Never Thought it Will Be So Difficult to Find a Job

Come to North Dakota and get a job in our oil fields.

You will make more here as a oil field tech than you probably ever will as an EE plus all you need is a valid drivers licence and the ability to pass a drug test on a regular basis to get and keep a job.

I've been reading about the oil coming out of the ground up there. North Dakotans have also been found to be among the happiest people in the US.

It's amazing what maintaining some common sense can get accomplished. Good for you guys.

It's freakin cold up there. My grandmother was raised in Minot and I have family all over the north west areas there. brrr!!! Just sayin But true about the oil fields!

then again, Canadians would probably go there to get warm...

just sayin'

and we have oil fields too!

The most advantageous field you can direct yourself into is becoming a professor in a university, you have a good grade and outstanding records, you will be excellent in the academe.

The hard reality there is companies might not be able to afford for hiring someone with track records like you, you must be overqualified with the job. Your MS has taken your age level a little bit delayed comparing to your batch mate experiences.

What is needed in the industries are not that smart enough fellas. They need work force, jobs a quite more abit routine, its boring actually. Not unless you find a way through Research & Development department.

I suggest you apply R & D jobs or get more and more scholarships and have a plenty of research papers, that is a more decent jobs and in away around contribute to society.

To either you be rich or you be poor, the same adrenaline levels to tell your heart & brain that your Happy!

The only important thing is, you make yourself & others happy and find your worth to society.

Sad that you are unable to find a good job in the US. It is a country of great opportunity, but right now i believe that there is an economic crisis on, so things may be tough. Moreover, to be brutally frank, why would an american employer hire you in preference to a local guy of similar qualifications?

Anyway, you want to return to India. In most areas, India is booming with opportunities. A US post-gradualte degree would definitely give you an edge. What is your area of expertise? Maybe i can help.

If you have knowledge of induction heating and wish to collaborate on a project, please contact me. It is a tough economy! To the optimist a glass is half full, to the pessimist it is half empty, but the engineer knows that the glass is twice as large as it needs to be.

Keep trying. May be you will get better placement late but you will get a job as per your desire. No plan to pursue PhD?. Many opportunities in India . Keep on applying. All the Best.

It would be much easier if you underwent 4yr apprenticeship than passing a degree.

I totally agree about taking a slightly lower end job and working your way up within a company.

I started at the company that I currently work for as a operator working on the repair production line (I also have a degree in Electrical Engineering). The money wasn't great but I was just about able to live and I enjoyed some of the jobs.

All vacancies are advertised internally and I went for an engineering job and got it. That was about 5 years ago.

I am now a manager with the company and feel my career is going well.

Don't be afraid to start at a lower grade and work your way up.

You have encountered what is called a cultural barrier. Since you are not USA born you may not respond to common cultural cues, or dress like an American, or some such.

While you were studying, where did you live? Did you date any USA women?

I ask these because so many Indian students search for rooms with an Indian family, so they can eat and live with fellow Indians. This interferes with socialization, and the student is hindered in his adoption of USA ways. Thus when he is interviewed he does not 'fit in' to the the interviewers social pattern.

These are speculations, as I do not have the facts, but this could be part of it.

I agree with this cultural barrier posibility but I also know a few Indian friends who have found a way to peak over the barrier to seek for prosperity & happiness in living here instead of the land of their birth!

Most Indians mingle in their groups and cook & eat their foods to stick to the socialistic pattern of the home country! They prefer to live here because of the capitalistic system here which provides them adequate, physical living commodities! The happiness they achieve is a combination of both systems.

Like one other reply suggests, you should not be seeking for job but creating one! It is not possible for everyone to create a job but there are many Indian business owners like for motels, stores etc. who care less about the barrier and are happy in the socio-economic status attained! They need help and almost always, they get help from their own relatives or community folks and help them achieve happy living ! You have to seek a compromise between kind of job, amount of remuneration and the dream job you have!! You may not be able to use your academic accomplishments to help their investments but still, your talents are never wasted in life if unused!

Sorry I do not agree with you. It is not cultural barrier but overall economic downfall in U.S which is main reason for finding jobs even after obtaining high qualifications. There were many other posts in this forum by American Citizens who were finding it hard to get jobs even after completing their engineering degrees.

As regards to cultural mixing many a times non Americans are not welcome in their groups, forget about dating an American woman. Only handsome young man may be lucky..

why are you asking for job when you should be creating one.

I can tell you this. If i interviewed you and you told me you wanted a job here in the USA and you wanted to go to India as soon as you secured a job there I would stop the interview right there. You'd be a bad investment.

Hear, hear!

Coming from the academic world, having a 3.8 GPA is not bad at all! But you have to realize Now that you're now out in the Real world of ours. This world we're in is one full of imperfections which is much, much more different from the academe! Theories vs realities!

