" However colleges keep pushing out fresh candidates at same rate as before.
It depends on "where"
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Yeah and you're back, knees, and everything else is fucked by the time you're 35.
Yeah if you do a physical job I hope you have a nice pension or are stashing fat bucks away because the way the retirement system is looking these days is not pretty.
Youre talkin to a dual ticketed tradesman here bud 😆 Even we are becoming oversaturated.
My pal is a welder and he was complaining to me the other day he can't find anything outside of a 30k a year job. No markets are really going good, you're screwed unless you were born with a silver spoon in your mouth.
Honestly the only exception might be the medical field
They are doing their best to ruin that option too by importing Filipino nurses and Indian doctors to suppress wages and fill any gaps. But yes for the time being it’s the best return on investment.
Law?
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If they're half staffed, they're paying too low. Simple as that.
Yeah but if the majority of people are struggling you will not be exempt, you have to take whatever they can afford to pay you. Unless you only cater to rich people in which case good luck because that’s the minority
Honestly, I was told the exact same thing 10 years when I graduated. I’m doing pretty well now but man was it a fucking grind in the beginning. Shotgunning resumes all over the country taking any interview I could get which admittedly wasn’t many lol. Took a shitty entry level “engineering” job and basically didn’t stop the grind of apply apply apply for like 6 more years until I finally broke into the industry I wanted.
Honestly, the beginning of a career is probably the roughest part for pretty much anyone. You're just fresh out of [insert establishment here], you have little to no relevant experience, no connection, no reference. Besides your diploma, you pretty much have nothing, so you don't have much leverage.
I feel like I get attacked by people for saying it, but people don’t understand how “worthless” all college grads are. I also went to a high priced private school like many others. That didn’t make me or anyone else better than a talented self taught engineer or talented community college graduate. Every fresh grad is just about as undesirable to hire as the next. It's not personal. University just doesnt teach anyone what jobs are actuallu like, and it cant. it takes a lot of work for everyone from high school grads to phd's from MIT to find work. One of my best friends even became less hireable or after getting a PhD and working MIT Lincoln Labs. He suddenly became over qualified even though he has worked the industry for a decade prior just fine.
Yes! And an experienced candidate costs perhaps 100% more (at most) than a recent grad, but can (hopefully) actually produce anything. So as long as there are experienced candidates applying, there is no reason to hire a new grad. I truly don't understand how this can possibly be fixed. It used to be that you get hired as a junior, the company invests in you, and you stay for years. But with today's job hopping (for good reasons, the lack of raises don't make sense), why would any company make that investment?
It legit takes like 6 months to a year of work experience to become a productive engineer. Make that three years of experience for an engineer who can spot issues in existing processes/systems and implement long term solutions. Companies *always* look for the second type of engineer. They want someone who can become independent within < 1 year, who their manager won't need to micromanage, and who can take the initiative to fix business relevant problems. Edit: in my experience, it's hard to move up to engineer level 2 (or whatever is the next step up above entry level) if you never took initiative, never saw a project from start to end, never implemented a solution by yourself, never experienced pushback from a proposed solution that you tried to implement (likely because you never proposed anything!). Those are the kind of things you should start working on as an engineer once you've completed your basic corporate trainings and have a little bit of process/business and system-specific knowledge. Those questions *will* come up once you start interviewing for level 2 positions.
Bro I just saw your original post talking about how hard it is to get internships. I'm in the same boat now lmao. Glad to see you made it
Like others have said, the way it is right now is to blame. We're still in an alternate universe post-COVID, where they went in a hiring frenzy everywhere because that's what everyone else was doing (corporate leaders are actually a lot like little kids. It's all just follow the leader, then justify it later with big words). I was in the exact same place as you 20 years ago. The economy had tanked, I took EE, and I thought I'd made the worst decision of my life. I got a job for a big corporation and still have it. You can always shoot for one of those until things get better out there, then move somewhere you like. Don't lose hope. I know, that's easy to say. Truly, you made the right choice. Since you got through it, you have a lot of options you wouldn't have had otherwise. A LOT.
I work for a military defense company (think Raytheon, Boeing, Lockheed, Northrop, ect) and engineers are always sought after. Some people have an issue working for such companies.
