Help for unemployed engineers

5/20/2011 3:31 PM EDT

"Sixteen percent of our more than 800 respondents (as of Thursday) are jobless right now. That's seven points higher than the national rate."

Or it could be that unemployed engineers skew these results because they have more time to read and respond on this site.

5/20/2011 3:38 PM EDT

That would be really interesting blog:-)

5/20/2011 5:37 PM EDT

If you are unemployed then use that as an opportunity to revamp your skills.

Do some work on an open source project. Make sure you are up to date with modern methods, etc. These days all you need is a PC which you probably have.

Taking positive steps is far more important than focusing on the down side.

5/20/2011 6:24 PM EDT

This disproportionate number of unemployed engineers seems to be an economic decision done by apathy. As far as I can tell engineering design in USA and most English speaking countries (the West) started a decline when economists and accountants decided that there was a comparative advantage in not doing engineering, but just by buying cheap chinese crap and leaving it to them. This has the knock on effect of contuniously depriving the west of foreign revenue income, profit from desigm and the loss of a design and invention based culture. Just look at the massive foreign debt of the USA to China. Wikipedia "The largest holders were the central banks of China ($1.1 trillion) and Japan ($885 billion).[29][30] The share held by foreign governments has grown over time, rising from 25% of the public debt in 2007[31] and 13% in 1988." Whether this is by trade or by public debt, it leaves little doubt. The west needs to embrace it's own capabilities, and to look after the long term needs of its own peoples or face ignominious falling standards. This needs to be done at the top levels of government, business and manufacturing as a culture. Only by a shift back to a focus of design and manufacture will the west be able to compete for jobs, assets and continued good standards of living. The loss of engineering jobs is a cultural political issue. Maybe the only way around it is for those engineers to take things in their own hands, get together and start their own companies, design and manufacture clever inventive things and get them into production, meanwhile supporting lobbyists to state thecase at government level and find ways of bringing design and manufacture, and hence revenue, profit and jobs back to the west. Surely its not all about cheap junk from China?

5/21/2011 12:56 AM EDT

I was the same unemployed, when this sicken economy from a full of lie was a nose-down diving to the concrete floor. Everyday, I told to myself and surrounding a bad word to express my anger. Moreover, a big-mud fights to get one slot of opening.

Suffering from 5 months, I decide to take myself apart from it. I downloaded a free/demo software from Altera/xilinx to stay a current with a specific language set. I installed Linux in my PC to get better with perl, a shell script. I went (almost) every meeting, if it is free or low-cost.

Eventually, I found one myself. None helps, but myself. My friends can only encourage it, as I know for sure that is what they could do for their best. I know now who is friend or foe, if I have to choose.

Only way is, to all unemployed, DO use those free (or low cost one) stuffs as much as possible. They will be light, then.

5/21/2011 12:57 PM EDT

I would seriously advise experienced engineers to look at startups, at first offering pro bono consulting. Use Linked-In and network; someone may know somebody else and provide you an intro.

And it's not only advising on technical matters. You may know more about the internals of your market than you realize, as well as the technical stuff. Even if you had stuck to the technical ladder, there may be startup executive opportunities that can arise from helping others as well as a technical spot. (And you're not competing with paid consultants; these startups couldn't afford the pay nor offer of equity to engage them, anyways.)

If you're software-oriented, consider alternatives like Web 2.0 where you skills might transfer. Or other areas, like management consulting.

I know people who are reluctant to apply for jobs advertised at startups because they "lack security". Um, never mind how swiftly Big Corp terminated you and tossed you out the door, 12 to 24 months ago, right? Startup jobs are no less stable than corporate ones, nowadays.

5/21/2011 1:40 PM EDT

The title Jobless Engineer Blog and Unemployed Engineers may not be proper word for this blog. Any expert engineer or Editor can be unemployed at differnt time of life. There are so many factors contributing to it. Today you may help and recruit many engineers, but tomorrow, you may be looking for work and ask for help from engineers whom you helped.

