<p>I turned down full-tuition scholarships at state schools to attend a top five university. I’ve struggled with that decision for a few years but now, with a lot of my friends graduating, I can think of only one person who hasn’t landed a good gig.</p>
<p>What’s different? Well, ranking is a tiny piece. But, more importantly, they really throw us into networking during week one. By the time I even thought about going into the job hunt I had a stack of business cards from alumni and a solid foundation of internships to stand on. I knew alumni in every field I was interested in. There’s a lot to be said for getting to work years in advance.</p>
<p>Tell him to trying and be persistant. This market is tough. Also, if he can’t find something right away… My advice is don’t be afraid to take an unrelated position to hold him over till he finds something that he wants.</p>
<p>I went to college two hours from home and while I did some networking during school, it was all out in that area. I had a job offer out there (wouldn’t have paid enough) and also met someone at a job fair that seemed very interested in hiring me (my roommate interned with them and she gave them my name). I decided against staying in that area and decided to move back here. I had done no networking here at all. I was starting from scratch. </p>
<p>When I graduated (about 6 years ago) I applied all over the place. Had a few interviews but none of them really were the right fit for me. I went to interview for a job at company ABC that I was very interested in… jumped through all their ridiculous hoops and wound up being offered a position not even remotely close to the one I originally had interviewed for. (part time hours, no benefits, less then half the starting salary). Their interview process was one of the worst I have ever seen in my entire life. I’ve never talked to anyone who was subjected to something like what I went through anywhere else. After all their crazy jumping through every hoop imaginable I really didn’t want to work there (especially part time with no benefits and a tiny salary). In the midst of that hoop jumping I interviewed at company XYZ. My mother told me to take the job at company ABC even though I didn’t want it as it would be some income and hold me over till I found what I was looking for… I showed up for day one of orientation, came home and had an answering machine messaage from company XYZ. I called them back and they didn’t think I’d be a good fit for the position that I interviewed for… but that if I was still looking for a job they had one that they thought would be perfect for me… they wanted to know if I could come in to discuss it with them the next day. I drove out there the next morning to talk to them about it, accepted the job and never returned to company ABC again. My job at company XYZ didn’t start for two or three weeks so in the mean time I babysat my little cousin and did a freelance web design project to earn me some money. Been working there for almost 6 years now. Both places pushed me into a job that was different then the one I had originally applied for… however company XYZ did it in a non insulting way. Same starting salary, same office, just in a different department…</p>
<p>Civil engineering got hit really bad during the recent downturn, since the downturn was the result of the real estate bubble collapsing, which took away a large number of the construction related civil engineering (and architecture) jobs.</p>
<p>I graduated with an EE degree last spring. Frankly, I don’t think this is such a terrible market at all - at least for my graduating class it didn’t appear to be. Of course, I don’t have anything else to compare it to. Also, I went to a school whose engineering program has very strong connections to the industry. Major engineering firms always claim at least a handful of people from our programs every year.</p>
<p>My observations were that internships make an enormous difference. Those with a few internships under their belts had a very easy time getting calls. Lacking internships made life exponentially harder. Unfortunately I’m not sure what the right way to mitigate this is - perhaps to emphasize work on major projects, both in and out of school?</p>
<p>The other factor I noticed was that simply firing off resumes into an online service is not an efficient way of job-hunting. There’s just too high of a chance that your resume will never get seen by anyone, or, at best, by someone in HR who decides to make the selection rather arbitrarily (IE, simple GPA cutoff, etc…) This seems to be due to the fact that the convenience of applying online results in thousands of candidates for every single position. I believe the best way to drum up some interests is to take advantage of the networks mentioned above.</p>
<p>If he doesn’t already belong, I suggest he join some trade groups and technical organizations and start attending their meetings. Membership fees are ususally low or waived for students and unemployed. The folks who belong to these groups are very active in them (for the most part) and are usually very willing to help young kids. His professors should be able to help identify local groups if he doesn’t already know of any himself. This is a good opportunity for him to firm up his networking skills with a friendly audience.</p>
<p>Network, network, network! My S got a CS related summer job as a freshman, with a company a friend works at and suggested he apply to. Otherwise, he would have had NO idea where to start looking.</p>
<p>Other S who is graduating in CS is on the 2nd round of interviews at two companies and would be happy with either. (So at least one area has jobs!) Again, at both companies he knows someone who works there, though it’s hard to know if that actually helped or not.</p>
<p>RE civil engineering–you’d think there’d ALWAYS be jobs there. Seems like a safe field, building/rebuilding roads & bridges. If I were in charge, I’d put money into infrastructure rather than wars in the Middle East, but nobody asked me…</p>
<p>Regarding your original question: yes, this is normal.</p>
<p>A company can get a lot of resumes and they normally go through the HR department where they are not experts in looking for anything other than keywords. Getting to the hiring manager unfiltered by HR improves the odds which is why there are so many recommendations to network.</p>
<p>Hang in there. Sometimes it takes some time before stuff gets done at companies. You send out a resume and nothing seems to happen for ever. And then suddenly you have multiple irons in the fire.</p>