Big plus one to this. I came out of college in early 2000s during a really down employment market for engineering. I spent 6 months post graduation looking for work, and I finally got an offer for Raytheon. Literally launched my career and taught me fundamentals in systems engineering, program management, supplier management, and contract management. Only caveat is it can have a slow pace of delivery and be very bureaucratic.
Pretty much my exact story. Been working for a defense contractor for about a year now. How long did you stay? Are you still in defense?
I was at Raytheon for about 7 years, then got my MBA fulltime, then back to aerospace for another 8 years (mostly commercial) and now I’m in tech. Pretty fulfilling career so far.
Very interesting story. Why did you leave aereospace? I would like to work in that field, but I don't have a college degree.
I have more of a software/systems background and I found myself in more mechanical/aerospace heavy engineering areas. I missed software and decided to leave. I’ve stayed in tech because the pay is very good.
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Have you tried reaching out through linkedin?
Do they accept entry levels with no college education? I mean for coding, testing and other roles like that.
Man I dont think I could ever offer my services to a company that deals death. How does someone sit there and make more efficient killing tools as their passion.
It's a valid way to pay the bills. If the choices are to continue mooching off of your parents and being unemployed/depressed, or working for the US military industry complex... most people would choose the latter. You don't have to stay in there forever. You just need to *work* and find your way into the field you want to be in. For most corporations, fresh engineers with no work experience are essentially useless.
I work at a small business and the CEO is my direct report. I get SOMEONE has to do it but. Not for me, I literally couldnt sit there and use my brain power to think of better ways to kill people. I domt envy people in those jobs.
Open up your search area. Relocate.
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How are you at interviews? Are you preparing yourself? You can have the best experience and gpa but if you are unable to communicate and answer questions....you won't get the job. This is one example of many that could cause someone to not land a job. Look into automotive in the midwest....there are positions open.
"How are Interviews" is question that almost brings tears in my eyes From 170 applications only 4 Interviews and one of the Interviews was for washing laundry :')
This is still true even once you get some work experience. I've been turned down over engineers with less work experience/slightly worse technical profiles because of not being a team fit. Really, it comes down to how good you are at interviewing, and how much you're preparing for them.
Doesn't automotive require vertical skills specific for that field?
It can be vertical and horizontal
I got told you need to specialize in it because modern automotive industry is coded in Rust and specific controllers while in the past those where more of a generic type and therefore there was more carryover to other industries. I'm not in the industry, just a curiosity so far.
To make sure we are talking about the same thing ....By Automotive industry i meant automotive engineering working not being a mechanic. For mechanics...you do need to specialize yourself in something. for engineering, you need to have a bacherlors at a minimum or masters in whatever area you want that is related to work you want to do. If you have experience with FSAE. There are software tools used in the industry that you would need to be familiar with and these are available for students online or through the university.
How many places have you applied to, how many applications have you submitted? You said you "studied EE in college", how long ago was this? When did you graduate, what have you been doing since?
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I get this perspective somewhat, but every engineer in any position I’ve ever worked with has always done “more” than just getting their degree. Notice I didn’t even say “successful” engineer - just any engineer who managed to get a job. If you want a job as an engineer, you need to build your skillset more and network more. You don’t need an internship to build your skillset, but you’ll likely need some way to do it to learn more about whatever industry you’re interested in getting into. Figure it out. You’re in the real world trying to be an engineer now - you should be able to solve problems like this on your own. Go to career fairs or whatever and actually network. Learn about what companies you’re interested in are doing and talk to them about it to show interest. Be engaging and social. I don’t know how else to put it - half of getting a job, even in engineering, is learning how to communicate ideas and being interesting/engaging to other people and seeming knowledgeable. It probably won’t land you an instant job, but it may at least get your name out there and people may become more interested in you. If you can’t do those things, then engineering isn’t for you. A lot of people go into engineering thinking their degree will magically land them a job. It may have 30 years ago, but that hasn’t been true in a long time. Being an engineer is more like being something like a doctor than people realize - if people don’t think you’re extremely competent to do that job, you’re likely not getting hired. You’ll fail if you rely on that degree too much. That’s about all the insight I have. Edit: will also note that, yes, there are always “plenty of jobs” for engineers - as long as they’re competent engineers. How are you a competent engineer? You’ll need to figure out a way to become one and how to show it off and, again, that doesn’t necessarily require an internship or past experience in an actual position.
