Entry-level engineering jobs may come from other sectors

Just a few years ago, finding an entry-level engineering job was a lot easier than it is now. According to an article from the Shreveport Times, "recruiting and hiring for entry-level degree-earning engineers was at record highs in 2007-08." Unfortunately, that's no longer the case.

But that doesn't mean there aren't entry-level engineering jobs. You just need to know how to look for them, and that might mean looking in places you would not have otherwise searched.

According to analysts interviewed for the article, the energy, biomedical and medical instrument industries all remain hot and hiring. Other sectors actively hiring entry-level employees include "energy/power (from utility to alternative energy firms such as wind, solar and battery technology), oil and gas, food/agriculture, government, transportation - where projects are supported by the stimulus package, defense, consulting/contract services, information technology and software development." Electric power and aerospace are both expected to need new employees soon, as their aging workforce prepares for retirement.

Among the tips that the analysts suggest: make sure to have a good internship before you hit the job market; concentrate on your marketing skills, because they'll help you interface with non-engineers; concentrate your job search on health care; and "learn SolidWorks, a 3D computer-aided design program used extensively by engineers and designers."

Start your search at Experience.com, where you can use the job-search feature to to narrow your quest by keyword, industry, location, or other factors. And keep your options open, you never know where that perfect opportunity is going to come from.

UK needs 600,000 engineers in next 7 years

How do you feel about fish and chips, pints at the pub, and the metric system? If any of those appeal to you, you might want to consider looking for a job in Merry Olde England. According to a new report, the UK is going to need nearly 600,000 more engineers by 2017 if the country hopes to remain competitive.

It seems that the UK isn't producing enough engineers, and according to the Engineering and Technology Board's Engineering UK report, this could have a serious impact on UK industries like manufacturing, aerospace and construction.

Not only has engineering student enrollment dropped 17%, the students the UK has left are going to have trouble getting trained: the number of engineering teachers has dropped by 30% in recent years!

So... this could mean lots of opportunities for engineers from other countries to find jobs and careers in England in the next decade. Sounds like a good time to study up on your British slang and renew your passport. Hey, you never know...

The Pink Ghetto?

Is there a "pink ghetto" for women in high-tech jobs? Well, here's a quote from E-Commerce Times that might give you pause:

The National Research Council reported that women leave high technology, computer, science and engineering careers twice as frequently as men; and women's salaries in those professions still lag behind those of males by 12 percent to 15 percent.

But that only tells part of the story. Women represent half of all people in the workplace. And while few women make it to CEO status, more men are being laid off.

Meanwhile, women have always been more interested in work-life balance than men, and high-tech careers are more likely to embrace such family-friendly ideas as telecommuting and flex-time.

But high-tech professions are still dominated by men. Standing out and keeping your job may require networking like crazy, and making yourself known. Don't let yourself be invisible, and don't efforts to minimize your contributions to any projects on which you're assigned.

For more on this topic, visit the article link above (it's essential reading), or read my articles "Working as a Woman in Engineering" and "Career Options for Women in Engineering."

Start planning NOW for next summer's internships?

I do a lot of writing for IEEE-USA's Today's Engineer, where my latest article covers a bunch of internships and fellowships that students can take advantage of in the summer of 2010.

These are great opportunities, but why did I write about them in November? Easy: the application deadlines are just a couple of weeks away.

Internships and other work-experience programs are just about the most valuable things you can add to your resume before you graduate and start searching for a full-time job. They put you in the real world, give you the perspective of the workplace, allow you to meet valuable contacts, and let you try new things. Plus, they don't last forever, so you always enter an internship with an end-game in mind.

But fitting an internship into your college schedule can be difficult at best. I remember needing to heavily rejigger my course schedule so I could fit an internship into my senior year, and even then, I still wish I'd picked one that offered at least a tiny stipend. The cost of getting to the internship twice a week sucked so much money from my starving-student wallet that I could barely afford to eat that semester!

But man, was it all worth it. I'm still in contact with some of the people I met on my internship, and I put the lessons I learned to practice on an almost daily basis.

So anyway, early planning... Companies that have regular intern programs can't accept an unlimited number of students. They might take one or two at a time, and often start taking applications months in advance. If there's a company in your neighborhood you really want to intern for, chances are there are a hundred other students salivating for that opportunity, too. Which means you'd better get your application in before them. Like, now.

You can start your search at Experience.com, where you can use the job-search feature to specifically look for internships.

So don't delay. Start thinking about it, and then get moving!

Where are the high-tech jobs? NYC, Silicon Valley and Austin top the list

Where should you focus your job-search efforts? According to a report from Dice.com, the most high-tech job listings are in Silicon Valley* and New York City.

Outside of NYC, the entire Northeast area is apparently experiencing high-tech job growth, especially in New Jersey.

High-tech job postings in Charlotte, NC, and Austin, TX, are also up 45% and 31% since the beginning of the year.

Job postings aren't up that high percentage-wise in NYC and Silicon Valley, but the sheer number of jobs in those areas puts them at the top of the list. New York City job postings are up 16%, while Silicon Valley saw a 6% rise.

So keep this in mind when you're job searching, and narrow your search to look at some of these areas.


* Since Silicon Valley isn't a real city, it's sometimes hard to search for jobs in that area. Use cities like San Francisco, San Jose, Los Altos, Palo Alto, Mountain View and Milpitas for your searches. Or check Wikipedia for the complete list of "Silicon Valley" cities.

Licensing: Your Key to Working Anywhere, at Any Time?

Not every engineering field requires the people practicing it to be licensed. But one field that does is civil engineering, and here's the tale of one man who has just landed his 50th civil engineering license, allowing him to work anywhere in the United States.

Tracy Letzring is also a licensed environmental engineer and registered structural engineer. He fully admits that having all of these licenses gives him and his company a marketing edge over the competition, but in practical matters, it also lets him work for any client in any state or city, and not just in his own neighborhood.

Working in different states requires different knowledge and skills. For example, Letzring says that California's license required him to learn about seismic migration, while he needed to learn about Arctic conditions to land his license in Alaska.

How much do you need to think about licenses in these particular careers? It's up to you. But you do want to plan ahead. It would suck if you had to turn down a job or couldn't land a client because you were licensed in one state but not in its neighbor. Something to consider...

Nuclear Engineering Jobs are Hot

If you're looking for a high-tech career with nowhere to go but up, then you can't go wrong with nuclear engineering.

More than just nuclear power, nuclear engineers are also vital for work in physics, medicine, imaging, and more. It's an essential field, and it's growing. According to a 2008 article from USA Today, there are now five times more nuclear engineering students than there were early in the decade.

If new nuclear power plants get approved in the next few years, it could mean hundreds of new engineering jobs. Heck, worldwide, new nuclear power could result in thousands upon thousands of jobs. That's the expectation in the UK, where 11 new nuclear power plants are currently being debated. (And yes, chances are that the majority of new nuclear jobs will be created outside the U.S., but the States still has the best nuclear training programs, so you're in the right place to make sure you get the best knowledge possible to get started in your career.)

Want to know more? Here's a great profile of a working nuclear engineer, and here's another one from an engineer who's just started out in his field.