I cannot get a job in Electrical Engineering ...rant

[rmjjensen]

I graduated in May and still do not have a job in Electrical Engineering. I have a job, but not in the field that I spent time and money on getting a bachelor's degree for.

this sucks

I'm getting annoyed sending my resume to companies where it would appear that I would be the perfect candidate for the job. Meanwhile I never receive a call back.

so what's the secret? it helps to know someone - so what if you don't?

just venting i guess

[Electrophil]

The easiest place to start is in the power industry. Go to your utilities company and stay on them until they offer you a job. You'll be spending your time doing power corrections, but it gets you some experience.

Then hunt for the design job while you are working there.

Look on the bright side, you could be down in Phoenix drawing transistors all day.... every day.... every hour.... every minute. Over, and over, and over, and over.........The electrical engineer's grunt job. They even tell you the W/L. Thinking is not allowed.

[Seraph]

EE jobs are hearder to come by and what you think is a good job for you, you'll need 5 years experience and/or masters degree.

My ideal job and what I do is different. That's just life. College is there to test you and the biggest test is your ability to last it out for 4 years and/or handle your finances.

[Landshark]

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EE degree, working as a tech for Verizon making more money than an engineer.

[Red SVX 92]

How does one come across a position as a tech or test engineer at Verizon? Unfortunately, I'm ME, so I don't get to play with the gizmos and cellphones like you EEs do, even if I know more about CDMA than most salespeople.

[immortal_suby]

Lets see the resume. Maybe we can help you with it.

[rmjjensen]

making transistors ...haha see that was funny... the comment regarding lambda values! But see I'd take that job right about now...UGH!

It's true - any job I find interesting requires either a MS/PhD or a heck of a lot of experience ...i have neither. But I still send my resume in with a cover letter basically stating I'd like to start in the field in which they are currently offering _____ position. nothin

my most recent submission was to Alpine for a System Integration Engineer. I figure my past experience would be perfect for them and it seems I meet their qualifications. here's the job posting: http://jobsearch.monster.com/getjob....,128,1862,1863

It hasn't been more than a week but I'm just real eager for something. Here is the resume I submitted: http://www.expertwebcreations.com/pe...e%20Resume.doc

It's tailored to the alpine position and I usually tweak it according to whatever the job is. I think that's the problem - I'm tired of putting out the effort and getting zero in return.

[Seraph]

Originally Posted by Red SVX 92

How does one come across a position as a tech or test engineer at Verizon? Unfortunately, I'm ME, so I don't get to play with the gizmos and cellphones like you EEs do, even if I know more about CDMA than most salespeople.

One of my buddies has a BS in ME and he works for Motorola. He makes the actual phone designs. So I get to see new phones from him every other month.

[Seraph]

No offense what so ever but looking at your resume and the job you are seeking, it seems more of a dream job rather than "entry" level job. Very little people end up working their dream job straight out of college. And even fewer hold on to that job.

Eventually, one of two things will happen. You will get into the work force and enjoy what you do. You are currently pigon holeing yourself because of the degree. I did the same until a few years ago. You don't want to narrow yourself. You want to expend. That's how you climb the ladder in the real world. That's when the other thing might happen. You will enjoy the management and business aspect of the job and you will eventually want to do it expend it that way. That needs drive.

Enough. Back to you. Try looking for a few entry level positions, use them as jumping stone, build up your resume that way and figure out what you want to do. I've figured out that I don't want to work for anyone anymore and I want to retire by the time I hit 45 -- That is my direction in life right now. You will get your direction soon after you hold a few positions.

[rmjjensen]

Originally Posted by Seraph

No offense what so ever but looking at your resume and the job you are seeking, it seems more of a dream job rather than "entry" level job. Very little people end up working their dream job straight out of college. And even fewer hold on to that job.

Eventually, one of two things will happen. You will get into the work force and enjoy what you do. You are currently pigon holeing yourself because of the degree. I did the same until a few years ago. You don't want to narrow yourself. You want to expend. That's how you climb the ladder in the real world. That's when the other thing might happen. You will enjoy the management and business aspect of the job and you will eventually want to do it expend it that way. That needs drive.