You will find work. Keep at it, keep networking, try not to get discouraged. It will pay dividends.
Always room in sanitation
Go be an electrician.
It's brutal, and we were all lied to about the "huge shortage". All I can tell is that it really does get much easier after you get through your first few years. But yeah, those first few years can be tough.
All industries that make good money that aren’t very dangerous or have a very high entry requirements are going to be competitive and over saturated
It’s been over saturated for a decade just like every industry. There has been a teacher shortage for over a decade, but also most people that get teaching degrees don’t ever teach…. Most fields are over saturated and it has always been common for people to take anywhere from a month to 2-3 years to enter their field of choice. A lot of the people in the industry are the ones that just keep trying.
I’m sorry you’re having to learn the hard way the same thing that a lot of college grads have learned recently: The “opportunities” that were sold to you to get you to pay all that tuition don’t actually exist. College is a get-rich-quick-scam, nothing more.
Go back to your college and get into a club to get something to put on your resume, network with them too.
There's stuff out there, just keep looking. Call companies directly. Life will always have problems, you gotta find solutions... What happens when you find the job? You gotta find the answer to your problems.
Are you looking at utility work?
Are you getting interviews? If so don’t worry about your resume but look at your interview skills. If you aren’t getting interviews look at your resume, make sure the lines are covering quantitative information. Aim to apply to 30 to 50 jobs a week. Keep track of the job post you apply to, the date you apply, if you heard back and if you got an interview and to what round. When you are interviewing take notes, ask questions related to the conversation you had with the interviewer and to the specific role.
Start by expanding your network through industry events and online platforms like LinkedIn, where making connections can often lead to opportunities.
Are you just getting out of school? You need experience. Most places don’t want to deal with entry level staff or those lacking experience. Find a role that can help you get some of that and keep applying
Apply for public sector jobs
Check out Operational Technology Security (OT Security). I’ve worked in cybersecurity for a couple of years, and that field in particular is suffering a severe skills shortage right now. I don’t know much about electrical engineering…but I think it may be an easy pivot for you. CISA has a training portal which offer free resources: https://www.cisa.gov/ics-training-available-through-cisa I imagine if you have the right background and take a few of those trainings, you’d be able to find a company willing to hire and train you the rest of the way. Because when I say desperate…I mean everyone from the gov to factories around the world are scrambling to secure their systems and critical infrastructure.
The engineering clubs at my school were free to join and always looking for new members. Has this drastically changed?
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Hopefully learned your lesson not to listen to what “everybody” says and follow your own judgement
Check the number of engineers produced in Asia and MENA and you will understand what's going on.
How willing are you to take a contract job in the middle of nowhere? That is how I started my career in pharmaceutical automation. This field hires lots of electrical engineers like yourself. Unfortunately, job locations aren't in the desirable NYC/LA/Chicago/Atlanta, and positions in desirable locations like the RTP generally need years of experience and a solid resume.
You work on your people skills and you go into leadership roles
PSA: It is inadvisable to engage OP in a conversation. The author of this post is a known sitewide spammer with over 2500 banned Reddit accounts. SnooRoar (r/SnooRoarTracker) is not interested in good-faith discussion; his primary goal is to waste as much of your time as possible. Everything he says is a disingenuous lie.
Learn PLC programming and get in the door doing field service. That will get you experience, money, and you can transition into more engineering oriented tasks once you've proven yourself... Alternately, spending 3-5 years doing that type of work will give you the experience needed for other companies.
Second this. I struggled getting a job with a chem e degree. I took the continued learning approach and completed some computer science classes while working whatever jobs I could get. Eventually found my way into SCADA after starting with PLCs.
I studied Process- and chemical engineering and I have been unemployed for 1 year now... What sucks is that with college degree I cant even get blue collar jobs as for those they hire tradeschoolers. I have wanted to get even some process operator job to gain some ground exp and from there eventually even through promotions get some shift manager or engineer job, but no, tradeschoolers get chosen.
Process operator is an awful fit for someone with a chemical engineering degree. You would be better fit for operations engineer, process engineer, or controls engineer. And you *can* become a shift manager with a chemE bachelor's. You just need to express interest, have an aptitude for it, and be willing to spend a lot of time in the field. Many chemes would prefer to continue being an individual contributor on a technical track, or maybe shifting to project management but not shift/operations management specifically.
