Non-engineering jobs for engineering majors

[Schaefer Light]

Outside of traditional engineering roles, what types of jobs are typically well-suited for people with engineering degrees?  I'm strongly considering a career change, and I don't think I'll be able to land a job in my field of study (electrical engineering).  I'm also concerned that I simply wouldn't be able to do the work.  My career path after college took me away from what I studied in college, and at this point a recent engineering graduate would probably be much more attractive to employers.  I can barely remember Ohm's law these days ;).  Do hiring managers for certain non-engineering positions place a premium on people with the mindset and skills to obtain an engineering degree?

To give a little more background, I've been in a management position for about 8 years and I'm sick and tired of it.  They money's okay, but I'd take a 20% pay cut to eliminate dealing with people issues, politics, and being responsible for other people's work.  Combine that with the fact that I'm not challenged, don't get any constructive feedback, and upper management doesn't seem to give a shit about what we do until there's a service outage and I've just about had all I can take.  If that wasn't enough, some of my co-workers and my boss were laid off last fall and there are rumblings that more re-orgs are coming soon.

The long and short of it is...I feel trapped.  I look at job postings and don't see any that look appealing that I actually feel qualified for.  I talk to friends and they say I should have no trouble landing another job in this economy...which only makes me feel worse about not being able to find something.

I'm hoping some of you either have experience with making this type of career change yourself or know people who have done it.  Your advice and ideas about possible jobs would be greatly appreciated.

[mozar]

Focus on what interests you. It could be anything. Also I would wait to be laid off if that was imminent.

[use2betrix]

Why don’t you just start applying and see what happens? It’s really not that challenging or time consuming and it will give you more actual indication of your options than anyone here can.

[COEE]

I know I get requests from insurance companies once in a while to be an insurance agent.  Not really appealing to me, but perhaps to you.  Real Estate Agent is another good profession that I think would be well served with more engineer types.

Why not go for an entry level EE job?  Lots of them out there.  Maybe you get one, maybe you don't.  It's a great field.  Relatively good pay, good benefits, can be stressful at times, but is a lot of fun once you get good at it.  A good entry level job would be a good refresh for you.

[Schaefer Light]

Focus on what interests you. It could be anything. Also I would wait to be laid off if that was imminent.

My interests are golf, fitness, travel, reading, music, and personal finance.  Of those interests, only personal finance seems like something I might be able to turn into a career.  Frankly, I don't even think I'd want a career in any of the other areas of interest I mentioned.  I wouldn't want to risk turning an enjoyable hobby into a "job".  I agree with waiting to get laid off if I knew that was coming soon.  The problem is that I have no idea when or if it will happen.  It could happen tomorrow, or it could never happen.

Why don’t you just start applying and see what happens? It’s really not that challenging or time consuming and it will give you more actual indication of your options than anyone here can.

The problem I have is deciding what to enter in that little search box where you have to type the name of a position you're looking for.  I get to that and have absolutely no idea what I should be searching for.  So I type in something general like "telecommunications" (my current field) and get page after page of job postings that don't sound appealing to me.

Why not go for an entry level EE job?  Lots of them out there.  Maybe you get one, maybe you don't.  It's a great field.  Relatively good pay, good benefits, can be stressful at times, but is a lot of fun once you get good at it.  A good entry level job would be a good refresh for you.

That's a thought.  I'd like a "refresh" on my whole life right about now.  I've looked at some of those entry level EE jobs and they intimidate me as I don't even remember what some of the words and acronyms they use in the job description mean any more.  That doesn't necessarily mean I couldn't learn how to do the job, though.

[civil4life]

I am a civil engineer and work in the public sector.  Almost my entire career has been in project management.  It is ok and pays well.  I am not a manager of employees and I plan not to take the leap into management for the reasons you listed.  Once I FI I would like to go backwards and go entry level and actually do design and challenge myself, but most likely on a part-time basis.

[lizi]

A lot of electrical and mechanical engineering grads I know went into finance, working for banks doing stuff with spreadsheets. Banks like your math and spreadsheeting skills, and it might not be the most fascinating work but from what I can see it pays fairly well.

I'm in a similar boat, where I worked for 3 years after graduating in areas not at all aligned with my degree, so now I have a hodgepodge of experience and I'm trying to get back into engineering (chemical). So I'm partly replying to get some inspiration from others as well.

