Starting salaries

Glassdoor is a good resource. Pick the job where you can grow/learn the most. You’re launching a career, and good skills (including those not simply related to engineering ) and a strong network will be helpful long after the paycheck has been cashed and spent.

@umcoe16 that seems low. I was just research average salaries for mech eng which is generally same or lower that aerospace and seemed to find higher. curious what others think?

@ClassicRockerDad are you in HR? A friend in HR told me that entry level positions are usually not negotiable and recommended my kid not ask for more. Just curious how often you have seen college grads ask for more than what is in the offer letter?

@cali60 well obviously not everybody responds to the survey the career center sends out, so that isn’t necessarily accurate. Also, those who graduate with an engineering degree and a sub-3.0 GPA get shut out of many engineering job opportunities. Their job and earning prospects end up being no different compared with those who graduate with a liberal arts degree, thus those salaries can be factored in.

@cali60, the above statement is patently false, yet something @umcoe16, possibly not even enrolled yet at Michigan, keeps repeating. Sure, the better grades you get the more job opportunities there are for you, but you won’t be completely locked out. My brother in law hires LOTS of EEs and he’s mentioned that he will always take a 2.65 over a 3.65 if the person with the lower GPA seems like they’ll be a better team player. The comparison to an average LA degree is ludicrous.

@umcoe16 You really need to stop with this sub-3.0 nonsense. There is no hard and fast cutoff GPA for being able to get a job. Plenty of sub-3.0 graduates find engineering jobs after graduation. Are they going to be the sexiest jobs out there? Nope. But there are absolutely still jobs out there. Consider that many engineering schools have an average GPA that is below 3.0, which, by your rule, would imply that over 50% of the graduating class is unemployed. However, engineering unemployment rates are somewhere in the ballpark of like 5%. Clearly something is off about your statement.

I would say the most important thing for a new grad is a good environment and people willing to train and mentor you.

A great mentor / training program with people you seem to get along with, even during the interview, will really help get you to the next level … beyond the books … Some big companies have formal programs, a small engineering services type company with lots of folks with 20,30,40 year experience folks that are friendly … also fantastic.

Quality and interest in the type of work being done is also important (but that may vary wildly between individuals and may be related to your interest and GPA in academic work). Someone just popped up a thread about hands on vs analysis vs design vs (heaven help us) CS degrees. If you have a strong preference to spend all day drawing up new designs in CAD, or analyzing some complex item, or working on airplanes, or spacecraft, or missles and rockets, or working in a physical plant, or writing code … the closer that your interests align with your employer the better (the specific job could be a bit off, but I wouldn’t take a plant job if I want to design hardware).

Starting salaries haven’t gone up much in ages in aerospace …

@umcoe16 can you please discuss your 3.0 comment with someone at UMich and report back ?

I would bet many boxes of donuts that many of my colleagues are not >3.0 people and they do just fine. The number of people who need to be able to solve academic type problems like college in a few hours without resources is small, the percentage of engineers who manage people, projects, paperwork rather than do day to day engineering is also high. Software exists to do most engineering problems without opening a text book.

Also don’t think anyone will care about your >3.0 GPA in say 10 years. It’s all about what you can do and have done in those 10 years.

Having a lower GPA may just mean taking a lower tier job, working even harder, and maybe realizing that you don’t want to be the one deciding how big to make the beams on the bridge. I am not even sure it would correlate at all to salaries 10 years out.

But ask your career office … they will know.

I’m not in HR, I manage a group and make hiring decisions.

I’ve seen it often from top candidates when they have multiple offers. We don’t often increase the offer, but for exceptional candidates that we really want and really want us, we’ll sometimes bump it up.

Trying to bump it up when you have no leverage is really hard.

Just following up on my OP. DS did not actually apply for the job he was offered. He interviewed for a different position and was offered this particular job. Long story short, he read the job description and decided it doesn’t appeal to him, so he respectfully rejected the offer.

Thanks for following up and good luck to your son in finding a job that appeals to him more.

Next time he should ask for a phone discussion or vist. Jobs are seldom described well in a job description, and it seems a bit scary to turn down an eager employer, unless the salary was very low or there was a issue with location or the company in particular. The company probably really wanted to hire him and this is what they had available.

The phone discussion or visit would have been a chance to discuss the particulars of the job, and perhaps would have led back to a job with more interest to him.

Interviews can be awkward, but this would have been a two-sided conversation, with an offer in hand. I am not sure I would have thought to ask for the visit or phone discussion when I was 22, but after years of networking and a not great job market in aerospace … would definitely do it now.

