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Young people are still being attracted into investment banking rather than manufacturing because "we make celebrities out of them, we make films out of them", according to John Rishton.</p>
<p>"Engineers, we talk about them as if they fix cars," he added.
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<p>Rolls-Royce</a> call to raise engineers' profile - Telegraph</p>
<p>Can’t say I disagree. If we want the top engineers to actually go into engineering, we need to start treating the job as being prestigious again and stop deifying investment bankers, plain and simple.</p>
<p>One simple problem: the volume of cash involved in the finance “industry” means they can afford to pay a lot more. It is kind of a Catch 22.</p>
<p>Sakky,</p>
<p>I understand your point but can we get a number of total engineering graduates and how many ACTUALLY go into investment banking? Unless someone can prove me wrong, I am going to say less than 7%.</p>
<p>…and < 7% is hardly enough to pay attention to…or even garner enough attention for the number of postings on the topic.</p>
<p>Raising Profile = Raising Pay.</p>
<p>Its really as simple as that. Make engineering a profession where average talent can earn 100-150k pounds per year, and top talent a million pounds a year (like in investment banking), and the prestige of the profession certainly would be greater.</p>
<p>Employers, if they want a pipeline of good domestic engineers, need to start showing the money. </p>
<p>Why should an investment banker make multiples of that of a manufacturing engineer? Rolls Royce should ask themselves – have they been paying investment bankers huge amounts of fees to raise capital or to invest? Have they been leaving cash “on deposit” with investment bankers who reap huge profits from it?</p>
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<p>The vast majority of engineering grads couldn’t go into investment banking if they wanted to. Your guess at a statistic is not productive even if it is correct. </p>
<p>The only engineers competitive for investment banking jobs are the top students at the best engineering schools. The idea is that these people are the ones our economy needs to be innovating rather than moving money around. Who really knows if it actually has an impact though. Maybe the people who are willing to move into investment banking aren’t passionate about engineering and wouldn’t be great innovators anyway.</p>
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<p>Couldn’t? I don’t know about that. Engineers can probably understand the ‘math’ and processes of finance far more quickly, given a course or two, or some on-the-job training, far more quickly, and in-depth, than the traditionally finance-trained investment bankers. </p>
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<p>I disagree here, there is no evidence that the investment bankers are hiring the top engineering students for the positions. Most of the people who go into investment banking from engineering are those who would otherwise be unable to obtain engineering jobs. </p>
<p>There is nothing really magical about investment banking either. Much of it is essentially salesmanship. Many engineers out there are actually ethically grounded enough and cognizant of the consequences of their actions enough such that they might find it difficult to be compatible with the investment banking sort of environment – where everything is about money, and obviously junky investments are given some wallpaper and then sold to suckers for top dollar.</p>
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<p>Oh, come on, that’s a bit ironic, don’t you think? You yourself decried the number of posts on CC regarding the top-ranked schools, when those schools represent only a miniscule fraction of all of the schools in the world. The proportion of threads on CC regarding Harvard, MIT and peer schools relative to the proportion of students who will actually get into those schools surely is more than 100:1 by now. </p>
<p>But that numerical disparity misses the point. Harvard, MIT, and peer universities are popular topics of discussion not because many students will actually go there but because, whether we like it or not, they’re influential. Other schools would like to emulate them, the best students tend to want to go there, and the media is fixated upon what they do, and their graduates tend to assume positions of great importance upon others. {For example, the two 2012 Presidential nominees are both likely to be Harvard graduates, and would therefore mean that from 1989-2017, every single US President will have been either a Harvard or Yale graduate -or in GWB’s case, both. The ineluctable inference is that if you want to be President in the future, go to Harvard or Yale.} </p>
<p>Or you could consider the Big 4 sports leagues. The NFL, NBA, NHL, and MLB are important not because many boys will ever become athletes at that level, but because it shapes their attitudes. Those leagues enjoy intense media interest - LeBron James, Kobe Bryant, Tom Brady, Eli/Peyton Manning are media celebrities. They have entire cable channels and newspaper sections devoted just to them. Plenty of universities are far more famous for their sports than for their academics. Millions of boys see those athletes and want to be just like them. Most perniciously, arguably the biggest reason why US educational levels lag those of other developed nations is that many boys would rather spend their time playing sports rather than focusing on their studies. {Similarly, many girls would rather spend their time trying to become the next Britney or Beyonce rather than studying.} </p>
<p>Investment banking occupies the same niche - a relatively small population that is nevertheless immensely influential upon cultural attitudes because of intense media interest. As I’ve said in other threads, many of the best engineering students from top programs such as MIT, Stanford, and the like would rather not work as engineers at all, instead preferring to become bankers. Perhaps most invidiously, many of the best students don’t even try to major in engineering, because they already know that they want to be bankers. For example, when our most talented high school seniors have the choice between Harvard vs. MIT, many will choose the former for its perception as the ‘clearer’ pathway to banking (which is all the more ironic considering that Harvard doesn’t even offer an undergrad business major whereas MIT does). </p>