What you'll need to do now is to make a personal assessment, the need to be very honest about the real you. Try to find your strengths as well as your weaknesses and having the guts to admit your limitations! If you find yourself to be just academically strong, reliant mostly on books, formulas, etc., and have a hard time standing and justifying your own reasoning abilities and ideas, then it may be a lot easier for the time being, for you to just stick to any job that can be found in the school environment. In contrast, if you find that you can be very personally and socially creative, able to demonstrate the use using whatever things learned as tools in developing a strong application skills, then you may have what is needed to succeed in the real world. Like some earlier posts, to help you in this self-assessment, there is a need for you to be willing to work as apprentice, to start at the very bottom, to find out and verify sensibly in accepting the fact on what you can and can't do!

I can still recall having encountered a similar situation like yours with one of my staff in the past. A graduate of an Ivy League school with a little bit better GPA. A very smart, strong willed but stubborn individual. After 3 - 4 years working with him, exhibited his weakness / difficulties in the application part of the field. It is a shame to say, he wasted 15 years of his life just to realize and accept that he's more suited for a teaching job! He's now holding a teaching position! Yet at this point, I think still hasn't passed Part II (applications) of the PE test, but happy in his job!

Dear Guest,

Having completed M.S it is high time you go for your Ph.D and you can do it in a reputed U.S university itself. There won't be much problem for you to take care of your expenses.

These 10 months would have definitely fetched realistic conceptions about the techno world. It will help you clear your deficiencies, prepare you for a fitted career. There is one important point worth noting for higher degree learners is, about the very purpose of doing a higher study. Specialization is the criteria. So becoming a specialist in needy, futuristic field should be your goal.

Then comes your contributive capabilities, based on the higher knowledge you have learned.

I think you have done all your paper works excellently well, excepting for developing a realistic perception and practical implications of the field you are venturing.

The other important aspect you got to decide is where you fit well or where you aspire to work like- Academic service or industrial service or research service. Mere marks and laurels can not assure you a decent job, at least on the immediate instant.

The uncertain conditions in the industry and business worldwide are again momentary set backs for your frustration.

Decent job in your context means what? Position or salary or responsibility or white collar assignments? When there is a will there are ways too.

On the assumption that you are a typical academics lover, go for your Ph.D in an emerging specialized area, get an industrial sponsor too. It is also still better to do fellowship or post doctoral distinctions, which are good foundations for your academic career.

Now look at U.S opportunities to settle at universities. Problem? No regrets. get back to India, you can place yourself in reputed institutions in good positions. Wait for good openings in Institutions like IIT or Department of Science and Technology etc, since a foreign Ph.D is respected.

If you happened to return to India, with a mere M.S degree, you will be taking a half baked decision.

So.........., You must be now clear about what is worth doing. Cheers. Think well for yourself and proceed. Best wishes.

Same thing happened to me in 86 when I graduated here in Montreal, Canada. I'd figured that I'd get a job, settle down, etc. It didn't work out that way for the first few years; but once you'll have that first (and perhaps second) job behind you, you'll be fine. Don't let that 'running off to India' thing worry you. As concerns Electrical Engineering (I'm one myself) ... look into the power industry. The US is 5,000 Power Engineers short! Once you'll have broken into the field (again, once you're past the first/second job), you'll be home free. The industry's looking for entry-level engineers, too. Good luck! DZ P.S. Get FIELD experience! Office (say, design) experience is good, but nothing beats field and site experience.

My Daughter recently got a very good job. Before that She had been sending out the resumes and bumping up against a NO MACHINE - not having any luck.

she gave up and got a bottom feeding Job with a temp agency. The Temp agency discovered she was very able and started sending her to their most valued customers.

At one those Temp jobs the management noticed her abilities and gave her a Very Nice job. She has been getting raises and more responsibilities every since.

It has been said that LUCK can be porportional to the amount of zone you are in Communication with (Scientology). I think in todays world resumes are sent out by the millions and thrown away by the millions - that is not really communication. Find additional ways to communicate with the top management.

Try getting a job with a temp. agency ,asking to be placed at electrical engineering type companies. Once in, you have an oprtunity to communicate. Find other ideas how to get in communication. Now more than ever business need Able Personel.

There are masses of drugged up, anti depressed over weight waiting on easy irresponsible , someone take care of me, stuck at facebook,it not my fault people.

Demonstrate you are competent to top management and you get hired. Offer to work for free for a week.

As a career Mechanical Designer I've worked in many environments from private industry to university and government grant funded research programs.

Over the years, it's become apparent that the competitive edge I have is due to the grass routes experience I bring to the design environment.

I spent many years in manufacturing before tackling design and the exposure has paid off handsomely. Before the advent of CNC I ran vertical mills, lathes and a variety of production equipment.

Fresh out of school and long before all that experience however, I got my ego pinned back by an old and sage Chief Engineer said to me:

"You think you can design! You can't!"

