Thglimited - Heavy Industries

I have been utilizing several new engineering job hunting avenues that I found.   I took Bud’s advice and looked into county jobs.  I now know which county I live in and the closer areas of Portland.  My county had an opening for a crime scene technician, which would utilize some of my engineering and materials science skills for forensics.  I meet the requirements, but the posting mentioned that preference would be given to anyone with criminal justice education or experience.

I have joined several of my engineering society groups on LinkedIn, including ASME and SAE.  This probably won’t help out right now, but it will surely help out in the long run.  These societies are better for keeping engineers in the loop rather than getting one into it.

I took the state website for all it was worth.  I’ve sifted through openings and applied for as many as I could that either gave me a website or a self referral option.  Then I got a sort of database of all the engineering companies in the area organized by location and company size.  I sent my resume around to anyone that listed contact information.  There were several that weren’t looking and weren’t accepting resumes.

Then, I’ve still got craigslist, careerbuilder, monster, and others to just search for openings.  These things just take time.  PECI has gone silent.  The positions are still open, but I haven’t heard of any progress.  I contacted  the HR person that I have talked to now several times.  It’s been a couple months, and she didn’t seem to remember me.  It’s possible that they just aren’t in a hurry and are taking their time to look at everyone.

I got a call from a recruiter.  I applied for an Electrical Engineer – Hybrid Vehicles position.  He contacted me about a Mechanical Engineering opportunity with the company for a designer position.  He asked me if I knew CATIA.  I mentioned that I use SolidWorks and I am familiar enough with other platforms to know that I can pick others up quickly.  He went from happy to serious and said something to the effect of “I don’t want to sound negative, but companies can afford to be very picky and have very specific requirements.”  I said that I would put in some personal time to learn CATIA if it would help my chances.  He went back to happy and said he was glad to hear it.

That’s another problem.  You cannot learn a new software without substantial time and money.  Without being independently wealthy, you need a job to afford it but you’re too busy to do what you need to.  There just isn’t the kind of access to these comprehensive applications.  On the other hand, if companies were just willing to train their employees, the problem of time, money, and access are taken care of.

I am confident that, in a week, I could pick up CATIA if I first saw someone else use it and then looked into a few tutorials.  The biggest difference in these programs is where to start.  The next biggest difference is, where are the buttons?  Those are familiarization things.  Now, GD&T takes studying and is applicable to the broad spectrum of drafting programs because it is a dimensioning standard.  So, I’m sorry company X that I didn’t practice on your $3000 program in school and instead have my own copy of the $1000 version.

The opportunities are there.  I only need ONE to accept me.