Career in Electrical Design with Maintenance Experience

Start by preparing a CV/resumé.

The purpose of this is to land the interview.

The purpose of the interview is to land the job.

Career starting with maintenance engineer is one of the best options for learning. It helps to see the inside of the equipment and learn more than any other sort of working career. If you have the opportunity of real learning (understanding one line, schematic, interconnect drawings, protection systems, CB, switchgears etc.) in your two years maintenance career, you will not have any problem working in the EPC company. You need to be confident first and then sell yourself. As you indicated, you worked in oil and gas industries and hope gather relevant knowledge about nature of processes of this sort of industry, you have the good opportunities of having job in EPC oil and gas projects.

Good luck.

You can also see this: http://cr4.globalspec.com/thread/49319/Choosing-a-Career

- MS

If you have related experience then you should be able to slip some of it in on your resume even if it is not all job experience.

Maintenance /Sire installation /Project execution at the beginning of the carrier is a very good experience to start the carrier as a design engineer. Use your spare time to get acquaint with all relevant codes and international standards. Being a Electro mechanical designer interaction with other building designers such as architects, structural engineers is very important. This is an art rather than science as it needs meticulous coordination among various disciplines to execute the project from concept to commissioning.

Hi there guest. The oil and gas field seems to be a very difficult area to get started in so the fact that you already have two years experience under your belt has got to be an advantage. Presumably you have had a good introduction to a lot of things. For instance PLCs, SCADA, AC and DC drives, switchgear, instrumentation, etc. as well as industry specific experience.

My first bit of advice would be to structure the 'Work Experience' section of your resume in the following manner:

Employment History

Date from - Date to (e.g. May 2008 to June 2010)

Position Title (e.g. Electrical Maintenance Engineer)

Typical Projects:

List some of the most important/biggest projects that you have been involved with.

Duties:

Give examples of the kind of skills/experience you gained and the kind of duties and responsibilities that you had.e.g. Supervision of electricians, other staff, .....etc. Liason with clients, contracting staff, consultants, relevant maintenance personnel, management Establishing relationships with companies.... etc. Fault finding. Troubleshooting.

Think of all the other duties that you performed including report writing, etc...

My other piece of advice would be to Google 'answers to interview questions' and prepare answers to 20 or so good/difficult questions that you could be asked in an interview. This will prompt you to think of all the experience you have gained over those two years (not forgetting the 6 months you have spent in the solar energy department where you probably picked up some valuable skills also). It'll also give you a lot of confidence in your abilities when you start realising just exactly what you do know.

In my experience, human resources are looking for a person that will work with the existing staff well, so it is as much about your personality and how you overcame problems that is important, just as much as what you were doing in your previous roles. But like I said in the beginning, the fact that you have experience in the Oil and Gas field has got to count for a lot and if your CV is formatted well, it should you get through the first step and get you selected for an interview.

Hope that helps, best wishes for your job search.

AJ