HELP: New EE Grad doing Minimum-Wage Jobs.Good Idea to Wait for economy to recover ???

Any work experience is better than no work experience.

Charles Perry P.E.

Jack if you can afford to live in so california, boeing, raytheon, and trw are hiring big time.

Take classes towards MS and can claim still in school.

"mindspringnews" wrote in message news:INisb.24409$ snipped-for-privacy@newsread2.news.atl.earthlink.net...

Well, you've gotta do what you've gotta do. A minimum wage job will at least put a roof over your head and keep food on the table while you are looking. A word to those who may be following this group and are still working on your degree: don't wait until you have graduated to start looking for a job; it ain't always easy, no matter what the career center on campus says (and as Jack's experience has shown). I've spent the last 1.5 years finishing up a masters in EE; with 3 years of experience under my belt I will be looking for another "real" job this next summer. When I was finishing my BS degree, I was thinking about a masters, but I was really burned out on school and needed to find some direction: EE is such a diverse field, how was I to know what to focus on in graduate school? The masters is a good idea if it is feasible in your circumstances. If you can't think of anything that you want to study on a graduate level right now, maybe you would be interested in working towards an MBA or taking some physics or CS classes. Your milage may vary; I don't have the money right now to be able to afford taking classes just for fun; if I weren't working towards a definate goal in the form of a degree, I would drop out of graduate school tomorrow. As for finding a job; I just don't believe that there are no EE jobs "in North America". Yes, the economy is not what it was back in 2000 when I was shopping for my first professional job, but there are jobs around, even for a recent grad such as yourself. I mean no disrespect, but what exactly is the problem? How long have you been looking? Is it finding companies, getting interviews from those companies, or having interviews but no offers coming from them? Or is it really as bad as all that, and I am in the dark here? Maybe if you gave us some idea where the bottleneck is some people here with much more experience than us can pitch in with some ideas.

Good luck,

Travis

I'm in pretty much the same boat that he is. Graduated in 2002, have been looking since before 2001. Fortunately I knew some people and currently have a temp (not contract) job doing mostly mechanical engineering and purchasing. It is, I think, better than nothing, but I too am extremely worried that when the economy turns around I'll be obsolete. So I've been doing work on my own projects, buying an FPGA dev board and trying to get the VHDL experience I didn't get in school, etc. Yet when an employer looks at my resume, I have no professional EE experience.

It really is "as bad as all that" right now. True, electrical engineering jobs do exist. But there are also many experienced engineers competing for work with wet-behind-the-ears graduates. Skill and experience requirements have skyrocketed for the same position, because HR knows that they can get it. You can't blame them; they get an experienced professional for the price of a recent graduate.

But that's going to become a problem in a few years. What happens to all the new graduates who couldn't find jobs, and went into landscaping or construction or sales? Skills do not improve when they are not used. Companies are eager to hire all the experienced employees, but at the same time they are not willing to create experienced employees for ten years down the road. Very short-sighted. The pros will cash in retirement and go fishing, and companies will be left with newborn engineers and people who haven't touched a Laplace transform in a decade. Sure, the engineers get a bad deal, but we can always find some other way to make a living. Engineering companies don't have that luxury.

Oh well, what do today's businessmen and MBAs care? When the proverbial fan blade swings into position, they will be retiring too.

"mindspringnews" wrote in news:INisb.24409$ snipped-for-privacy@newsread2.news.atl.earthlink.net:

I live in Ontario, Canada

My Overall Cumulative GPA is B-, which is just below the B MINIMUMLY required by 95% of the Canadian Universities (that offer EE Grad Program).

Realisticaly, at least in Canada, with the number of people (Both New Grads, and the experienced P.Eng's who got downsized) trying to squeeze into EE Grad Programs, even if my overall CGPA is B, I suspect my chance of getting accepted into a EE Grad Program is not good.

I checked some the Grad Programs in some American Universities as well, but most of them require Proof of Finacial Support, Health Insurance, Etc, things that I don't have.

