Entry Level Engineer in this Economy (Westminster: spring break, unemployment, schools)

[entry_engineer]

I just wanted to know if anyone has been going through similar situations, feel free to give any advice or general comments:

This May I graduated with a BS in Mechanical Engineering from Texas Tech University and relocated from Lubbock, TX to Westminster, CO. I started my job search in January by going to the career fair and contacting my schools career center. The problem I ran into was that the majority of opportunities that my career center had listed were in Houston or Dallas. I have been coming to Colorado for the last 15 years so I know I wanted to be here. After the career center was no longer an option I began doing research on companies in the area and came up here on my spring break. Most of the companies I contacted said that they were not hiring anyone new until the future business outlook was more stable. Of course that was in March when the markets were declining daily and looked somewhat more uncertain than they do now. As of now, some companies still have the hiring freeze in place and the ones that seem to have openings never respond to emails or phone calls. I guess I thought it was going to be easier to get a job because of the technical degree and I am finding it much more difficult in today's market.

[Dreaming of Hawaii]

Unfortunately, engineering firms are just not hiring right now. The stimulus money is giving us some hope, but we pared WAY down and are just surviving with a skeleton staff. I think everyone else is in the same boat; some companies are shutting down entirely. If you can find something else to do for a while and try again in the fall, you may have more success.

[LisaCACO]

have you tried the big ones like Lockheed martin here?

[alexanderaf]

Originally Posted by entry_engineer

I just wanted to know if anyone has been going through similar situations, feel free to give any advice or general comments:

This May I graduated with a BS in Mechanical Engineering from Texas Tech University and relocated from Lubbock, TX to Westminster, CO. I started my job search in January by going to the career fair and contacting my schools career center. The problem I ran into was that the majority of opportunities that my career center had listed were in Houston or Dallas. I have been coming to Colorado for the last 15 years so I know I wanted to be here. After the career center was no longer an option I began doing research on companies in the area and came up here on my spring break. Most of the companies I contacted said that they were not hiring anyone new until the future business outlook was more stable. Of course that was in March when the markets were declining daily and looked somewhat more uncertain than they do now. As of now, some companies still have the hiring freeze in place and the ones that seem to have openings never respond to emails or phone calls. I guess I thought it was going to be easier to get a job because of the technical degree and I am finding it much more difficult in today's market.

I have a friend in the exact same situation right now. He's an aerospace engineer, and a lot of the Aerospace firms are 'waiting' it out. It's not that these companies are doing poorly, a lot of them are still doing well, it's just that they are very conservative with their expansion during a recession.

I think the only way will be to ride it out. Maybe continue your education by working on a Masters. You might even consider a Department of Defense job in engineering as well. Corporate rules such as 'hiring freezes' do not apply to the government, so I imagine if there are jobs out there it will be with them.

[edesign]

Houston is still looking for engineers, I'm not sure that they ever slowed down from what I have heard (used to live in south Louisiana and have a cousin at Halliburton in Houston, he has said that I should move there instead...). But you did like I did and moved to Colorado to look for jobs which was a great idea except for the fact that everyone else is moving here too (displaced workers) including the experienced technical people who have lost jobs elsewhere.

I have three years experience as a project engineer (electrical) and have been looking since early March (laid off mid-January) and as of yesterday I had received a total of one phone call about a job (only been able to apply to about 20-25 jobs in that time due to experience and licensing requirements)...but it's in Idaho Falls, ID. My unemployment runs out in about three months so I'll be hunting for a "regular" job here fairly soon but I hear even some of those are tough to come by since they realize you're an engineer and are going to leave as soon as the economy turns around.

Did you take the EIT and pass? If not I highly suggest you do so, many of the jobs I have seen listed in this area require that if not a P.E., don't wind up like me six years out of school and decide you want to go back and take the EIT (that's a lot to forget and then have to remember lol).