[scarabchuck]

I've been steadily employed since the early 90's. I started out as a die designer and moved into automotive product design about 10 years ago. I've dealt with mostly injection molded plastics. My job title has always been "designer" or about the past 7 years "senior designer", and actually about 5 years ago it became "senior design engineer" The job duties have always' been the same just a different title. Now I am a non degreed person, when I started out in the business you worked your way up like an apprentice. The lack of a degree has not hindered me in any why from doing my job at any time in my career. As a matter of fact , the majority of the places I've worked hired there engineers right out of college, so basically us "design engineers" would help them learn the aspects of design. What they would do for us was go to meetings and gather data. Stuff we did not have time to do. And 3 years ago I did work at an OEM as an engineer, working side by side with degreed and non individuals.
It's never been an issue til now. I've was laid off about 7 weeks ago, and have been working my a$$ off trying to find some work, anything short term , long term , contract ..whatever. And I just can't find anything. And the few ad's I do see have this statement :

"THIS IS NOT A DESIGNER POSITION. IT IS A DESIGN ENGINEERING POSITION.
WILL NOT BE ACCEPTING DESIGNER RESUMES."

Basically requiring you to have an ME degree. Now I do agree there are some specialized positions in the automotive design arena that I don't think can be done without a degree in that particular specialized field. But some of these ad's are doing the exact same thing I've done my whole career. I guess I'm having a hard time figuring out what the degreed individual can do that I supposedly can't ?
Like I said , I do understand there are some areas that a degree is needed, (electronics, powertrain, FEA, etc) but for the majority of E&D in my particular field , I think experience is more important. I don't mean to start this as a degreed vs non bashing thread , I guess I'm just trying to understand this trend of degree's being needed to do pretty much any job.

[Crustedfilth]

you might as well forget anything automotive related right now.

I know people with Masters degrees working in food service. a degree doesn't mean a good job anymore.

[tjay]

i guess degrees make people feel all warm and fuzzy. i'm a massage therapist and i've seen people post jobs where they would like a 'state licensed' therapist....even though there was no licensing in michigan for this field until a few weeks ago. it really irritates me when people don't do their homework. it's come to the point where when i see things like this i prefer NOT to work for that employer. if they haven't taken the time to know how things work in their own business, i imagine they aren't that great to work for anyway. and sadly, even if you have a degree, many places will still pay you as low as possible. i know people need jobs, but the upside is they probably suck anyway, since you won't be working there.

[scarabchuck]

I know it's a sign of the times... it's just so frustrating.

Hey, look how well these degreed individuals have done....

FOXNews.com - Cream of the Crop Gone Sour: America's Troubled CEOs - Local News | News Articles | National News | US News

I know they have done very well in the "money in their pocket" department but how well did they do in their job function ?

[Cliffie]

Originally Posted by scarabchuck

Like I said , I do understand there are some areas that a degree is needed, (electronics, powertrain, FEA, etc) but for the majority of E&D in my particular field , I think experience is more important. I don't mean to start this as a degreed vs non bashing thread , I guess I'm just trying to understand this trend of degree's being needed to do pretty much any job.

I feel your pain. In the past 15 years my field has gone from dirty-fingernails OJT training to "get a master's degree and then call us back." The buzzword now is "professionalizing." There are some serious advantages of course -- you know your employees have a certain amount of training and have to keep getting retrained to keep their licensure. But the automotive field is different; I would expect dirty-fingernails education to be much more valuable.

[jsejcm]

I think there are just so many applicants out there for each job that they use the degree as an easy eliminator in the process of choosing canidates for interviews. The process of hiring someone is so tiring (a lot of extra work on top of your other workload) that a lot of employers get lazy about the interview process and only want to interview 3 or 4 people, so they eliminate a lot of people without degrees now, because they can afford to, with such an excess of applicants out there.

[scarabchuck]

Originally Posted by jsejcm

I think there are just so many applicants out there for each job that they use the degree as an easy eliminator in the process of choosing canidates for interviews. The process of hiring someone is so tiring (a lot of extra work on top of your other workload) that a lot of employers get lazy about the interview process and only want to interview 3 or 4 people, so they eliminate a lot of people without degrees now, because they can afford to, with such an excess of applicants out there.

I agree with this... since more and more companies are using contractors they just tell the recruiting agency "this is the criteria I want" and the recruiters only have that to go on. It is a way to make things a little easier.. does it get the company the best employee... not always.

[Ivorytickler]

Design engineering is quite different from being a designer. Don't assume because you can do one job, you can do the other.

[Ivorytickler]

Originally Posted by jsejcm

I think there are just so many applicants out there for each job that they use the degree as an easy eliminator in the process of choosing canidates for interviews. The process of hiring someone is so tiring (a lot of extra work on top of your other workload) that a lot of employers get lazy about the interview process and only want to interview 3 or 4 people, so they eliminate a lot of people without degrees now, because they can afford to, with such an excess of applicants out there.

And even when you have all the requirements, they can still find a reason. I interviewed for one job that wanted concept to customer in an area I have concept to customer and more. Only I've been in testing (part of the more) for the past few years so they decided my experience was too old. A year later that job was still posted. Sometimes it's just an excuse not to hire unless a really stellar candidate comes along.

[Ivorytickler]

Originally Posted by tjay

i guess degrees make people feel all warm and fuzzy. i'm a massage therapist and i've seen people post jobs where they would like a 'state licensed' therapist....even though there was no licensing in michigan for this field until a few weeks ago. it really irritates me when people don't do their homework. it's come to the point where when i see things like this i prefer NOT to work for that employer. if they haven't taken the time to know how things work in their own business, i imagine they aren't that great to work for anyway. and sadly, even if you have a degree, many places will still pay you as low as possible. i know people need jobs, but the upside is they probably suck anyway, since you won't be working there.

What a degree does is give you a base to build on. More than anything, it proves you're educatable. It removes one question. Employers, today, want some kind of proof from the get go that you're worth investing in. Your own testimony isn't good enough. A degree is a start but only a start.