[Slow&Steady]

Why don’t you just start applying and see what happens? It’s really not that challenging or time consuming and it will give you more actual indication of your options than anyone here can.

The problem I have is deciding what to enter in that little search box where you have to type the name of a position you're looking for.  I get to that and have absolutely no idea what I should be searching for.  So I type in something general like "telecommunications" (my current field) and get page after page of job postings that don't sound appealing to me.

So leave it blank and just fill in a city/state and press enter.

[HPstache]

How about technical writing?  Operator's manuals, etc. would be a good field for an engineer that doesn't want to practice traditional engineering.

[sisto]

What about business operations? It's still a bit management, but without the people. It's more like improving processes. There are many aspects depending on the industry so there are lots of options. It's usually good for people that have both management and engineering experience because many times you are the one that bridges the gap between working engineers and upper management. Start searching for business operations manager and see if something sounds right.

[Lanthiriel]

How about technical writing?  Operator's manuals, etc. would be a good field for an engineer that doesn't want to practice traditional engineering.

I was going to suggest technical writing or marketing/proposal writing.

[Philociraptor]

I could have written this post, but with a mechanical engineering degree. About to hit 7 years with my first company out of college, was an engineer for the first 3.75 and have been doing supply chain the remainder of the time. Don't have any working knowledge of mechanical engineering at this point, and supply chain jobs generally don't pay as well as I'm making here due to my longevity, so golden handcuffs. I don't really have any advice for getting out, but wanted to let you know that you're not alone in this.

[pecunia]

I notice none of the suggestions are jobs where you will work with your hands.  I believe with your degree there are many technician jobs you could obtain.  The beauty of this is that the same terms that you do not remember will be there.  Additional beauty is that you will relearn these concepts with both your head and your hands.  As your past book knowledge is recalled, you should have the added advantage of both practical experience and a good knowledge of the theory.  Then you can move up.

Do you still have those old boring text books?  Did you keep copies of your notes and tests from when you went to school?  Go back to school.  Not a real school.  Let's call it the school of review.  You learned the stuff once, right?  Why can't you learn it again?  It's in your head.  You just need a refresh.

An enlightened employer should understand that you've been doing something else for eight years.  I was told many years ago that what employers see with engineering students is not so much what they've learned in school.  No, what they see is that this student after mastering all that Calculus, Differential Equations, Linear Algebra, etc has the capability to learn about anything.  There are a lot of jobs where you use little of what you learned in electrical engineering school.  You learn new ideas and equipment.  I would suspect most are like that.

If you forgot the material, you are one of the lucky ones.  It must have come to you more easily than it comes to some of us who have had such pain in the learning that we retain it.  What you need to learn will come to you again.  Do not be nervous about looking for the new job.  You will survive and you have an added benefit many others do not have,.........

You understand Mustachian principles.   Take the engineering job and retire in ten years.

[mozar]

On craigslist you can click the general category "jobs" and it will give you all the listings.
I wouldn't write off your interests so quickly. While you are waiting to be laid off you can apply to music jobs, fitness instructor jobs, editing jobs, heck even a golf caddy job. It also depends on your lifestyle requirements.  If you need to make a certain amount per year that limits your options.

[Secret Stache]

A lot of companies want project managers with an engineering background. 

[Car Jack]

There are many levels of engineers.  I think most people outside the field might think of a EE as someone who designs circuits for products.  But there are also product engineers who troubleshoot customer problems and make production changes when needed.  Manufacturing engineers make designs that are easy/cheap to manufacture.  Test engineers write programs to use in test machines in production.  Field applications engineers work with sales as the guy who knows how the product works.  You have to be able to work with people for this (I do this now but have a strong design background as a principal engineer and an MSEE).  And sales engineers just sell stuff.  As an example, Texas Instruments won't hire you as a sales engineer without a BSEE (or lots of experience in electronic sales).  They have a whole program for traditional students, sending them to Dallas for a year of training and exposure, then they have to find a job within the company.  As an experienced guy, you could potentially still get a job as a sales engineer.....but that's a very outgoing personality kind of job.  How about working for a utility?  I don't know what they do, but have a few guys from my old karate class that worked for national grid as engineers.

I know lots of engineers who worked up to become managers, directors and even VP's and got tired of it and left to go back to design work.  But they were very strong, experienced designers to begin with.  You'd definitely have brush up on the technical stuff to do that, but a number of the other jobs have a lot of learn as you go aspects.

