Major problem as I see it after being in education for 15 years and industry for 30 [with considerable overlap] is that if the candidate is smart enough to do what the corporations want and educated enough to do what what the corporations want, he is too smart and too educated to work for for the corporations. In short, he knows they are lying because he can see their lips moving.
Uncle George
The company I work for has just hired another engineer. Surprisingly, this time the RIGHT degree was not at the top of their list. The owner told me what he'd really like to have was another guy just like me! Someone with a broad skill set that can get the job done. We discussed what kind of ad someone like me might respond to.
I hope this guys a keeper, and a replacement for the idiot across the hall.
Gary H. Lucas
"Gary H. Lucas" wrote in news:JrQgf.6999$Ze6.3473@trndny04:
We've been trying to find a couple of engineers for months. Either they can't pass the pre-employment math test (not that difficult - I would be confident that any machinist in this ng could pass it), or they see what a broad skill set the job requires and they bail. If they are afraid to get dirty, don't know what those shiny things in the toolbox drawers are for, and can't add, we would be better off if they were somewhere else anyway. Although....an extra set of hands and someone to run after parts would be handy at times....er...wait....forgot about that 'afraid to get dirty' thing....just forget you read that last comment.
Where are you located? I can do that. PhD in engineering, metal and wood shops in the basement, currently working part time for a small engineering company assembling the product on the line. Can do mechanical and electrical engineering, machining, CAD, Math, assembly, modification, fixture design, patent drafting, design for manufacturing, marketing, sales, you name it.
I've been trying to find someplace to put my exceedingly (or excessively, for some folks) broad skill set to better use, but all the local employers want to hire the guy that just left, (you couldn't possibly apply weegit making experience to making widgets) only at half his wages and/or 2-3 part timers so they can avoid paying benefits. I got one nibble last year, but they opted to keep looking for "widget specific experience", and were still looking 6 months later.
Here in Milwaukee we have an entire high school dedicated to technical education. Bradley Tech ( replaced Boys' Tech ) still teaches the building trades and manufacturing trades. CNC machines have replaced the rows and rows of South Bends that were there when I was, but the school lives on.
Tom
try
As do you.....
But for an entirely different reason, though.
IRRC..$15 to start, plus bennies. Not a bad company either. MD-Boeing OEM, makes aerospace fasteners
Gunner
"The importance of morality is that people behave themselves even if nobody's watching. There are not enough cops and laws to replace personal morality as a means to produce a civilized society. Indeed, the police and criminal justice system are the last desperate line of defense for a civilized society. Unfortunately, too many of us see police, laws and the criminal justice system as society's first line of defense." --Walter Williams
Part of this is also the decline of Industry's (take your Pick) involvement in education. While in High School, I remember local businesses and manufacturers had career days and sponsored tours through facilities to show case the opportunities they could offer.
By Junior or Senior year we had a career track established. Industry representatives were also in the tech schools and colleges providing guidance to the school systems and students as to what they were looking for and also keeping an eye out for sleeper talent they could recruit directly. When I was in tech school the job found me, not the other way around.
Now a days, most companies rely on advertising and temp agencies to find candidates, then wonder why the quality of the applicants is so low.
The other problem is the short term thinking that has gripped long term planning goals. Much of management today has a plug and play mentality. Plug in a qualified employee and the job will get done. They seldom ask how did the employee get "qualified". On some of the more complex programs we work on ,it takes at least five years to get a comfortable working knowledge of the systems. Most employers would say that they can't afford that kind of time to invest in a body. Yet they will turn over 3 or 4 in a year that just can't handle the job. I'm confused.
Upside of this is I know I'll always have a job. Downside is I can't work 3 or 4 of them at the same time. Their just gonna have to wait.
Regards
Jim Vrzal Holiday, Fl.
On Tue, 22 Nov 2005 17:10:47 -0500, with neither quill nor qualm, "What-A-Tool" quickly quoth:
The cuts answer the question "What has YOUR Union done for YOU lately?" too well. I've started the book "The Commanding Heights" this week. It looks as if the world is going to look a lot worse to us than it does right now before it gets better. Hold on, it looks like a very bumpy ride.
----------------------------------------------------------------- When I die, I'm leaving my body to science fiction. --Steven Wright ----------------------------
On Wed, 23 Nov 2005 00:05:50 GMT, with neither quill nor qualm, Lew Hartswick quickly quoth:
I'll bet that IF the Industry wanted more skilled workers and ASKED the schools to provide them for them, the schools would work a lot harder to do just that. A few large corporations now have schools in their factories, providing the skilled labor they need internally.
----------------------------------------------------------------- When I die, I'm leaving my body to science fiction. --Steven Wright ----------------------------
This is true.
But consider what you as a school board trustee would say, if somebody suggested having a class in buggy-whip manufacture as an integral part of the curriculum.