Enough. Back to you. Try looking for a few entry level positions, use them as jumping stone, build up your resume that way and figure out what you want to do. I've figured out that I don't want to work for anyone anymore and I want to retire by the time I hit 45 -- That is my direction in life right now. You will get your direction soon after you hold a few positions.

That's understandable. I do look for entry level positions however rarely come across them. so far - only one related to the engineering field.

If I am to broden my horizons, what other field should I be looking in? The majority of the jobs I see don't want anyone without experience (Entry level).

[Electrophil]

Your local power company. You really need to check this out.

They have a group of Engineers that do "customer service" for their industry clients. (Factories, etc.) They call in complaining their electricity bill has went up, and you investigate why. 99 out of a 100 times, these guys have added equipment which has their reactive power out of whack with too much inductance. You scroll into their system, smack a couple of keys to figure the size of the needed capacitance pack to even the score, and voila! Bad news is you and a buddy now have to go out there in a van and install it. This takes a while, and sometimes you have to shut down all 3 phases to install it.

It's an entry level position, and starts at a fairly low salary, but you are in the door racking up those experience points. You stay there 4 or 5 years tops, have one of your managers sponsor you for your PE, and whoosh!! Off you go to the job you want.

[Seraph]

I changed my goals in school after I realized a few things. I was originally a CPE (Computer Engineering). I wanted to design chips and such. After discovering that you will not be designing chips and working on things like that till you pretty much have your phd, I gave up and went CS.

I got my dream job straight out of school. I had 4 guys that I worked with and we were on call. Came in every three weeks to work and got paid more than most (I got about 1.5x that of my friends who started a year ahead of me). The bad news with such a job is that if you have hardly any experience, you are one of the first to go when they lay you off.

I still do my IT stuff but I manage dealerships at the moment. Something I'd rather not do but looks great on the resume. While doing that, you realize that you want to run a business rather than work for someone.

Before I get to that level, I was a wiremonkey, I coded for food, I scanned pages and OCR them. You have to start somewhere. Do you know any friends? A few visits to a few local businesses that works there would help. That's how I landed my job with Motorola ages ago.

[Electrophil]

Lwin just hit on my point. A lot of Engineers go with the goal of IC design, are hired on, and end up just drawing the transistors of someone else's design. And they will stay there for 20 years. The huge problem these days is most of your major corporations stopped recruiting engineers from overseas, and started shipping our jobs to them. Especially over the last 4 or 5 years.

What happened about 5 years ago? Oh yeah! Now I remember.

The majority of our jobs now are with small companies.

[Noir]

Originally Posted by Electrophil

Your local power company. You really need to check this out.

They have a group of Engineers that do "customer service" for their industry clients. (Factories, etc.) They call in complaining their electricity bill has went up, and you investigate why. 99 out of a 100 times, these guys have added equipment which has their reactive power out of whack with too much inductance. You scroll into their system, smack a couple of keys to figure the size of the needed capacitance pack to even the score, and voila! Bad news is you and a buddy now have to go out there in a van and install it. This takes a while, and sometimes you have to shut down all 3 phases to install it.

It's an entry level position, and starts at a fairly low salary, but you are in the door racking up those experience points. You stay there 4 or 5 years tops, have one of your managers sponsor you for your PE, and whoosh!! Off you go to the job you want.

^^^^^^^^^ +1

[pavanbabut]

Originally Posted by rmjjensen

I graduated in May and still do not have a job in Electrical Engineering. I have a job, but not in the field that I spent time and money on getting a bachelor's degree for.

this sucks

I'm getting annoyed sending my resume to companies where it would appear that I would be the perfect candidate for the job. Meanwhile I never receive a call back.

so what's the secret? it helps to know someone - so what if you don't?

just venting i guess

Hmmm... I have recently gone exactly thru this same phase and everyone knows that . Anyway I waited for 4 hard months after my Master's to get job atlast in last month. When the time comes, you will definitely get a good job. Keep searching and you will get a good job on the way. Good Luck with your search !...

-Pavan