[FoundPeace]

You could probably still get into engineering if you want. The key would be finding something where your previous experience would be useful. For example, I’m an engineer who does a lot of project management and have to talk with blue collar workers. If an engineer came here with experience working with blue collar workers or with project management, they would still be considered even without having much engineering experience.

Some ideas for other things you could do with an engineering degree:
Finance
Technical sales (people who sell equipment to engineers and scientists)
Patent work
Get a law degree and become a patent attorney
Programming jobs (a lot of EEs are prgorammers)
IT



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Jouer]

Can you code? Did you do any statistics measurement / experimental design while on the job? If so, would you be interested in data science? I'm a statistician and half of my math classes in university were filled with engineers so you might have the background for it. I'd definitely hire an engineer to do analysis - similar kinds of analytical brains.

[HPstache]

I had another good idea for you.  Have you take the FE test yet (assuming you are in the USA)?  If not, you should take an online refresher course ($500-$1,000) and take the FE test.  Prove to yourself you can still do it!  Remembering the formulas isn't necessarily what makes you a good engineer, it's knowing when to apply them and how to find them.  I thought I was super out of practice being 10 years out of school, but my manager wanted me to take the PE test two years ago.  I took a refresher course and passed.  A lot of times what they teach you in Engineering school isn't really practical for every day practice... they are teaching you how to problem solve.  In real life you don't use 90+% of what you learned, and your employer expects you to have to relearn a lot of it in my experience.

[Posthumane]

I was in a similar situation - degree in EE and was working an "engineering" job which largely consisted of technical writing, some research, and some management. I had mostly forgotten the basic technical aspects of EE as I rarely used them, but when I did need something I found that a bit of reading on wikipedia and some engineering sites would jog my memory. I got tired of that job and went into military aviation instead, but other jobs I looked at were in machining/welding, finance, and a host of other interesting but not related fields.

[TheWifeHalf]

TheHusbandHalf  said there are engineers out at the refinery where he works. They do engineering stuff, salary.

I asked him, and he said, that an engineer could get hired hourly, do what other hourly hires do, but the company would expect them to move up to salary (like some other hourly hires do)
He said the hourly get paid more than the salary engineers

[pecunia]

The Wife Half:

He said the hourly get paid more than the salary engineers

This may be with the time and a half pay for overtime versus either straight pay or no pay for overtime for engineers.  The base pay for engineers is often better, but not when you consider the free hours put in for various types of outage (shutdown) support and the free time put in for troubleshooting.  Engineers may get a bonus at the end of the year but in many places the engineer will actually have very little control of the amount of that bonus or whether it will even exist.

[Schaefer Light]

I notice none of the suggestions are jobs where you will work with your hands.  I believe with your degree there are many technician jobs you could obtain.  The beauty of this is that the same terms that you do not remember will be there.  Additional beauty is that you will relearn these concepts with both your head and your hands.  As your past book knowledge is recalled, you should have the added advantage of both practical experience and a good knowledge of the theory.  Then you can move up.

Do you still have those old boring text books?  Did you keep copies of your notes and tests from when you went to school?  Go back to school.  Not a real school.  Let's call it the school of review.  You learned the stuff once, right?  Why can't you learn it again?  It's in your head.  You just need a refresh.

An enlightened employer should understand that you've been doing something else for eight years.  I was told many years ago that what employers see with engineering students is not so much what they've learned in school.  No, what they see is that this student after mastering all that Calculus, Differential Equations, Linear Algebra, etc has the capability to learn about anything.  There are a lot of jobs where you use little of what you learned in electrical engineering school.  You learn new ideas and equipment.  I would suspect most are like that.

If you forgot the material, you are one of the lucky ones.  It must have come to you more easily than it comes to some of us who have had such pain in the learning that we retain it.  What you need to learn will come to you again.  Do not be nervous about looking for the new job.  You will survive and you have an added benefit many others do not have,.........

You understand Mustachian principles.   Take the engineering job and retire in ten years.

I think you hit on something with the part in bold.  Maybe the material (not just in engineering, but in all my courses) was a bit too easy for me to learn.  I found it pretty easy to make good grades, but I basically forgot everything a day after the final exam.  I distinctly remember one job interview with a company that designed circuit boards where I was asked to draw a diagram of a certain type of circuit on the whiteboard.  I had no idea how to do it.  That class was 4 semesters ago ;). 