Proper title may include words like Engineering Mentor and Mentee program for job exploration or something similar.

5/21/2011 11:07 PM EDT

Although it is clear that a lot of engineers are jobless but apparently it is not clear why? Until and unless you diagnose the problem, it will not be possible to solve it completely.

5/22/2011 3:33 PM EDT

I applaud this effort since I have been in this boat. As has been said, keep your network strong and your skills revelant.

5/23/2011 8:55 AM EDT

Anyone who hasn't done a job search in the last 10 years has no idea how much the market has changed, what approaches do/don't work, and what to put in a resume.

I spent 14 months as an overworked, underpaid temp or contract engineer during the recession of 2002-05 before finding my present position. I parlayed the experience into a 45-minute presentation that takes the unemployed engineer through 6 steps:

- Self-assessment: Deciding what you want to do.

- Create self-marketing plan: How to make yourself attractive to employers.

- Job search: Finding openings.

- Interviewing: How to make a good impression.

- Negotiating an offer: Getting the most buck for your talents.

- Maintaining your physical, emotional, and financial health during the process.

It includes countless insights, acquired over many months in the school of hard knocks, that could have greatly shortened my search, had I known them at the beginning.

I have presented it several times to area professional groups (around Dayton, OH), including the IEEE. I will offer it (for free) to any organized group that can arrange a room with a projector & screen and at least 10 interested engineers within 2½ hours of Dayton. According to the crude map I just drew, that circle includes Columbus, Cincinnati, Cleveland, & Toledo, OH; Louisville & Lexington, KY; Indianapolis, IN; and Charleston, WV.

And I will pay my own expenses. Contact me through this forum.

5/23/2011 5:54 PM EDT

Some engineers may be unemployed but they are not sitting still. Last week, Tektronix hosted the first of a series of hands-on free seminars for engineers working with embedded systems. This training gave engineers of all types, employed and unemployed, the opportunity to not only network with other engineers in their area but also receive training on the latest oscilloscope techniques. Both of these can contribute to an engineer landing a new position…

But don’t just take it from me, check out a blog post written by Martin Rowe at UBM magazine T&M World (sister publication to EE Times) when he attended a seminar series last year – he notes the value of networking time and learning new skills to keep up to date -- http://bit.ly/j3evrm

Randy White
Technical Marketing Manager
Tektronix

5/23/2011 5:54 PM EDT

Engineering and for that matter the manufacturing jobs started to flee USA when the supply side economists took over the govt including Wall Street recommending moving from production to finance oriented economy, finacial instruments don't have overhead, low cost high profit margins, regulators to keep their hands off. Wal Mart urging businesses to move to China if they couldn't sell their products to Wal Mart due to high cost of manufacturing in US and add to it the outsourcing lobbies who encouraged businesses to relocate.

So, the demand for high tech equipment grew overseas than here in US. Recession in 80's quickly got absorbed because we still made most products in US but this time around there is no end in sight and that's also because the Federal Reserve Bank in 2007 decided to kill the housing market because they feared inflation the most and kept jacking up the prime interest rate until they successfully killed the only made in USA housing industry and with that associated businesses who laid off many workers and a chain reaction throught the economy, unemployed workers couldn't pay mortgages, hit institutions like the Country Wide, banks, wall street. The govt is now giving away grants to companies for clean energy research who are spending some grants money on the research and development but plan to manufature those products in a foreign country. Software jobs to India and hardware manufacturing to China. To name a few, Wal Mart, Home Depot, Sears flip any product in any retail stores these days the products that used be made here in USA and employed lot of people are now made elsewhere. These companies as a result also bought lot of high tech equipment.

What has to happen is public financing of elections for the two branches of the Federal Govt because they go to corporations for money to finance their campaigns and come to us for vote and unfortunately money talks louder. Globalization at our expense, we are the ones end up playing by the rule.