My point being, it would be irresponsible for a school to teach manufacturing skills as a markteable trade - because they're not any more. At least in the US.
The schools are *tracking* another effect, not causing it. The effect in this case the the departure of nearly all US manufacturing for locations overseas.
What I told Harold V. in another post stands true here as well - the schools could turn out hundreds of new top-notch graduates apiece, all ready willing and able with technical skills to work in manufacturing. But no matter how hard they beg and plead and kiss the shoes of the corporations engaged in offshoring, they will not get a job offer.
Jim
There are endless examples. A few days ago I read a story about the company that invented the modem, which is now sending its engineering to India. The president bemoaned the fact that he can't get enough engineers in the US, and then talked about how great it was that he could farm the work out to India, where he pays engineers 25% of what he pays US engineers.
'Saved his company $39 million last year, he said. So he's planning to do a lot more of it. One wonders what he'd offer a US-based engineer now, that he can get all he wants in India for $25k/yr.
If you were the parent of a kid wondering what to do with his life, would you tell him to jump into *that* competition?
These guys all talk out of both sides of their mouths. When I was researching my China-trade stories a couple of years ago, about half of them were saying the same self-contradictory things.
-- Ed Huntress
|On Tue, 22 Nov 2005 11:03:32 -0700, Tim Killian | wrote: | |>There is a skilled worker shortage in manufacturing and engineering |>because American society and culture no longer value those skills. | | If they did the jobs would pay better. | IF there were not enough people the wages would go up too.
Actually that is the case. A plumber can make $100K per year. Here in Chicago, the guys who drive garbage trucks make over $100K. The same for NYC.
We have a lot of folks who have college degrees going back into the skilled trades because the work not only pays better but has more job satisfaction as well.,
First, this is apparently a "side-effect" of the MBA degree. One of the tenents of most MBA programs is that if you are a "good mamager," you can manage anything at the higher levels and product/product specific knowledge is not required.
Second, it is very difficult for a person with a short attention span and drive for immediate gratification to conceive of a skill that takes years of practice and training to acquire, other than a good golf swing. This is exacerbated by the typically short job tenure of these individuals. This leads to the unstated assumption that "X" can't be any good at what he does because he's been here for 15 years, and it can't be very hard because you don't have to have a college degree to do it.
Wonderful discussion about the new "skills shortage"
And how is this the "fault" of education and/or the employees. If I cut down all the trees so I won't have to rake the leaves, I shouldn't complain when ther are no apples....
Put your superintendent/administrator hat on for a moment. On a per student basis these programs are excessively expensive compared to the college track. Qualified instructors are hard to find. [Propaganda is that teachers are always hard to find, but that's another topic.] Upkeep and running costs for the equipment are very high. Material costs are high. Potential for student injury is high. Parental support is minimal because the programs are not college track. Your performance evaluation depends almost entirely on your students performance on ACT/SAT type paper tests, and the fraction of your students who start college.
I am amazed that there any high school programs left, and most likely the remaining programs will go as soon as the old superintendent retires, which should be soon given their apparent age.
It has been known for at least 100 years that most people learn poorly with the lecture/test method and best with the hands-on/application method. So what do we do?
Uncle George
How about skipping occupational training in high schools entirely (since the breadth of education necessary to produce minimally equipped citizens in a democracy is already nearly impossible to pack into high-school years), and run the occupational training business as a post-graduation program, like
2-year colleges are today? The kid gets a better education, has the opportunity to really focus on his occupational subject for two years, and doesn't feel like a turd for not being on a college-prep track like the other kids are.I don't want to open a sidetrack about what's being taught, but rather to assume that high schools need improving anyway. I'm suggesting that in 2005, given the status of education in the US versus the rest of the developed world, we need to send kids off better equipped to think critically, to communicate, to understand history and world events, so they aren't locked into some occupational specialty that may leave them stranded as the world economy and technologies evolve. They need better basic academic educations. And I see no reason that metalworking or woodworking, any more than nursing, engineering, the law or business management, somehow minimizes the requirement that one be able to adapt to change and to enter new fields of learning without going back and learning what the college-prep kids learned in high school.
Just my 2 cents worth...
-- Ed Huntress
=============== First define "education"
In my not so humble opinion, education should consist of the acquisition of two overlapping and critical skills on which every thing else rests. (1) A finely developed BS detection and avoidance system, and (2) the ability to form your own opinions based on factual data. Unfortunately we have inverted the educational sequence such that these two skills are not presented until the masters or doctoral level, rather than the first freshman college courses.
If anyone would like to brush up these skills I suggest Rational Choice in an Uncertain World : The Psychology of Judgement and Decision Making by Reid Hastie, Robyn M. Dawes ISBN: 076192275X see
Uncle George
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