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When I graduated in engineering everybody got work, no internship needed and employers had no problem training.
I scribbled up a resume after I graduated, sent out 10, got 5 interviews and 3 offers. All within two weeks and two of those offers came after one single interview.
Those days are gone because we have way too many grads for the available jobs.
If we had a shortage of people companies would lower their expectations, train, increase wages significantly etc... And we aren't seeing that.
True, which are part of the basis of the anti H-1B camp.
Could one factor (among many of the others that have been discussed here) also be that the media keeps pushing (and in some cases overselling) the importance of STEM education, which is undoubtedly important to expose students to, but not to the complete detriment of all other educational components?
Much more focused, detailed STEM education that matches current in-demand skills desired in the workplace should be an important component to education.
However, it should also be realized that some people aren't going to naturally have an aptitude for STEM related careers. Among those people, even if they do chose that education path, it can be a struggle, and even more of a struggle when they begin actually looking for a job. There are other professions, such as business/entrepreneurial and legal related professions, for example that can be lucrative, so not everyone has to specialize in STEM.
He had my attention until he started droning on about the baby boomers not retiring.
Hey Aaron, are you aware that life happens? Crap happens to a lot of people and their retirement plans get derailed. And you sir are no spring chicken. Did you say you graduated from college in the mid-nineties before the dot com boom? So that would make you around 42 years old. Good luck making it another 10 years! Oh and if you're laid off when you're in your fifties, you'll understand ageism (or not). No one wants to hire old men and women, especially in the tech field.
He had my attention until he started droning on about the baby boomers not retiring.
Hey Aaron, are you aware that life happens? Crap happens to a lot of people and their retirement plans get derailed. And you sir are no spring chicken. Did you say you graduated from college in the mid-nineties before the dot com boom? So that would make you around 42 years old. Good luck making it another 10 years! Oh and if you're laid off when you're in your fifties, you'll understand ageism (or not). No one wants to hire old men and women, especially in the tech field.
He had my attention until he started droning on about the baby boomers not retiring.
Hey Aaron, are you aware that life happens? Crap happens to a lot of people and their retirement plans get derailed. And you sir are no spring chicken. Did you say you graduated from college in the mid-nineties before the dot com boom? So that would make you around 42 years old. Good luck making it another 10 years! Oh and if you're laid off when you're in your fifties, you'll understand ageism (or not). No one wants to hire old men and women, especially in the tech field.
Sorry for going off topic. Carry on!
I interviewed for a job a few years back where I was told I would be managed by people younger than me and I was only 27 then.
If the economy here is so bad that Americans must relocate to other nations, we have hit rock bottom and need to hold politicians liable.
I know a few STEM graduates who did. Someone suggested Public Sector is the answer, but there are not enough public sector openings to absorb them. And yes, I am old enough to remember when government jobs were shunned by the best and brightest.
Fact: Baby boomers not retiring and making room for the next generation is easy to understand. Only a small portion of them have reached retirement age. Of course the rest are not retiring and leaving their jobs for the next generation. They still need their jobs and will for a few years.
Fact: More of the current generation have gone to college in Stem fields, than their are jobs being created to employ them. It is the old supply and demand principal. S & D principal is, when supply exceeds demand, there will always be a surplus that cannot be employed in their field. To make it simple for some people to understand. Lets imagine that there are 100 jobs requiring an X degree being created. And 500 people get an education to fill those 100 slots. Only the absolute best 100 are hired, and 400 people are crying that they cannot find a job. They simply cannot understand that there is no one hiring in their field for the jobs they those 400 people are educated for.
Fact: When there are 500 graduates and only 100 jobs, the employer gets more particular. They want applicants to have served an apprenticeship or have worked in the field someplace and gained some experience as this can reduce training time. Applicants out of school and with no experience of any kind, are not being hired as long as they can find applicants that have some kind of knowledge outside of school.
Fact: When there are 500 graduates and only 100 jobs, starting wages are reduced, and raises become further apart, and smaller.