"Travis Hayes" wrote in news:bosjbo$1gnmvt$ snipped-for-privacy@ID-203876.news.uni-berlin.de:

Interestingly, even with alot of the high-tech (especially in the hardware sector) companies outsourcing from Asia nowdays, I was able to locate a several ENTRY (I was very surprised by the simplicity/primitivity of the job duties & almost non-existing job requirements) level EE jobs located in California on

1. with Entry level EE jobs that easy, the local folks will most likely beat me to it, considering the companies probabbly prefer local people as well.
2. I'm a Canadian Citizen, with the excessive number of unemployed EE new Grads & Seasoned veterans in US as it is, I don't think the custom officials are all that willing to give me a working visa (Even Tho I dont't have any religion at all, and I don't mean any offense to anyone).
3. you new EE grads from US who are reading this, probabbly do NOT want me to go over to states to worsen your competition any further :)

Jack Steed

But what has happened to the old line about somebody being "overqualified" for a position? HR departments with stable companies know that when they are hiring somebody who is not suited for a position (i.e. salary not matching the requirements) that the match will be temporary at best. Someone hungry for a job and willing to take less than they think they are worth will be moving on as soon as a position opens up, and then HR is back to trying to find someone to fill the void.

Last week I wandered over to a mini career fair on the campus nearby. There were about 15 companies there, and about 10 of those were looking for EEs. Of those 10, 8 were looking for entry level employees, and they actually did have positions for them. The U.S. government is hiring (sorry, Jack, probably not for you). IBM, Micron, and Ball Aerospace were there as well. When our university's career fair happens in March HP, GE, IBM, Ball, Raytheon, TRW, and many government agencies can be counted on to be there, if the past 6 years are any indication. Granted, some of them may not have openings and are there only for publicity, I don't know. As I will be joining the ranks of the seeking-employment types next summer, I am interested in how you guys are fairing out there in the real world. Garrett, I know you have been looking for a while, I have seen your posts on Slashdot and have seen your resume on your website. What I was hoping to discover with my last post was exactly were Jack is having troubles; if companies just aren't looking, or if they just aren't hiring HIM for one reason or another.

On Thu, 13 Nov 2003 22:00:02 -0500, Keith R. Williams Gave us:

Proof that you don't know much about the China/Taiwan situation.

We develop here. We have plants in China for high volume demands, and we manufacture here for low, and medium volume or custom products.

China and Taiwan are assets, not liabilities. They are mere contract manufacturers. There are still plenty of engineering capacity jobs around here, despite getting most of our low voltage production from there.

They are also good when re-evaluating a product for a cost of manufacture reduction cycle.

I can get hand crafted transformers from there at a couple bucks each in short or large quantities, and over here, it would be at least ten dollars each.

BIG difference. Where are all of the transformer technician experts at, crying about their lost jobs? I don't see it.

Yet knowing transformer and choke design for high frequency switching power applications is a more and more rare thing in this country. It wasn't China's fault though. The American electronic industries don't pay their production and technician staff well enough, and quality has suffered here, and cost of manufacture has as well.

American made products are very expensive, if made by well paid workers. I have found them to be very expensive even if not made by well paid workers. Quality does suffer, however.

One reason why mil spec went south, and COTS is now acceptable for many items on and in military gear. Inspecting a PCB assy with a hundred solder joints 200 times IS overkill.

Proof that you really haven't the foggiest clue. ...no surprise here DimBulb.

Your point (other than that dull point on your shoulders)?

Oh my?

Oh my? That's surely high tech stuff!

Learn some engineering and get a real job DimBulb!

Oh my! That's just what I want to do for a living. Plug formulas into a computer and wind transformers. DimBulb, that isn't all there is to engineering.

DimBulb, try to get with the tech program! The easily transported jobs will go east. There are plenty of skilled jobs and there will be more.

On Thu, 13 Nov 2003 23:55:59 -0500, Keith R. Williams Gave us:

Yes, it is.

You're a goddamned Usenet retard, Keith R. Williams.

On Thu, 13 Nov 2003 23:55:59 -0500, Keith R. Williams Gave us:

Did I say it was? No. Again you sport your infamous, lame lack of ability to comprehend what you have read.

On Thu, 13 Nov 2003 23:55:59 -0500, Keith R. Williams Gave us:

Actually, dipshit, they GO west. They end up in an eastern location.

I wouldn't expect a retarded twit like you to have a grasp on that, however, since you have no grasp on anything else either.

I also expect that you won't get this one either.

Oh my, I only scored a '3' on Dimbulb's post-o-meter. I gotta try harder!

If you are going to do minimum wage work until something better comes along, try to get a job that is somehow related to what you would like to eventually do. If you want to be a control systems engineer in an industrial setting, see if you can find a job as an electrician or helper. That field experience can go a long way to reinforce your technical background and make your resume more attractive to potential employers. Some of the best engineers I know are ones who were technicians first.