Also how does a recent grad have any idea what a job entails ? Even with 20+ years of experience, I am always somewhat surprised when I start on a new project … mostly pleasantly (I have a broad notion of what I like to do, including learning new things), but sometimes unpleasantly (usually related to the people involved or non-technical factors).

I like the idea of a phone conversation, but I doubt it would have helped. The job is primarily software related, more like computer programming. He’s an electrical engineer. He wants to work with antenna design and rf communication type stuff. It was pretty clear that this job was not up his alley. In his declination, he stressed how he likes the company and hopes they will consider him for more appropriate positions. This is one of the giant companies, so there are tons of openings.

If everybody claims that engineering majors with less than a 3.0 can very easily get engineering jobs, why is it that every entry level engineering job posting I have seen lists minimum 3.0 GPA in their required (not preferred) qualifications? At career fair, when companies may designate a representative to filter people out of the line if they can’t be considered (e.g., company won’t be able to provide visa sponsorship if needed), why is it that “do you have at least a 3.0” is always a question?

I never said such a GPA shuts one out completely, but one should expect opportunities to be limited. Having good connections or something of that nature may help one get actual engineering jobs in such situations. I never said that those with such GPAs would be unemployed either. Companies may employ them to work as technicians or something like that, which isn’t exactly “engineering work”, thus the salary would be lower than the expected engineering salary. I have also seen engineering grads work as waiters or go into education to become grade school teachers because they didn’t have any luck getting an engineering job, and that’s not considered unemployed.

I am a senior at Michigan and have greater than a 3.0 GPA, so the career center would probably frown at me for wasting my time and their time discussing this with them.

Do you think that every company that could possibly want engineers attends your career fair? If no, then your career fair anecdote doesn’t necessarily mean anything. You might argue that it is a representative sample, but it’s not. It’s a sample of relative large companies with large(ish) recruiting budgets to attend career fairs. That means the attendees are generally skewed toward companies that are reasonably well-known and can afford to be reasonably selective.

Also, lots of job postings list things they want but companies, especially smaller, local companies without the name brand or “sex appeal” to their names can’t always get all the things on their wish lists. When all the 3.0+ guys are taken by the Fords and the Googles and the Boeings of the world, the smaller guys still need to fill their positions, and as long as someone with a 2.8 fills all their other needs, they probably aren’t going to care so much. The simple fact is that there are more jobs to go around than there are 3.0+ engineering graduates. It’s just going to be slimmer pickings for the 3.0- guys/gals.

And yes, you have gone around at the very least implying that having a sub-3.0 GPA is a hopeless situation. You’ve repeatedly (the last few weeks) replied to threads with statements along the lines of “you likely won’t find engineering employment with a GPA below 3.0.” Whether you meant it that way or not, it’s what you’ve been saying, and it simply isn’t true. I don’t think anyone here would argue against the idea that maintaining a 3.0 or higher is going to make your job search dramatically easier. Shoot, you are even better off if you can keep it above a 3.5. We just want you to stop being so absolute about your claims.

I know I’m piling on here, but the claim was that an engineering degree with a sub-3.0 GPA wouldn’t be any more valuable than a run of the mill liberal arts degree. I’ll leave it at that.

Congratulations on making it to your Senior year and maintaining your academic excellence. Enjoy the job search. Good luck.

Different areas of the country have different absolute numbers, but standard of living usually is very similar. Here is the calculator that I use, and more often than not, the numbers for similar experience jobs end up being neutralized by cost of living.

http://money.cnn.com/calculator/pf/cost-of-living/

And after your first job, where you went to school and your GPA is meaningless.

Here’s what I know from some engineering students out of college seeking employment so thought I would pass it on. if someone out of school has less than a 3.0 overall gpa but your major is over a 3.0 gpa then make sure you tell that to whomever you are interviewing with. Some recruiters are forgiving. Also I don’t know about all industry but have been told the fed gvt or contractor (i.e. Raytheon) are pretty hard nosed about the 3.0 + GPA. Ive seen under 3.0 overall gpa students but high gpa in their major, get an interview with even google, amazon. Im sure it helps to have internships etc…

At career fair, interview slots are limited. Companies may set a minimal requirement for applying. Indeed, even it said 3.0+ on the posting, one may not get a chance for interview if it is below 3.5 for some very popular firms.
Note that income varies a lot with location. There are plenty of local engineering jobs in Michigan which has a much lower cost of living than in California, for instance. I am in the process of hiring a new employee (not engineer though) coming from California and looked up the cost of living and income comparison. The living expenses in Michigan is 38% lower than in California. The difference in salary for the same job in different states is not only determined by cost of living though. Obviously, it also depends on supply and demand.