In my particular case there aren’t a lot of local venues to peruse for networking opportunities, which adds to the challenge. Having just moved to this rural community of 1500 with no family or friends close by makes it difficult. There is a larger community, nearly 35,000, about thirty miles away which has a monthly meeting of the local chapter of ASCE for students and there might very well be some opportunity there, although I haven’t checked it out yet. I didn’t bother to join while in university this past year for a variety of reasons, but mostly because as a mature student, getting together with the under 25’s for a student meeting is kind of like going to the bar and hoping to find the love of your life. At best it might be interesting and at worst it could be ‘what was I thinking?’

As a side bar, my husband and I, both recent graduates and mature students, attended our school’s career fair in October last year. Now without asking people directly how they felt, it was blatantly obvious to me what they were thinking. It wasn’t only the students who were looking at us this way, it was also the recruiters who were there at the different booths. I imagine the voice inside their heads went something like this, “Look at those old people, how dare they come to our career fair looking for work, don’t they know this is for students?’ It was obvious we were looking for work. Dressed nicely, resumes in hand. Even though I don’t think of myself as an old person, cause well, I’m not, but to a 23 year old everyone is old. I know that having been a 23 year old once myself.

I agree with Elizabeth’s post about only sending out resumes to positions which you qualify for. There is so much effort in putting together a great cover letter and writing a targeted resume it is unlikely that your most recent modification will suit the next position. In response to Jobscribble’s post, I have already covered every local engineering firm in town with the ‘personal drop off – cold call’ method. Unfortunately, they are simply not hiring.

Elizabeth has stated that she does at least look at every resume that comes in the door, and I commend her for that. Although I don’t have actual data I believe the number of resume’s submitted for a potential opening has likely tripled from two years ago. I am however curious as to how it may be working at some of the firms who use a program to sift through resumes. Apparently these programs search for keywords in the resume submission and if your resume doesn’t have those particular keywords you are out of luck. Some blogs I read suggested you should siphon out the keyword nouns and literally list them at the top of the resume. This seems absurd to me but maybe it is working.

In an effort to do what I can for others I am working with two PE’s I know trying to help them get some government contract work by researching potential contracts they could bid on and researching what is involved in writing a great SF-330. I am learning more about government contracting and hopefully helping them to wade through the paperwork a little easier. My social network isn’t very large and I am apprehensive about starting a LinkedIn account simply to try and find work. Although it appears to be working for some people. I guess the biggest reason is that with limited experience I don’t feel I would have any great insight to offer other engineers who may have questions, which appears to be a great way to help others and get to know people.

Living in the northern tier of the nation, community organizations where I could volunteer my services simply aren’t building houses this time of year. Even my son is networking with his peers in an effort to try and find his Mom work. Isn’t he sweet.

There is good news though, I received a telephone interview just last night. The HR person is supposed to contact me today to set up an interview for next week. It’s only 13 hours away so I can drive there easily. Any advice on how to ace that interview? I have read quite a bit about how to provide examples of your work experience and such, be positive, dress the part, rehearse etc. But I am a firm believer in ‘knowledge is power’ so any more advice you can offer would be appreciated.

Thanks, and good luck to all out there who are searching. Remain hopeful, something will turn up.

I would be interested in your feedback to this post: http://redmondsearch.com/blog/job-searching-get-out-from-behind-the-computer/ It’s some of the best advice I have in this market. Good luck to you.

We are both recent civil engineering graduates from an ABET accredited university. However not in the traditional sense. We worked full time while attending university part time for five years, but we were starting to get really burned out after all the 80 hour work weeks and decided to move and attend university full time to complete the degree. He graduated Summa cum Laude with a GPA of 4.0, passed the EIT, has twenty years of construction and survey experience and he isn’t getting any job offers. I graduated Magna cum Laude with a GPA of 3.74, passed the EIT and have sixteen years of experience. Of that – four years in heavy civil construction, ten years in surveying and two years of office management experience. I have been applying for entry-level positions in civil engineering predominantly in my top two preferences, construction management and transportation design. However I have also sent out resumes for a variety of other disciplines including traffic, water/wastewater and hydrology. After submitting online resumes to more than 90 positions nationwide over the last six months and an additional 25 to Canadian firms, as I am able to work in both countries, I have only had two local interviews. One was with a water/wastewater engineering firm and one for an entry-level municipal position with a nearby city. I was not selected for either.