I like your suggestion about doing a refresh of my materials from school.  It might be kind of fun.  I looked last night and I still have probably 3/4 of my textbooks.  The one I really wanted to start with (from my first circuits course) was missing, but I could probably find one on Amazon that wouldn't cost too much.

I wish employers seemed to care more about the ability to learn than they do about your experience or what's already on your resume.  And maybe they do care about the ability to learn and adapt, but their job postings make it seem like they only care about what you already know how to do.  "Engineer with x years of experience doing a, b, and c" is what so many job postings look like.

[Schaefer Light]

You all have given me some really good ideas.

Insurance agent
Real estate agent
Entry level engineering job
Project management
Finance
Technical writing
Business operations management
Marketing/proposal writing
Technician
Technical sales
Patent examiner/attorney
IT
Programming
Data science/analysis
Jobs related to hobbies/interests

I've got some thinking to do.  I could see myself being successful and maybe even (dare I say it) happy in some of these roles.

[HPstache]

I notice none of the suggestions are jobs where you will work with your hands.  I believe with your degree there are many technician jobs you could obtain.  The beauty of this is that the same terms that you do not remember will be there.  Additional beauty is that you will relearn these concepts with both your head and your hands.  As your past book knowledge is recalled, you should have the added advantage of both practical experience and a good knowledge of the theory.  Then you can move up.

Do you still have those old boring text books?  Did you keep copies of your notes and tests from when you went to school?  Go back to school.  Not a real school.  Let's call it the school of review.  You learned the stuff once, right?  Why can't you learn it again?  It's in your head.  You just need a refresh.

An enlightened employer should understand that you've been doing something else for eight years.  I was told many years ago that what employers see with engineering students is not so much what they've learned in school.  No, what they see is that this student after mastering all that Calculus, Differential Equations, Linear Algebra, etc has the capability to learn about anything.  There are a lot of jobs where you use little of what you learned in electrical engineering school.  You learn new ideas and equipment.  I would suspect most are like that.

If you forgot the material, you are one of the lucky ones.  It must have come to you more easily than it comes to some of us who have had such pain in the learning that we retain it.  What you need to learn will come to you again.  Do not be nervous about looking for the new job.  You will survive and you have an added benefit many others do not have,.........

You understand Mustachian principles.   Take the engineering job and retire in ten years.

I think you hit on something with the part in bold.  Maybe the material (not just in engineering, but in all my courses) was a bit too easy for me to learn.  I found it pretty easy to make good grades, but I basically forgot everything a day after the final exam.  I distinctly remember one job interview with a company that designed circuit boards where I was asked to draw a diagram of a certain type of circuit on the whiteboard.  I had no idea how to do it.  That class was 4 semesters ago ;). 

I like your suggestion about doing a refresh of my materials from school.  It might be kind of fun.  I looked last night and I still have probably 3/4 of my textbooks.  The one I really wanted to start with (from my first circuits course) was missing, but I could probably find one on Amazon that wouldn't cost too much.

I wish employers seemed to care more about the ability to learn than they do about your experience or what's already on your resume.  And maybe they do care about the ability to learn and adapt, but their job postings make it seem like they only care about what you already know how to do.  "Engineer with x years of experience doing a, b, and c" is what so many job postings look like.

The part I bolded is in my opinion part of your problem.  This is pretty abnormal and a bit rude for an interview.  If you're basing your experience on this for why you feel you have forgotten everything... I can't blame you!  But you really shouldn't let that be in your mind, that is a weird interview tactic that you'll rarely experience again.

[Schaefer Light]

The part I bolded is in my opinion part of your problem.  This is pretty abnormal and a bit rude for an interview.  If you're basing your experience on this for why you feel you have forgotten everything... I can't blame you!  But you really shouldn't let that be in your mind, that is a weird interview tactic that you'll rarely experience again.

I found it a bit strange, too.  I remember thinking I wouldn't recommend this employer to anyone after I was done with the interview.  That one interview (as humiliating as it was) isn't the reason I say I've forgotten a lot of what I learned, though.  It's just been such a long time since I spent any time with the subject matter that I can't remember a lot of it.

[TheWifeHalf]

The Wife Half:

He said the hourly get paid more than the salary engineers

This may be with the time and a half pay for overtime versus either straight pay or no pay for overtime for engineers.  The base pay for engineers is often better, but not when you consider the free hours put in for various types of outage (shutdown) support and the free time put in for troubleshooting.  Engineers may get a bonus at the end of the year but in many places the engineer will actually have very little control of the amount of that bonus or whether it will even exist.