5/23/2011 11:29 PM EDT

It is a sad but true fact that there are fewer jobs out there and for those with a lot of experience it may be even worse: you are older, you were higher paid, and you may have personal issues. I can say having been down-sized, laid-off a few times it was harder each time to find the next job. It took longer, was for less pay, and yes even sometimes was a GREAT new position! Keep working on new skills, try different things, and take advantage of free training. Engineers love to learn and we can be very resilient.

5/25/2011 8:15 PM EDT

It looks like not many folks are taking us up on our blog offer, but these comments are fantastic... Having been, as Daleste and others have noted, in "that boat," my experience was

1. Stay current
2. Be flexible
3. No yourself (maybe you're not the personality for management or maybe you are the perfect personality for management; maybe you need to hone different skills, etc.).
4. Network. Network. Network.
5. Keep a positive attitude, as hard as it may be at times.

5/26/2011 8:51 AM EDT

Brian Fuller2,

Maybe you're looking at this all wrong. Maybe there's just an acute shortage of unemployed engineers!

5/27/2011 11:37 AM EDT

There was a story in Canada's 'Globe and Mail'newspaper this week about a shortage of engineers in this country. The president of a major engineering recruiting agency in Western Canada said that Canadian employers are only interested in candidates with more than 5 years experience. They, the employers, can't afford the time or expense to hire people who don't have the necessary work experience. I was told the same story by a recruiter at Manpower Professional in Ottawa about 12 years ago. At that time, I only had about 2 years experience, but, thankfully, I got the job because Manpower couldn't find anybody who could program in a LabWindows/CVI environment. I learned a lesson from this episode and it's this: KEEP YOUR SKILLS UP-TO-DATE. If you have one or two niche skills and good references, age will have nothing to do with you finding a job.

5/27/2011 10:44 PM EDT

Good comments TFC-SD. Eventually, things will turn back to employees having the leverage. Until then, we are stuck with the companies in charge. Hopefully they won't f it up too much.

5/31/2011 12:38 AM EDT

"...tell us your frustrations and insights."

Yes, tell everyone about how you can't get a job. Don't forget the byline. You don't want any potential employers to miss it!

6/3/2011 12:09 AM EDT

Our company, Analog Rails, was created and is owned by unemployed engineers and programmers in the Phoenix region. We were not helped by the government nor loans. I believe companies started this way was more popular in the 1960's than today. Maybe people were more entrepreneurial back then.

Most of the people at our company have been either new graduates, or engineers in their 50's. This seems to make sense based on what I am reading in this blog...anyway, our company is an example of engineers taking charge. It can be done, and we are an example of it...but it ain't for namby pamby's.

6/3/2011 11:45 AM EDT

TFC-SD, you are dead on! Virtually all advertised positions today are niches. This is why we see the long "...and...and...and..." skills requirements in job postings. Engineers meeting such stringent requirements are not just commodities. They are highly focused, and rare, specialists. So, I think what we really have is a shortage of EXCEPTIONAL engineers.

6/11/2011 10:27 AM EDT

Engineering obsolescense is not a new issue and neither is engineering unemployment. Many years ago, most engineers planned to move out of engineering work and into management or sales or some other department. The few that stayed in engineering were extraordinarly skilled.

Today the problem is much more severe. HR departments are unlikely to consider you unless your experience is an exact match. Technology is changing extremely rapidly and unless you are very lucky, the technology that you select to learn will probably be obsolete by the time you become proficient at it. Engineering is very expensive from a corporate point of view and it is difficult to make a direct link between engineering effort and profit. A perfect place to add to the bottom line. Even if engineering remains domestic there is a $ bias toward hiring younger engineers. Engineers are a lot like professional athletes. Their career is limited by age. Unfortunately, they don't get paid like athletes. The main issue, as I see it, is are engineers an asset or a liability?

