<p>Ive seen some people having difficulties, and the easiness to get a job in this area is one of the reasons I might like to be an engineer. Please share your stories and convince me its not going to be a nightmare like every other major out there.</p>
<p>My students with GPAs of 3.0 or greater seem to be doing just fine. Some with lower GPAs are struggling, though most are finding good work. I work at a top-10 engineering school. This is in CS/CE/EE.</p>
<p>It isn’t too hard for engineering to find jobs even in this economy. All of my engineering friends and I have already received offers and secured jobs. However, offers won’t just fall into your lap. You still have to be proactive about finding a job.</p>
<p>I had 2 job offers before I finished my first semester senior year (Fall 2008) right in the middle of the recession. That was with little to no effort (only applied 2 places) because I decided fairly early in the process to do graduate school.</p>
<p>ME/Aero</p>
<p>While the claims by the 3 previous individuals are likely truthful, those claims still are anecdotal evidence. </p>
<p>Nonetheless, it’s safe to say that those who rise above their peers will most likely end up employed. So, claw your way to the top.</p>
<p>I only applied to three companies (like boneh3ad, I was planning on grad school) and got two offers - the third company filled their quota before I submitted my app. I have known some who had no offers at all, but they were from the “barely scraping through” crowd.</p>
<p>Maybe some of the “barely scraping through” crowd will abandon engineering and go into business, as they should! It always made me nervous to think that most of the poor students in my classes would find jobs and be expected to design structures! Yikes. Some weeding out is not a bad thing.</p>
<p>
In what economy? The recession ended in June 2009 - the economy seems pretty normal to me.
But you’re right - anyone with valuable, marketable skills will have no trouble.</p>
<p>If you’re good, Kind of depends on how choosy you are.</p>
<p>The recession ended in an economic sense, but that only means we have started the road to recovery. Hiring still has to make its recovery.</p>
<p>Medwell - You fell for the propaganda; this should bring you up to speed:</p>
<p>shadowstats.com</p>
<p>
“The economy” is an excuse that people with nothing to offer the job market spew for their un-/under-employment. Like I said, nobody with valuable skills or characteristics to contribute to an organization will have trouble finding a job right now.</p>
<p>I don’t think “easy” is a good descriptor of how it would be, especially in this economy. The recession may be statistically over, but the job market is still tough.</p>
<p>That said, my S - like bonehead - had 2 job offers in the terrible winter 2008/09 economy. Accepted one of them and has been happily employed since graduating in May 2009. (EE/ECE)</p>
<p>It takes doing decently well in school (>3.25 GPA preferred); being proactive about it (start the networking, job-hunt early on; utilize Career Services for resume review, practice interviews etc.) and perhaps some luck. </p>
<p>There are other fields with good job prospects; there are many fields with not-very-good job prospects. Some graduates in those latter fields still get good jobs (see above paragraph for how and why).</p>
<p>“In what economy? The recession ended in June 2009 - the economy seems pretty normal to me.
But you’re right - anyone with valuable, marketable skills will have no trouble.”</p>
<p>Seems pretty normal? Are you used to seeing unemployment at 10 percent? The real unemployment numbers are actually higher than 10%, some people just stopped looking for jobs. Sure it technically ended, but unemployment is still high and most businesses are only doing very selective hiring.</p>
<p>As far as jobs–you need to be open to relocation. There are jobs to be had…grads just need to be willing to relocate!</p>
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</p>
<p>Not necessarily. </p>
<p>Employment, underemployment, and unemployment will be affected by more factors than valuable skills/characteristics (please define “characteristics”). These other factors include, but are not limited to, geographical location, office politics skills, emotional intelligence, qualifications, supply of workers in local market, demand for those workers in local market, etc.</p>
<p>As an example, consider NYC, arguably the biggest financial hub on the planet. In NYC, you may find a large group of financial sector workers who are competent, qualified, in the correct geographical area, etc. but that nonetheless are un/underemployed because the market does not have “extra room” for those individuals. In many cases, these people may contribute to the bottom line, but due to the previously mentioned cause of “extra room” are not able to contribute, thus must find something else to do (temporarily?).</p>
<p>Basically, you have 10 drivers and 5 cars. Perhaps 7 of those drivers are competent and 3 are incompetent. Unfortunately, you only have 5 cars, so that means 2 competent drivers and 3 incompetent drivers are SoL. Oversimplified, but gets the point across.</p>
<p>Quite a blunt statement, especially with everyone being affected at the moment. I agree. There are many other factors, including but not limited to valuable skills and characteristics.</p>
<p>Most graduates will say that getting a job right out of university is the easiest time to do so. It’s after you have been working a few years that getting a job offer becomes harder. That may be due to becoming too specialized in one area that is not as common in the overall job market. However, the worst time to be looking for a job is after 40 or 45, when you have too much experience and are considered over the hill. By then, you had better be in pure management, such as Operations Manager or higher, because you won’t be considered for true engineering functions. That’s not fair to good people with a lot of years of meaningful experience, but that’s the way it is in real life.</p>
<p>^I think it’s pretty logical to expect somebody with over 20 years of experience to have progressed beyond entry and mid-level positions into a senior role. If I’m still doing the same job 20 years post-bachelors I’ll fire myself.</p>
<p>Engineering is a peculiar career in that you aren’t expected to stay in an engineering function past your late 30s. An accountant can stay in accounting until retirement, a dentist can do dentistry until retirement, a lawyer can practice law until retirement. However, engineers are expected to become pure managers by the time they hit their 40s or they risk being excluded completely. That means if you don’t like managing capital projects, risk management, annual budgets, health and safety issues and union negotiations, don’t go into engineering. Universities don’t tell students this fact because a lot of them would change their major if they knew their careers would only last about 20 years. No one would expect to remain in an entry level engineering position indefinitely but even with progression of responsibilities in engineering, you should not expect to have a job as an engineer until retirement anymore.</p>