I did not ask him for specifics.

[pecunia]

I found it a bit strange, too.

You may think of it another way too.  Unless the person was a human resource person, they may interview very infrequently.  I'll bet the human resource person did not ask about the circuit.  The technical people doing the interviews may not have had a good series of questions to ask, but just stumbled along until they hit the circuit and the blackboard.

If you practice interviewing, you can steer these people.  You generally have the power to ask them questions too.  These questions can steer them into asking about things that you know.  An interview is a snapshot and you can make this snapshot  a good one.

I think you can find a lot of the circuit theory online.  Here's a link to basic circuit analysis.

TRANSY_Dr.-Ing.%20Michael%20E.%20Auer_Electric%20Circuits%20Theory.pdf]http://ocw.nthu.edu.tw/ocw/upload/124/news/[%E9%9B%BB%E5%8B%95%E6%A9%9F%E6%A2%B0L1a%E8%A3%9C%E5%85%85%E6%95%99%E6%9D%90]TRANSY_Dr.-Ing.%20Michael%20E.%20Auer_Electric%20Circuits%20Theory.pdf

[mm1970]

The part I bolded is in my opinion part of your problem.  This is pretty abnormal and a bit rude for an interview.  If you're basing your experience on this for why you feel you have forgotten everything... I can't blame you!  But you really shouldn't let that be in your mind, that is a weird interview tactic that you'll rarely experience again.

I found it a bit strange, too.  I remember thinking I wouldn't recommend this employer to anyone after I was done with the interview.  That one interview (as humiliating as it was) isn't the reason I say I've forgotten a lot of what I learned, though.  It's just been such a long time since I spent any time with the subject matter that I can't remember a lot of it.

These kinds of questions have been pretty common in my line of work, particularly when hiring people right out of college.  Even with senior engineers, you can look good on paper and know the lingo but not perform.

We hired a bunch of fresh grads one year.  We interviewed one guy, and one of our current employees said "oh, I wouldn't, he didn't do anything in our group project and he's not that bright."  But, the kid got an EE degree?  At a UC?  He literally could not answer a single question correctly about his laboratory class in semiconductors.  I mean, at a bare minimum, if you are interviewing at a semiconductor company, you look up your notes so that you know what "photolithography" is. My boss honestly was flabbergasted that he actually had a degree.

I'm pretty sure one of the reasons I didn't get the most recent job I interviewed for was because I was unable to explain in enough detail the physics behind how an ellipsometer works.  I mean, I have the book.  I know the general gist.  I can look it up...  That was a very PhD heavy company, like the one I'm in.

[AccidentalMiser]

I don't know where you are or where you would be willing to live.  I work for TVA, which is a Federally-owned utility company in the southeast.  We have a miserable time finding good folks.

If you might be interested, here's a link to our careers site:

https://tvacareers.ttcportals.com/jobs/search?sort_by=cfml3,desc

[pecunia]

Bart:

My company is having a ***** of a time finding experienced electrical engineers.

Maybe it's time these company's provided some experience instead of robbing the personnel of other companies.  Why not give our poor OP a chance to get that experience with your company?

side issue - This is one of my hot buttons.  Company's use the H1B thing to get experienced people from overseas.  They say they can't find the people in this country with the right skill set.  However, they will not do the work to help develop that skill set so they can use domestic talent.   (I know it's also a smoke screen so they can get somebody in for a low price.)

[austin944]

If you want to get back into EE and engineering employers are not interested in hiring you, then you could get a graduate degree.  You can take undergrad EE refresher courses, or do self-study before taking your graduate-level classes.  Like you say, employers are always looking for fresh graduates.

[pecunia]

austin 944:

then you could get a graduate degree.

Higher pay with a graduate EE degree.  It could also mean that you keep your job when the culling occurs.

For many people, an MBA has opened a lot of doors, however, I think there is currently an ample supply of folks with MBAs.

To me this looks like a great idea - If I wasn't so close to being FIREd, I'd consider it for myself.  In these times you would need money, time, a head for learning and a good internet connection to pursue these options.

[sisto]

Bart:

My company is having a ***** of a time finding experienced electrical engineers.