<p>Hence, the point of the Telegraph article is to question why Ibanking should continue to enjoy such an outsize media/marketing advantage particularly when we have painfully learned about the great dangers that the Ibanking industry poses to society.</p>
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<p>I diametrically disagree, for the evidence is overwhelming. As a case in point, before the crash, nearly half of all seniors from MIT who entered the workforce took jobs in finance or consulting. How many low-tier schools can say the same? The fact is, if you attend a low-tier school, you can’t even get an interview because finance/consulting employers tend to recruit at only the top schools. Not only that, but they tend to invoke tough GPA screens. Let’s face it - if you barely graduated from MIT/Stanford with straight C’s, you’re not going to get an Ibanking offer.</p>
<p>KamelAkbar is therefore exactly right - engineers who are lured into finance tend to come from the very top engineering schools such as MIT and Stanford, and also tended to have earned the best grades. These are precisely the people who could easily have found an engineering job if they wanted one. </p>
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<p>Then let me give you the clearest example. Plenty of PhD engineers from the top schools such as MIT tend to take jobs not in engineering, but in finance (or consulting). For example, just before the crash, I know a number of MIT chemical engineering PhD graduates who took jobs at …Goldman Sachs. I think we can all agree that these are amongst the most innovative and passionate chemical engineers in the world. {Let’s face it, if you aren’t innovative and passionate, you would never be able to complete a PhD at MIT. That degree is simply too painful for somebody who doesn’t actually care about engineering.}</p>
<p>Yet instead of trying to develop meta/nanomaterials or battery breakthroughs - which they are clearly qualified to do - they’re out there peddling securities.</p>
<h1>4. echo that.</h1>
<p>DS, 6 months almost walked away from his temp job when that company offered him 25% less than to become a permanent employee. He could have walked and found another job within the week (maybe 2011, Q4) or live at his standard of living for 2+ years without working (and without unemployment $$ ). His boss asked him to stick around for a few more months because he was trying to get wages up to par. We asked DS to stick with the job until he found another job. He got back to his previous wages in two months, and another catchup increase in Jan. </p>
<p>If you’re good, making money for the firm, and have walking away money, then you can call the shots.</p>
<p>Sakky,</p>
<p>You are allowing “pop culture” to be the driving force. This is the same as following what Justin Bieber (sp) does on Twitter. There are PLENTY of CS/Engineering majors who could not care less where an MIT grad is hired. Not everyone cares about competition for high-finance jobs. Hell most folks in the I.T. world don’t care.</p>
<p>Did anybody bother to read the comments under the article? Mr. RR is blowing smoke because RR pays their HR department better than their engineers. I don’t want to hear another cry baby CEO complain about needing young people. Go hire an old fogy. All they want is young people and H1B’s. Why? It is not because the young people are shallow attention grabbers who would be willing to work for peanuts if only somebody would make a movie about them!</p>
<p>Sakky writes “As a case in point, before the crash, nearly half of all seniors from MIT who entered the workforce took jobs in finance or consulting.”</p>
<p>I wonder how many students who attend MIT ever intend to become engineers? Some undoubtably go there because they see it as an opportunity to a high paid job in finance. Could the/she have been a good engineer? Possibly. But, it’s hard to assume that they would be that great if they really never had any interest in engineering.</p>
<p>Jobs in IB can pay so well because the firm takes a cut from the transactions that they handle. It can be a small percentage but on a big purchase or sale the fees are really big. Compare that to an engineering firm that has a contract with hourly billing rates.</p>
<p>Rolls Royce doesn’t have hourly billing rates. Rolls Royce has a profit margin from which they decide how much goes to sales and how much goes to engineering. Sales sees the numbers and engineering does not.</p>
<p>Has anybody ever surveyed or interviewed the engineers who leave engineering for finance jobs? What reasons do they give for going to finance? I’m curious to know how many would rather be working in engineering, but for the pay.</p>
<p>The main reason why IB is brought up SO MANY times on this board is because it really the only industry where grads from so-called Top-10 schools can feel that they have been justly rewarded. In the rest of private sector and DEFINITELY in government contracting, there are way too many outlets and paths for grads of non-Top 10 schools and the weight of the name of your school does not factor in as much.</p>
<p>For instance, since many firms need actual bodies with certain software/I.T. skill sets, a grad from a state-flagship school who even started off at a community college can garner the same pay (and upper-level positions) and therefore get a HUGE return-on-investment from their undergraduate degree.</p>
<p>So that means that you will have postings encouraging certain engineering/I.T. grads to “go finance”, or in laymen’s terms…</p>
<p>“Hey folks, why work at these engineering firms where you will sitting next to some grad of Texas Tech and barely making more than them when you can work at this finance company that MAINLY hires from the Top-10 schools like ours?”.</p>