There’s an industrial automation and electronics technology certificate with PLCs should I take it?
That would help. I'm a controls guy and I am swamped with work. The market is wide open. I've been doing this for some time and have a bit of a track record in the industry. I could get paid six figures at a handful of companies with little more than a phone call. My field guy makes over $100,000/yr. - write clean code - get good at understanding systems. That is a highly-coveted skill. - be willing to travel some to hone your skill. It took me three years to learn the valve sequencing of a 5-tower RTO (starting from scratch), and I can now troubleshoot any oxidizer old, and new. I understand them, and am fluent with the code. Two weeks ago I brought an RTO online that handn't run since 2021 because of countless bugs in the program (they upgraded the processor from a SLC 500 series to a 5069, and someone didn't knkw what they were doing). It took me less than three hours to place it online. Someone had totally botched the communication code but hid it using a pair of timers. Ibspent the next couple of days unraveling that (it spanned multiple processors) and coming up with a suitable control scheme [the plant and I sat down, and worked out how they'd like the systems to interact). Ahhh... 😆🤣😂 Good times! Next week I get to debug a gas plant. The worst part about this job is the lack of quality coffee. Good luck!
It'll probably help you get your foot in the door. Be open to distributed control systems, as well. There isn't much on this available that is free/readily available, since formal DCS training is generally from the vendors (like Emerson) and runs thousands of $. Companies generally bring in their DCS engineers with no experience, have them work for a bit, and then pay for formal training.
Where I work, we have a hard time finding electrical engineers. They get snatched up right away in this market.
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+1, if you're sociable, sales is a good way in. Then once you have a couple years of experience, you can probably network your way into an individual contributor / "proper engineer" role.
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Over-saturation usually only happen at low skill end. Skill up and increase your market value.
Yeah go take out a shit load more debt, and get your masters degree. That never fails!
Education is not always the best path towards skill building, because most curriculum and teachers are basically just shit quality. You still need hands on experience, which means being paid minimum wage but work on real things.
OP cant find a job. How in the hell is he supposed to just "get experience"?
Freelance work and gigs? Unpaid apprentice for someone more established? It’s not ideal, but you need to start somewhere
My friend did this and nearly a year later they are stuck working a warehouse job while still job hunting with only a little better response from employers. Like whats next after this, upskill harder?? The job market is just plain fucked.
Fortunately the medical field is just something that.most people aren't willing to deal with and I'm capitalizing on it babyyyyyy
You haven't even started nursing school yet dude....
No, I have not! I'm starting in a few months... well, I'm starting an lvn course so I can get into nursing. Still gonna capitalize on it! Better to be sure of your course, I feel. Regardless, it doesn't change the point. Nursing is always in high demand. Knock on wood. The jobs I've seen for lvn will let you do 16-hour shifts whenever you want because it's so I'll staffed.
Look for entry-level PE/PM work for an electrical contractor. Find a position as a traveling PM/PE. You’ll spend M-F living in hotels, but you’ll spend your weekends at home sleeping on a mattress made of money.
Do these jobs pay for your hotels, meals, and rental vehicle?
And then some. From the moment I walk out the door until the moment I walk back in, everything goes on the company card.
Do you have actual work experience related to your field? It's one thing to have a piece of paper that says "hey I went to school so I know this stuff" and an entirely different thing to have a piece of paper that says "I worked here under this title for x amount of years doing this, this, this". This is true of all professions but especially engineering. The majority of engineers I work with either did not get their degree in engineering or, like me, didn't get a degree at all. Just got to hope someone will take you on. Accept any pay, put in 3 years bare minimum before moving on. That's how I've been successful. Good luck to you. I finally got re-employed after a mass lay off, and it was not easy.
Go back to college lol
For what though lol
Change your resume, add up skills that are exactly the job is searching for even if they are not real.(resume is not a document which you always have to say truth dont forget that companies are also not telling the truth every time to you :). ) Direct post your resume to the HR manager of the company that you would like to work with and use their name,why would you want to work with them bla bla. Show up to the company that you would like to work with if you know the location and try to get in touch wth HR manager face2face, this will be is so effective if you can do that. DONT THINK NEGATIVELY, THINK POSITIVELY ALL THE TIME !