Maybe it's time these company's provided some experience instead of robbing the personnel of other companies.  Why not give our poor OP a chance to get that experience with your company?

side issue - This is one of my hot buttons.  Company's use the H1B thing to get experienced people from overseas.  They say they can't find the people in this country with the right skill set.  However, they will not do the work to help develop that skill set so they can use domestic talent.   (I know it's also a smoke screen so they can get somebody in for a low price.)

Not only do they get people at a lower price they gain control over those people in many ways. You have little to no growth opportunities because your job title can't change under the visa terms. I've seen many instances of people being abused. At the same time others are also being denied opportunity. It's not always like that, but I have seen it many times. It's one of the things I most dislike about Mega Corp. I'm just a cog in the wheel.

[Acastus]

I have degrees in chemical and plastics engineering, and I spent my career in product development then materials science. Most of the technical sales reps I worked with have technical degrees so they can explain the basics of their product and take home a clue about what your application is for their product. The VP of Technology at the small company I worked at for a few years has a degree in Journalism, so I guess you can jump the fence from either side. His family owned the business, so maybe that had something to do with it.

[merula]

I work in insurance. I really don't think insurance agent would be a good fit for an average EE. It's actually not as technical as it might seem, what is technical is nuances of insurance legalese, and it's a lot of sales and relationship building. I was an EE major once upon a time (switched to business to do technical stuff but talk to people), and I could never be an agent.

BUT, there is a field in insurance specifically for engineers: Loss Control (sometimes called Risk Control). Insurance carriers, and sometimes large agencies or brokers like Marsh, Aon or Willis, need to know what's going on at a particular business and send out Loss Control.

These people look at buildings and figure out, if there was going to be a fire, where it would start and how much damage it would likely do. They figure out if the sprinkler system is sufficient, and if the storage method is appropriate for the material. They figure out if the employees are at risk for hearing loss, overexposure to chemicals or industrial disease. They figure out if people are likely to slip and fall on the premises.

All of this analysis goes two places: to reports to underwriters to help them figure out what they're insuring, and to recommendations to the business to help them be safer. (Stuff like "your storage is too high, it's blocking your sprinklers" or "you should have a driving policy against distracted driving".)

[COEE]

I distinctly remember one job interview with a company that designed circuit boards where I was asked to draw a diagram of a certain type of circuit on the whiteboard.

Really, you interviewed with a design engineering firm and you didn't expect some questions about your design engineering skills?  Get real.  You didn't deserve that job, and perhaps you don't deserve a EE job at all if you have no drive to refresh your super computer.*

Come into my office for an interview and I'm going to grill you on details in your resume.  If you have a 4 year BSEE degree on your resume I will ask you first year circuits 101 and EM 101 questions.  Nothing that a EE doesn't experience every day of their lives.  If you don't answer them somewhat correctly then have a nice day.

This is not rude... it's business.

* - Full disclosure, my first interviews for design jobs didn't go so hot either and I had 5 years of engineering experience, but little real design experience.  I had to work hard hard for 3 years to get to that level both at work and on my personal time.

[chasesfish]

Do you like talking to people?

I know many engineers who do very well in sales, specifically sales of very technical products.  You don't have to be doing designs every day to have general to intermediate knowledge of the product you're selling, but as an engineer you come with credibility on "why this does what it does".

I knew a couple of mechanical engineers that were incredibly successful in the food and beverage packaging equipment business. They enjoyed buying/selling the stuff and had other people doing the actual rebuilding/work.   Their engineering background was useful on the buying / selling.

There's an engineering client I have who's wildly successful in quick service pizza...but I don't think that meets your goal

[civil4life]

I distinctly remember one job interview with a company that designed circuit boards where I was asked to draw a diagram of a certain type of circuit on the whiteboard.

Really, you interviewed with a design engineering firm and you didn't expect some questions about your design engineering skills?  Get real.  You didn't deserve that job, and perhaps you don't deserve a EE job at all if you have no drive to refresh your super computer.*

Come into my office for an interview and I'm going to grill you on details in your resume.  If you have a 4 year BSEE degree on your resume I will ask you first year circuits 101 and EM 101 questions.  Nothing that a EE doesn't experience every day of their lives.  If you don't answer them somewhat correctly then have a nice day.

This is not rude... it's business.

* - Full disclosure, my first interviews for design jobs didn't go so hot either and I had 5 years of engineering experience, but little real design experience.  I had to work hard hard for 3 years to get to that level both at work and on my personal time.

