Engineers who are unable to find work

[Metta]

I have 3 friends 2 are civil engineers, and one is Electrical engineer. They've graduated 2 years ago and they are unable to land a job. I don't know their personal stories or GPAs but I know they've graduated and I think it is a bit strange that people in such fields as engineering where most people do not venture into, would have so much difficulties finding a job. What could be the cause of this? Let's ignore the possibility of incompetence on their side.

 

[wukunlin]

only reason i can think of is that there are simply too many graduates

 

[berkeman]

I have 3 friends 2 are civil engineers, and one is Electrical engineer. They've graduated 2 years ago and they are unable to land a job. I don't know their personal stories or GPAs but I know they've graduated and I think it is a bit strange that people in such fields as engineering where most people do not venture into, would have so much difficulties finding a job.


What could be the cause of this? Let's ignore the possibility of incompetence on their side.

Where are they located geographically? They may need to broaden their acceptable living geographies a bit. And we can't ignore their levels of accomplishment -- they need to be able to test well in interviews and show some achievements in order to help their hiring prospects.

When the economy was in the tank, engineering job hiring here locally was limited to very accomplished folks for the most part. With the upturn in the economy lately, most competent engineers that I know are able to find work fairly soon. (I'm in Silicon Valley and mostly talking about EEs and MEs).

 

[TomServo]

Could be any number of reasons. Could be self-limiting behavior (only interested in certain types of jobs, or jobs in certain cities, certain industries, etc.), could be lack of internship experience as an undergrad, could be lower GPA, could be bad job interview skills, bad social skills, body odor, bad breath, drug test failure, etc.

Statistically speaking, your employment prospects *are* better as an engineer but that isn't a guarantee of employment. Nothing is a guarantee of employment.