Without any feedback from these companies, as many require submitting your resume through their online application, we are unsure what the problem is. When I began pursuing this degree I believed, erroneously, that my previous experience would be an asset. As well we intended to return to the firms we were with most recently, however due to the economic downturn they have had to lay people off over the past year and a half. So even if I had stayed working for them and continued pursuing this education part time I would have been without work in Jan. 09.

I would appreciate any advice you might h ave as to why I am not finding work. However I can assure you it is not because I am aimless.

Good point Josie about trying to motivate an underacheiving student. Although missing a class or two, or dropping out of a class happens to us all, it is what we do about the obstacles that build character.

A recent BusinessWeek article states that an increasing number of engineering and com-sci graduates are entering other fields. I’ve been tempted to ask some of the brighter interns we see over the summer what they think of the prospect of being stuck in a drab cubicle, listening to slamming doors, for the next 35-45 years.

When I entered the field (early 80s), I was treated well – decent pay, an office, equipment of my choosing, and, most importantly, I drove most of the product design… and I loved it. I couldn’t wait to get to work and, if I say so myself, I turned out some cool stuff (industrial automation). Starting in the early 90s, things started downhill. More and more, working environments began to resemble little more than warehouses and, for some reason, managers began to make more key technical decisions (of course they remained immune from the consequences when these decisions were wrong).

It’s false economy… I work with some really sharp people. Left on their own, they (like me) could be spectacularly productive. Managed by pointy-haired bosses – we’re lucky to get anything to work very well. Management (in our case) is too arrogant to think we have anything useful to offer.

As a working engineer (too old to change now), I can tell you what the problem is: too few people smart enough to make exceptional exceptional engineers are interested in spending the remainder of their working lives sitting in a Dilbertesque box (complete with cheap, squeaky, and uncomfortable chairs) working for clueless managers.

When times are good, people outside of engineering (the ones in private offices) collect large bonuses and accolades; when times are bad, the people on the technical staff are the first to go.

I work for a well-known STEM company. Technical staff with advanced degrees sit in little boxes next to clerical workers. We can’t so much as buy a book without pushing paperwork through a ponderous process – kissing admin rears to get it in less than a month. We have no say on our computers (locked down by I.T.)… computers that spend more and more of their time running surveillance software and less and less time running our work. Our QA-test people were considered redundant and, so, were let go in a layoff (that happened a week or so after learning that our division had yet another profitable quarter).

We are pushed to ship deficient products with significant known defects out the door so that quarterly goals can be met. The sales/marketing types who set the dates then collect their bonuses while the engineers work unpaid overtime with irate customers who got their “not read for prime time” system. More than once have I finished up a project sitting on a camp stool with a laptop (in one case under a sheet of plywood due to the amount of poop coming from all the seagulls – a project that a cursory review by competent engineers would not have even been bid).

Our “promotion path” is usually to “project manager” where you are now responsible for multi-million dollar projects. You still sit in a cube and spend your days being the buffer between unhappy and frustrated engineers and unhappy and frustrated customers.

Electronics and programming are exceedingly interesting – as a hobby. As far as a career – it sucks.

If we need to spread the net looking for talent – we need to look for managers who know what in hell they’re doing.

I’m curious as to how much this lack of talent is a consequence of the “It’s not WHAT you know, but WHO you know” syndrome. I don’t think I have participated in any networking event or website that does not generously sprinkle this IMHO confusing philosophy about. I understand the importance of networking and branding yourself, but it seems unbalanced by technical competence and creativity. I see the effects of this attitude becoming more evident in future generations where great advancements will be imagined, but the current lack of emphasis on and enthusiasm for math and science based pursuits will make them more difficult to execute.

This post was mentioned on Twitter by sgollish: redmondsearch

RT @redmondsearch What are your thoughts on use-based funding for transportation infrastructure? http://twurl.nl/ks8plt...