"Until you learn how things are actually made, you're not a designer much less an engineer!"

I will revere that man forever!

I recently returned to a university campus to audit some classes in Materials Science and frankly, I was shocked at the lack of empirical knowledge amongst the faculty. There was lots of theory but little else.

Students weren't much better. There were, for one example, students taking advanced computer science courses and not one I spoke to had ever had his hands into the guts of a PC! Couldn't swap a motherboard or add memory if their life depended on it!

In all the decades that have passed, the counsel of that wise old Chief Engineer rings louder than ever:

"Until you learn how things are actually made, you're not a designer or an engineer!"

You need to get your hands dirty!

The Laughing Jaguar

"I was shocked at the lack of empirical knowledge amongst the faculty. There was lots of theory but little else."

Were you referring to the White House?

"Were you referring to the White House?"

I never refer to the white house, for two reasons:

1. They rarely say anything worth quoting

2. They are all attorneys who lack the ability to say anything worthwhile.

L.J.

Agreed

Why not start that " streamlined channel" you need. Start an employment agency if need be. One thing I have learned in 50 years is that often you must create what you need much like making a tool or creating a circuit.

Plus it can be fun bringing using the parts of your Education you never thought you would be using.

yes.. right approach.

"Be the change you want to see in the world"
Mohandas K. Gandhi.

2 great places to find a job in our industry is LinkedIn and a tweet @IndTraining

On linked in, your profile is essentially your resume. Many groups have job postings, and you get to see the resume (profile) of the job poster. So it makes matches more likely. But Pacific BioEnergy made a good point too. You can learn from and partner with others on LinkedIn too. Who knows, may start your own business.

At the recomended twitter account (@IndTraining), it has a feature set up that monitors several major job sites popular in our industry, and tweets the job description and link as soon as relevant new ones are posted. Allowing you to be the first to apply and the first to get the job.

(Being 1st does account for something between similar job candidates.)

Those who are physically strong and clever but without degree or diploma can earn more money and go to top.

Where in the world are you brother? We are looking for an electrical engineer at our company.

Felix

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Yes....you have your degree, but you have a total lack of real experience....and that is VERY important as many employers need someone that has actually done something specific before.

Trust me....The real education starts when you get your first job. Been there, done that.....30 years ago. You have a really good base education.....but the real work related education is yet to come. Keep looking...keep positive...and keep your hope up.

I disagree. Most college grads these days have quite a bit of experience. Most are excellent texters, try to out text one if you don't believe me. Most can down a pitcher a beer faster than you can. Almost all of them could find a video on YouTube faster than you ever could on your smart phone. Ever try to beat a kid at a video game, fat chance! You sir are wrong, American college grads are HIGHLY experienced!

Yeah...I should have specified WHAT real experience.

There is the usefull, and the stuff thats not useful. Xbox scores only matter if you are a game tester for a game developer. Haven't figured out what a beer bong downing record is good for yet.

I suggest further research on the beer. Cheers

One of my more memorable teachers cautioned us to remember that wisdom does not get acquired sitting in a classroom, listening to someone talk or by leafing through the pages of a book. "Real wisdom", he said, "comes from showing up for life"

He went on to make a critical distinction between "information" and "knowledge". The ingredient that makes knowledge so much more powerful than information is that it is empirical and is derived out of experience.

Mastery is present, according to the Buddhists, when one can do something well, unconsciously. This characteristic of mastery is present when creating and the tools of self expression become transparent. It takes time getting there however.

When, for example, one tries to play the guitar, for the first few years, the guitar is actually playing you. In time, however, the synapses develop and the spontaneous, automatic nature of playing arrives. That is when the self conscious discomfort of the tool of self expression disappears. The fingers seem to move by themselves. Now you are expressing your Self. Now real music arrives.

This principle of unselfconscious self expression is vital to every creative endeavor. Without it there is little satisfaction and little if any true creativity. Intuition is buried inside of Mastery. To get to that state of development requires time, practice and the focused application of prior learning.

As someone pointed out, your real education is about to begin.

L.J.

Come back home as there are many Power Plants Projects in pipe line so it will be easy for you to get the job.I suggest that you should send your resume to new power companies such as Reliance, Tata, and others, you should also approach consultants such as Design, Tata Consulting Engineers.

U.S is reeling through economic problems and job opportunities are limited.

Like I said....no way are you going to hit the floor running at ANY job particularly fresh out of college. Just remember the real education is about to start. When you get that first job you are going to understand what I just said. You are going to feel less prepared than you did the first day of college. But you have to get the real experience somehow. ANd after a few different jobs over the years you round out your experience. For example....I worked in every part of my sector except the sales end. From end user, systems integrator, manufacturing and Research and Developement. And it took my 30 years to get there. Every new thing has its learning curve. And the first job is the hardest.

Don't give up ! and Pray to GOD