<p>Hey everyone,</p>
<p>I'm currently enrolled in the college of aerospace engineering at my school. I was wondering if people here think that it may be worth my time to do a minor in business. I will have to take 18 extra credits to get the minor, and do you all think it is worth it to put on my resume and do you think employers may value it or at least double-take at it when they see my resume? </p>
<p>Thanks in advance.</p>
<p>The biggest advantage of a minor is the knowledge itself. Don’t expect it to be something to pad your resume.
If you’re a business-minded engineer, then do it. If not, no point.</p>
<p>Honestly, I don’t think employers care at all about a business minor. Now, that doesn’t mean that a business minor isn’t useful – you may actually learn valuable lessons in your business classes. But I agree with NeoDymium that you shouldn’t expect a business minor to give you an edge over other aerospace engineering candidates for jobs or promotions.</p>
<p>I hired a couple of engineers that also had a business background. Regretted doing so. They weren’t as committed to doing engineering work (which is what I hired them to do) and wanted to move to the business side of the company or immediately into management (which they were not suited for either from a experience level or personality point of view). </p>
<p>Therefore, after that, I tossed every resume that had a significant business background in it.</p>
<p>Just my experience.</p>
<p>^This is just an anecdote.
To the OP, for every HR person that tosses a resume because it has a business background, there is probably an HR person that takes is impressed because it has a business background.
Overall, I do not believe there is any resume-padding effect.</p>
<p>I agree with terenc. There are definitely people out there hiring engineers who want them to just be engineers who stay confined to engineering, but I’ve seen far more who are looking for engineers with logistical/social business skills. Those “pure engineering” jobs are probably the hardest hit by outsourcing, if engineering is anything like programming.</p>
<p>I actually agree with Hpuck, and I’ve seen the same thing at my company. If I was hiring for a technical position, I would want to make sure the applicant’s interest in business was secondary to his commitment to engineering. Those things, though, are usually flushed out quickly in an interview.</p>