My school was very good at getting seniors interviews and placements after college.  I interviewed with at least a dozen companies.  Only 3 of them asked me any engineering related questions.  Most were extremely basic.  One brought out a set of plans and pointed to things and asked me what they were.  The other were government jobs that had set benchmark questions. 

[mschaus]

A few people have mentioned patents, but I'll clarify a little more since I wish someone had told me about this years ago:

As an electrical engineer, you would be in high demand as a patent agent. A patent agent can be an engineer with no law degree, but you can get a job at a law firm and work with their clients to understand their technology and turn it into a patent. (Later, you can pass the "patent bar" which is dramatically less involved than law school, or even continue onto law school if you choose). With a few years of experience it could translate well to remote/flexible work, which is fairly uncommon for engineers.

I didn't choose this path for myself, but did the research and met with some patent attorneys. Good luck!

[Schaefer Light]

Really, you interviewed with a design engineering firm and you didn't expect some questions about your design engineering skills?  Get real.  You didn't deserve that job, and perhaps you don't deserve a EE job at all if you have no drive to refresh your super computer.*

Come into my office for an interview and I'm going to grill you on details in your resume.  If you have a 4 year BSEE degree on your resume I will ask you first year circuits 101 and EM 101 questions.  Nothing that a EE doesn't experience every day of their lives.  If you don't answer them somewhat correctly then have a nice day.

This is not rude... it's business.

* - Full disclosure, my first interviews for design jobs didn't go so hot either and I had 5 years of engineering experience, but little real design experience.  I had to work hard hard for 3 years to get to that level both at work and on my personal time.

Here's the thing.  If I had studied up on the topic, I could have done very well in the interview and answered all of their questions.  That might have made me a more attractive candidate, but would that really have made me a more intelligent person or a "better" engineer?  I don't think so.  If I'd gotten that job I would have forgotten everything I learned preparing for the interview by the time I started working.  That's just the way my "supercomputer" operates ;).  I bust my ass learning a topic, and then I forget it as soon as I've completed my objective.  If it's not something I really enjoy, then I'm going to forget about it very quickly.

I think it's really just a difference in hiring philosophy.  Maybe their way has proven to work well for them.

[Schaefer Light]

A few people have mentioned patents, but I'll clarify a little more since I wish someone had told me about this years ago:

Thanks for posting this.

[Schaefer Light]

Do you like talking to people?

I know many engineers who do very well in sales, specifically sales of very technical products.  You don't have to be doing designs every day to have general to intermediate knowledge of the product you're selling, but as an engineer you come with credibility on "why this does what it does".

I've given a lot of thought to sales, and it's so different than anything I've done that I just don't know what the day to day experience would be like.  I don't mind talking to people, and I think I'd enjoy the conversations with customers more than I enjoy a lot of the manager-subordinate conversations I'm having now.  I probably wouldn't handle a position that involves a lot of cold-calling very well, though.  I get enough calls from sales reps for companies I've never heard of in my current job to know that it would suck to have to do that every day.

[COEE]

Your logic is so terribly flawed.  Do you really expect me to pay you a 60-70k + benefits + bonus without ever having another engineering job if you can't answer some basic 101 questions?  Please.

For an entry level job I don't care if you looked up some basic electronics in a book an hour before the interview.  In fact, that would tell me you're smart enough to look in a book for an answer to basic questions.  It might just mean you're a "better" engineer than the next candidate that walks in my door.

[js82]

A lot of electrical and mechanical engineering grads I know went into finance, working for banks doing stuff with spreadsheets. Banks like your math and spreadsheeting skills, and it might not be the most fascinating work but from what I can see it pays fairly well.

This is one route worth considering, if it interests you(not finance specifically, but something that leverages numerical aptitude).  There are lots of professions where you can leverage mathematical/numeric/data analysis skills, if those are skills you've honed.

While I'm an engineer by both education and profession, a lot of my self-taught skills push towards the realm of what data scientists frequently do - analytics on large, complex data sets, and transformation/manipulation of those data sets to separate signal from noise.  This is a highly transferrable skill that can be applied to a lot of different professions, once you get your foot in the door.