6/18/2011 2:00 AM EDT

Make sure your resume gets posted on several job boards. I found that while there can be overlap on boards such as Monster, Careerbuilder, Indeed, and Simplyhired will always show a few jobs that are unique to their particular boards. Having your resume on Linkedin can be valuable too.

If you are submitting your resume to a company, it may not hurt to read over their job description and use some of the terminology they are using to describe your own skills in your resume--speaking the same language helps.

I could be wrong on this, but I think if your resume has been on a particular board for a long time, like several months, it may not hurt to edit it as I think the act of editing may bump it towards the top of the fresh pile.

Keep the faith! I'm doing some contracting work after some time of unemployment. I did get several contacts from out of state which I didn't pursue. These contacts were generally from recruiters or companies who had seen my resume on one of the various job boards. I also got a contact from a company who had seen my resume on Linkedin.

8/9/2011 5:58 PM EDT

The unemployment numbers are not going to tell you very much for the reasons you mentioned. Look instead at the time off between jobs, longer hours, less equipment, lower wages, and loss of benefits to detect if things are really getting worse. I looked at engineering ads in the 50’s, 60's, and 70's and they usually were a simple sentence "Engineer wanted at XYZ, good work environment and benefits. Please come for an interview". In the 80's it started to switch to “[fill blank with several words] Engineer. Qualification required; And, and, and, and and infinitum. PO Box 101, no calls or visits, trespassers will be shot”. Something tells me there was a “tiny supply shift” that happened sometime in this time frame (1983 recession and 1986 was a peak year for CS degrees) and from what employers are looking for in a candidate today, it is not going to get any shorter.

10/10/2011 3:20 AM EDT

Unfortunately, I don't see the prospects improving anytime in the near future. All we can do now is brush up on our networking skills and resume submissions. The Relationship Capital Co is giving away free job search training at:
www.RelationshipCapital.Co/JobNetworkingPrimer

3/2/2012 12:55 PM EST

Need 70 registered voters in CA to run against Senator Boxer. Will not win but I can drive home the H!B visa. Last I looked the number of Engineering jobs created is equal to the number of H1b visa issued each year. The industry is saying that is not enough. Issue:
1. Eliminate H1bs
2. Close borders, speak English, tax illegals at hiring tax rate for past services used, and naturalize all including existing H1b's.
3. Make social engineering dirty tricks illegal which prey on startups and individuals in at least Los Angeles.
4. Southern CA 51st state
5. Fire/outsource all government employee which are responsible for keeping CA if not the country in the recession. I have a lot of friend just disapppearing.
6. National health insurance but not the Obama type (private corps). Companies are for making money not being your mommy.
7. Open all government building at night to the homeless.
8. All prisoner work in the forests on fireroads, trails, and roads. The old chain gangs.
9. Move DC to Los Angeles with all government business telecommuted
10. Move UN to Jerusalem per the 1948 Israel/Palestine/UN controlled Jerusalem state creation vote.
11. World Oil pipeline with the Russia/Alaska oil pipeline/bridge from funds saved outsourcing government employees and their pensions.
12. Bring down the space-station being retrofitted with lasers to neutralize world defenses that is why the defense jobs and most engineering went to India and the EU.

Basically replace this US/UN government that has wasted the US/world economy with now threatens the lives of some Americans based on color/politics/religion.

3/2/2012 1:02 PM EST

Nationalize Google for their H1b visas and controlling the CA prop 8 election.

3/2/2012 1:05 PM EST

The 70 registered voters are for nomination paper for a write-in candidate. Notice I did not ask for money and I am a true engineer because of my grammar.
br_political@yahoo.com

2/20/2013 12:56 PM EST

Unregulated Capitalism is in it's doom loop. There will be another. How is it that Places like Switzerland, Australia and Norway do better ? Over here the top 1% call all the shots for themselves. For solutions look at what other countries do. Better regulation and social programs. Corporate profits are UP UP UP but the distribution is more unequal. It's simple.