Changing Positions Within a Field?

It is good, early in your career, to have a look around at other opportunities or fields. My experience has been that one can build a viable engineering career from experience in varied fields. Especially if you are not happy with your current position, looking elsewhere can delay career burn out. However, it is not a good idea to leave a paying job until you have something new lined up. Are there other divisions within the company for which you work that might interest you? This might be the best place to start exploring options...

If you want to make a change, do it sooner than later, because you will get typecast. Once you get a few years experience, if you're a technical person (as opposed to managerial) it's difficult to switch to something else where you don't have experience. It's not that you can't learn, it's just that there is competition.

Like you, I started my career in the industrial side, automation & controls, though I went to school for, and preferred, electronics. Though eventually I did work for an electronics company, I ended up going back to controls. There was more work and more money, and it turns out that was a good decision. I didn't have much luck changing to something different, anyway!

I once had a friend who was a brilliant engineer who could solve problems very quickly. Then one day he had an industrial accident and suffered severe brain damage. After he was discharged from hospital, it was thought that he would have to leave the company's service because of his brain damage, which left him incapable of thinking or acting coherently. Fortunately for him though, a senior manager had just retired, and so my friend was brought in as his replacement. Despite his inability to think properly, nobody noticed any difference between his performance and that of his predecessor. If anything, my friend was evaluated as being even more capable than his predecessor.

I am a hiring manager for a major international recruiting firm. I very much would like to talk to your friend about a terrific opportunity that my client has hired me to conduct a search for.

Please forward your friend's information to me a headhunter@gmail.com

Thanks for posts guys. How do you think I should go about exploring other fields rather than going back to school (graduate school) to see what else there is. I'm not sure if spending another 40k-60k in graduate school will be easier to discovering what else is out there.

Do you think it would be easy to get an entry level in a different field competing with recent graduates? I figured it would be easier to get hired since I have general engineering experience.

Returning to graduate school without a specific goal in mind is not necessarily the most efficacious way to seek an alternative path. Assuming you have already explored other opportunities with your current employer, the next approach would be to become involved in local engineering societies or local social groups that can expand your personal network. There are also free on-line study options that can help you identify areas that may be of special interest to you (and, a demonstrated interest in continuing your studies always looks good on the resume'). Check out, for example, MIT OpenCourseWare.

I agree with cwarner. Going back to school without direction is not a great idea. You may want to explore online networking communities as well.

I would think that although you may have forgotten a lot of what you once knew, the fact that you have already worked in the real world would make you more desirable than a new grad.

Maybe you could look for companies where your desired field and your current field merge. That way you could leverage your current background to help you get in the door in an entry level position within your desired field.

But right now you should consider yourself blessed that you are employed.

I am having problems transitioning my resume so that it is marketable for positions that I don't relate to. I mean I want to show that I am just as qualified for an entry level position as a recent grad, however I feel that since my current work experience is so geared towards 1 direction...HRs might just pass on my resume.

Any ideas how I can change my resume writing approach? What should I make sure I include so that it would get recognized.

1. Any work experience is better than no work experience.

2. Begin the resume with a description of the position you are seeking. Tailor this description to the needs of the potential employer- mention the employer and why this is a desirable situation for you. If you are answering an advertisement, this is fairly easy to accomplish. If you are sending out unsolicited resume's, do a bit of research on the company before submitting the resume'.

3. Follow this with a description of how your skill sets meld with the requirements for the position described in #2 above.

4. Work history should be brief.

The entire document should present the idea that you know what you are after as far as a position with the potential employer. It should be written as though it was custom-written for the specific employer. If you can determine the name of the HR director, address it specifically to him or her.

The entire document should be no more than two pages long- one page is preferred, because busy people never get around to reading the second page. When you get the interview is when you fill in all the details.