[sparkytheop]

The Wife Half:

He said the hourly get paid more than the salary engineers

This may be with the time and a half pay for overtime versus either straight pay or no pay for overtime for engineers.  The base pay for engineers is often better, but not when you consider the free hours put in for various types of outage (shutdown) support and the free time put in for troubleshooting.  Engineers may get a bonus at the end of the year but in many places the engineer will actually have very little control of the amount of that bonus or whether it will even exist.

I did not ask him for specifics.

When I worked as a maintenance electrician, I made more than the engineers.  So did the mechanics.  This was base pay, so before the fact that we got more overtime, and that our OT was double time while theirs was time and a half.  So, depending on the company, it could very well be true (and is also likely a reason our company does not get quality engineers).

[sparkytheop]

Do you enjoy working with your hands?  Would you like to work a trade?

I got my associates in Electronic Engineering Technology.  For me, it was a means to an end.  I found a good job that was directly tied to the classes.  Once I completed the schooling (while working the job 30+ hours a week, doing whatever menial task they requested of me), I was automatically entered into the apprenticeship program (did not have to re-interview), which lead to my "permanent" career (which I left to go to a different field job, and am much happier).

There are many different areas if you start looking to generation, distribution, utilities, etc.  Where I work, our best (IMO) electrician is a former engineer.  When I worked as an electrician, our best electrical engineer had a background in field work, so he got "real life" stuff, not just "in theory" stuff, and we were able to work great together.

In maintenance, it's not all wire-pulling stuff.  I mostly did troubleshooting (I love troubleshooting), upgrading old systems, programming PLCs (I started programming in 1992 as a kid), preventive maintenance, etc.  Depending on the job, you can physically do it until "normal" retirement. 

Of course, now you'd be blue collar, so "beneath" everyone else, but we're a good group.  We also make good money.  It's not the glamorous Opthamologist title of the direction I was originally going to go with my life (got accepted into one of the best schools in the nation), but looking at who I am, and what I enjoy doing, I think I'm happier now than I would have been.

[pecunia]

Do you enjoy working with your hands?  Would you like to work a trade?




In maintenance, it's not all wire-pulling stuff.  I mostly did troubleshooting (I love troubleshooting), upgrading old systems, programming PLCs (I started programming in 1992 as a kid), preventive maintenance, etc.  Depending on the job, you can physically do it until "normal" retirement. 

Of course, now you'd be blue collar, so "beneath" everyone else, but we're a good group.  We also make good money.  It's not the glamorous Opthamologist title of the direction I was originally going to go with my life (got accepted into one of the best schools in the nation), but looking at who I am, and what I enjoy doing, I think I'm happier now than I would have been.

I'll bet you get time and a half overtime when you are correcting all those design errors.  I'll bet you avoid a lot of nasty office politics.

[sparkytheop]

Do you enjoy working with your hands?  Would you like to work a trade?




In maintenance, it's not all wire-pulling stuff.  I mostly did troubleshooting (I love troubleshooting), upgrading old systems, programming PLCs (I started programming in 1992 as a kid), preventive maintenance, etc.  Depending on the job, you can physically do it until "normal" retirement. 

Of course, now you'd be blue collar, so "beneath" everyone else, but we're a good group.  We also make good money.  It's not the glamorous Opthamologist title of the direction I was originally going to go with my life (got accepted into one of the best schools in the nation), but looking at who I am, and what I enjoy doing, I think I'm happier now than I would have been.

I'll bet you get time and a half overtime when you are correcting all those design errors.  I'll bet you avoid a lot of nasty office politics.

If I have to work, I pretty much have the best job in the world right now... 

I'm not on the electrical end anymore (still field stuff, no desk work, don't have to talk on the phone, etc).  However, yeah, it was double time to fix the errors, and I get to avoid all the office politics with the current and the former job.  Especially the current one though, since I purposely chose the schedule with mostly nights and weekends!

[WintersAsh]

I'm curious as to what the OP has been up to and if they secured a job. I too am in a similar situation except with a metallurgical Eng degree and I've been out of college two years now working in fundraising management and can only hire college students, tired of training students for them to quit two weeks later. I've been interviewing for entry level positions as well as technical sales but just haven't landed anything yet, every time I strive to better myself by learning the questions I couldn't answer or situations I wasn't prepared for, but I can't predict the future and so there is usually a new question that I have to prepare myself for the next time. I'm hoping that something turns up and know that part of finding a new job is being persistent but I've been doing this since February and starting to lose hope. Any advice on strong statements that make you shine in a technical sales position or sales engineering position with no previous industrial experience?