<p>GlobalTraveler - “Hey folks, why work at these engineering firms where you will sitting next to some grad of Texas Tech and barely making more than them when you can work at this finance company that MAINLY hires from the Top-10 schools like ours?”. </p>
<p>I’m sure that’s a big factor. On the flip side, some of those engineering grads coming from the “top” schools find out that they really don’t have more to offer in the real world than the grad from Texas Tech.</p>
<p>MomfromKC - I didn’t mean to imply that RR has hourly rates. I was thinking of govt contractors while I was writing the reply. I actually know a bit about RR because my BIL had a high level engineering job at the company. There are well known issues in many companies where the sales department is viewed as the revenue generator (thus more valuable) and engineers viewed as costs (got to keep those down).</p>
<p>There are well known issues in many companies where the sales department is viewed as the revenue generator (thus more valuable) and engineers viewed as costs (got to keep those down). </p>
<p>Exactly! As long as cry baby CEO’s complain that if only Hollywood would make a movie about the engineering superstars stars that they themselves would be able to “reclassify” the engineering department as a revenue generator rather than always as a cost center. Please give me a break. If the engineers you are getting aren’t “cool” enough for you then raise your salaries and shut your mouth!</p>
<p>I am curious as to what the remedy for this is supposed to be? In the UK the state owns TV show production, so I am sure they could enforce “good” engineer rules, but here in the US we have no way of dictating how engineers should be portrayed. I am also not sure how to combat the “cool” factor of investment banking when it seems that this is precisely why such people are hired in the first place - because they have credentials or manner that make people trust them and like them. I think it is also a lot easier to claim a higher salary when you are closer to the customer, something that hurts engineers and helps salesmen.</p>
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<p>I doubt that I’m the one who is ‘allowing’ anything to happen, as pop culture already drives employment trends whether we like it or not. For example, the Pentagon itself stated that the movie Top Gun was basically a (ingeniously effective) [“two-hour</a> recruiting commercial”](<a href=“When Uncle Sam Backs Your Film | Arts & Culture| Smithsonian Magazine”>When Uncle Sam Backs Your Film | Arts & Culture| Smithsonian Magazine) for the Navy. After the film’s release, the number of new recruits who requested to become pilots [increased by 500%](<a href=“http://www.navytimes.com/entertainment/movies/offduty-movie-act-of-valor-featuring-seals-became-passion-project-022012w/”>http://www.navytimes.com/entertainment/movies/offduty-movie-act-of-valor-featuring-seals-became-passion-project-022012w/</a> ), and the Navy even established [recruiting</a> booths](<a href=“http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2001/aug/29/media.filmnews]recruiting”>Top Gun versus Sergeant Bilko? No contest, says the Pentagon | World news | The Guardian) in cinemas playing the film. The TV show CSI is credited with the recent spike in interest in careers in forensic science. It is also well established that the most common occupational settings of TV dramas - law enforcement, hospitals, and law offices/courts - inspires people to want to become cops, doctors, and lawyers. And naturally the intense marketing of sports and entertainment drives people to want to become athletes and entertainers. For example, the popularity of DWTS and So You Think You Can Dance has surely driven recent interest in dancing lessons and American Idol, The Voice, The X Factor, and Glee have done likewise for singing. </p>
<p>So my question is - why can’t we have a similar pop-culture ‘marketing campaign’ for engineering? </p>
<p>Globaltraveller, let’s be brutally honest. Marketing works. It is effective. That’s why firms are willing to spend billions in marketing their brands because they know that it successfully shapes societal attitudes. Put another way, if marketing was truly ineffective, then that must mean that firms are stupidly throwing billions of marketing dollars away every year. For example, if you can successfully promote something as being ‘cool’, ‘edgy’, or ‘extreme’, then you will sell more to that demographic, such as teenagers, that cares about being cool. {That’s Mountain Dew’s marketing strategy in a nutshell.}</p>
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<p>If you are correct that many MIT students never had any intention of becoming engineers, then that’s already a problem in and of itself. After all, MIT is ostensibly the best engineering school in the world, with the best engineering resources and best faculty. That impressive bevy of engineering resources should ideally be reserved for students who actually intend to become engineers. After all there are surely plenty of students at lower-ranked schools who have every intention of becoming engineers…but MIT won’t admit them. </p>
<p>And to be clear, I’m not picking on MIT specifically. The same is true of other top-ranked engineering schools such as Stanford, Berkeley, Princeton, Michigan, Cornell, etc. Plenty of their engineering students also abandon engineering upon graduation or shortly thereafter. From a matching standpoint, the resources of those schools would have been more efficiently allocated to those students who actually want to be engineers. </p>
<p>But I’m not sure I buy the premise anyway, for it seems to me that plenty of those students are indeed highly interested in engineering. Like I said before, the clearest example would be the PhD graduates from the top programs. I think we can all agree that if you’re not actually interested in engineering, you’re not going to complete a PhD in engineering from MIT or any the other top-ranked programs. Heck, I doubt that you would even pass your qualifying exams, let alone complete the dissertation. Yet the fact remains that a not insignificant fraction of even the PhD students do not take jobs in engineering, but rather head for other careers.</p>