<p>My S is graduating this year in engineering. He had a good GPA, two internships, a member of two different honor societies both of which he held leadership positions and another activity that he was heavily involved in and president of. We thought that it wouldn’t be very hard for him to get a job. It was really hard. He finally received 1 offer about 2 weeks ago. It’s not in the department that he originally interviewed in but it sounds like the company liked him enough to make an offer for him in their company.</p>
<p>My S did not get this job through his college but by an online link. He wanted to work in his field of engineering but did not care he lived. He’s moving a 1000 miles away from his college and us. I think that by looking far and wide it helped his choices. He sent out a lot of resumes. I don’t think he networked that much but his engineering specialty (material science) is small and we (and he) don’t know that many people in the type of business he wanted to go into.</p>
<p>He had an interview through his school recently. Five people interviewed for it. One was a girl with great interviewing skills, one was in graduate school, one had done a 9 mo co-op and my S. All kids who didn’t have a job yet and all who were highly qualified for the job. The competition is fierce and not that many openings.</p>
<p>Many of the kids my S knows and went to school with are not working in their majors. All of the kids he went to HS with (he is class of '06 most of his friends graduated last year) are either in graduate school or working part time jobs. A lot of kids in his major took a 5th year to graduate. Many are going to graduate school. </p>
<p>My H and I went to a wedding last spring and talked to many '05 and '06 HS graduates. Some were working for family businesses, many were in law school or graduate school, a couple in teach for America and some were doing nothing. We felt like we won the job lottery as one was working at an internship and one got a summer job on a production line in a factory.</p>
<p>My D will be a rising senior in mechanical engineering. She still does not have a summer internship (but as usual for this one started late). She was not having any luck applying through her school placement service (she has a 3.0 GPA which she feels is holding her back). Finally she just started sending out applications through online links and she is finally getting a few interviews. She decided to start applying all over the east coast and midwest and hopefully she will find something. </p>
<p>Getting a job or internship has been much harder than any of us would have thought when these kids started out. Engineering is suppose to be a golden ticket, right?</p>
<p>Unfortunately, no longer. My DH and DF are degreed engineers. As manufacturing goes off-shore, the engineering jobs go with it. Those who do work in this profession, even with advanced degrees, are grossly undercompensated in comparison with those who pursue sales, marketing or finance.</p>
<p>“Engineering is suppose to be a golden ticket, right?”</p>
<p>– Yup, that’s what I thought. I’m the sole non-engineer in a family of 5 of them, and in my years I certainly took a lot of ribbing about their job prospects vs. mine. They weren’t wrong!</p>
<p>Sigh. Best of luck to all of the kids on this thread.</p>
<p>Golden tickets are harder to come by but jobs are scarce everywhere. I think that engineering jobs are easier to come by than many other majors but not every area is easy anymore.</p>
<p>remember, networking does not just mean calling someone up and asking if they know of a job. Odds are they don’t. Best to call and ask to meet to get information about the field - get the info and ask for names of other people to meet to get more information - that way you keep meeting more people till you meet someone who does know of a job. Its a slow way of doing it, but if someone has no better prospects, its better than just waiting.</p>
<p>Be sure he tells his friends’ parents he is looking. When I graduated from college, my best friend’s boyfriend (now her husband of 25+ years) was a super smart, but very shy engineering student. I told my dad that he was having a hard time in interviews because he was so quiet, but that I thought he was one of the smartest and hardest working people I knew. My dad told a friend who worked in sales at a local manufacturing company, who got him an interview at his company and this guy was hired. He has had a long and happy career at that same company. So… network contacts can be ANYONE, so he should just make sure that everyone he knows is aware that he is looking…</p>
<p>Ease in finding a job in engineering sounds like it is dependent on which kind of engineering you’re interested in pursuing. Seems like EE, petroleum engineering and CS job markets are good; civil and mechanical are problematic. No clue about bio-engineering…</p>
<p>Networking is everyone. Dentist, folks at church or synagogue, neighbors. And if your kid hasn’t carved out 8-10 hours a week for “job search” he is not at critical mass. He needs to subscribe to Listserv’s in his field, make online contact with people in the field who can discuss trends/industry gossip, etc.</p>
<p>There are no golden tickets. Only sweat equity and tenacity.</p>
<p>For sure your S should ask career services at his college for a few mock interviews with an experienced staff member, get his cover letter proofed and edited, have a few professors look at his resume.</p>
<p>And he needs to let every person in his department- from the secretary, to grad students, to professors, to post-docs know he’s looking for a job. Professors get calls all the time- grad students have colleagues in industry-- secretaries in the department keep track of which student went to which company last year but just asked professor so-and-so for a reference for med school, so a job is about to become vacant at XYZ company.</p>
<p>My son , is getting the same degree as your son ,and had 8 offers to co-op . He is going to school in Ohio .He has a 4.0 and has received several merit scholarships. He currently has a lucrative co- op ,earning almost 800 a week ,and he is only a Junior .Several of his engineering buddies are doing this . Your son needs strong references to connect with job sources . There are jobs out there ,but you have to be a strong applicant . My Economics child graduated Tufts in 2009 ,where only 23% of graduates had jobs lined up .He is currently well paid ,but working as an accountant !! Not what he envisioned after Tufts education . Engineer chose his school because they offered the most merit aid .Doesn’t love Ohio ,but the money is good . Good luck !!</p>