Fact: Another part of the country, may have more jobs than applicants, and if the new graduate wants to get their first job they may have to move to another part of the country to get it. And they may have to move at their own expense. The new graduate may have dreamed of going to work in the Silicon Valley and the only jobs that are available may only be in Austin Texas, or Springfield Missouri, or Springfield Oregon. Some will say I am not going to move there, as I only want to work in the Silicon Valley. Or the starting wages may be 15% lower than the going rate in the Silicon Valley, so they will not take the lower starting wage even though it will be considerably more money than the Silicon Valley jobs that are not available to them when the cost of living is considered.
There is a lot of things to consider, why a lot of Stem Graduates, and College graduates in other fields are unable to find jobs in their field. There may be jobs, but not where they want them, or the starting salary may not be what they demand. Sometimes people have to give to reach their goals.
I agree with the Oldtrader's post. When a recruiter came to my school, the 1st question she asks me was about my willingness to relocate for a job. There is barely any engineering job in Miami and I didn't like Miami that much after 7 yrs so I agreed to the relocation. Got the job, relo paid for, and now I'm in Dallas. Life is not always perfect though.
I agree with the Oldtrader's post. When a recruiter came to my school, the 1st question she asks me was about my willingness to relocate for a job. There is barely any engineering job in Miami and I didn't like Miami that much after 7 yrs so I agreed to the relocation. Got the job, relo paid for, and now I'm in Dallas. Life is not always perfect though.
Miami is a huge metropolis. With a population of five million plus, there ought to be a wide variety of jobs for people of all skills and abilities.
I think this is a slippery slope argument. IMO, I don't want a nation where people have to pile like sardines into just a handful of major metros in order to have a hope of finding employment. This leads to an inevitable rise in rents and property values, as new entrants are increasingly priced out of the market. People who are not from an area nor have an interest in being there often don't invest in the community.
There are numerous reasons I don't want to consolidate into the major cities.
Miami is a huge metropolis. With a population of five million plus, there ought to be a wide variety of jobs for people of all skills and abilities.
I think this is a slippery slope argument. IMO, I don't want a nation where people have to pile like sardines into just a handful of major metros in order to have a hope of finding employment. This leads to an inevitable rise in rents and property values, as new entrants are increasingly priced out of the market. People who are not from an area nor have an interest in being there often don't invest in the community.
There are numerous reasons I don't want to consolidate into the major cities.
I thought I had a lot of opportunity in Atlanta with my profession because of its 5 million plus metro population. There are several chemical companies and organizations like coke, CDC, wrigleys, and Georgia-Pacific ( work there for $17 per hour temp job that I thought was going to go perm but all they did was extend my contract and wasn't hiring in the department I was working in at the time. I found out what such an awful company it was to work for in the R&D department).
All the chemist positions I applied to in the Atlanta area asked for 3-5 years of experience and I didn't even have a year under my belt at the time so I got rejected for most of them. The ones I got offers from were low paying temp gigs no better than the temp job I was holding at Georgia-Pacific.
I decided to relocate and landed my current job for a medium size pharmacetuicals company in West Virginia. I live in a average sized college town home to WVU and its an okay place to live and the cost of living is low. I pay $620 a month for a 1 bedroom so my $50k salary isn't getting absorbed by high rent costs. I am able to save a lot every month but I am concerned that if something happens to my job (get laid off, let go, etc.), I would be forced to move to another city or back to Atlanta because there is only one other chemical company in this town and they are never hiring.
I live 60 miles away from Pittsburgh which is the nearest metro with potential chemists jobs for companies like PPG and Bayer. Hopefully in the next couple years I will have a competitive resume when if I do lose my current job I can go back to Atlanta and get a job with the CDC or coca-cola as an analytical chemist. I hate that the chemical/pharmacetuical/chemistry industry is so unstable. All it takes is one project to belly up or one product to get pulled from the market and there are major layoffs at the company when R&D departments are the first on the chopping block.
I agree with you I hate the fact that all the good jobs are clustered in one area and often in a high cost of living area like IT and computer jobs in San Francisco or chemist/scientist jobs in Boston/New Jersey. These are places where the rent ranges from $2500-3000 a month which makes it hard for you to get ahead financially unless you have a $150k+ salary.
Last edited by Poor Chemist; 07-26-2016 at 09:29 PM..
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