Human Factors Medical Equipment after BS BME

Parents Forum
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Need this forum suggestions and knowledge.
DD is interested in a field decribed in title.

Apparently, there is no graduate degree specifically for Medical Equipment Human factors. Most programs focus on transportation, aviation, IT or smth else.
Only Tufts has Medical Equipment Human Factors certification (can be applied to general Human Factors Master’s.)
How people break in this area? Positions can be called anything possible and impossible so difficult to find. I get that there are few consulting companies that do it (any ideas/lists/links will be greatly appreciated).
I also found George Mason Psychology Master’s program with Human factors concentration that may be attractive, since focus is on Psychology and not on subareas of Human Factors.
Anyway, any experience, knowledge, are very much appreciated.
Dd mostly interested in evaluating existing designs for FDA requirements and working with designers/engineers and FDA for addressing any concerns.

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She needs to be networking like crazy with her professors, grad students from her program, and alumni…the good news about niche fields is once she’s got people who can put in a good word for her, the hard part is over. The bad news is that unless she’s hearing about opportunities directly from a professor (who may be consulting for a startup) or an alum who works for a big company- she’s not likely to know about the roles.

What help has she gotten from Career Services?

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She needs to try again.

At a minimum, they can connect her with alums who work in the medical equipment industry (it’s a quick query of their alumni database using 33911 as the industry code… and there are a few other adjacent industries as well). At a minimum, they can connect her with university-connected startups in the field.

Have her professors been helpful?

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ou get out what you put in.

I am a regular “career mentor” for my alma mater-- and I’ll bet Georgia Tech has a similar program. If they aren’t generically helpful, it might work to be specific-- i.e. not “can you help me” but “I need a list of alumni who work in the medical equipment/devices industry. Who should I speak to about generating that list?” If her professors haven’t been forthcoming, she may need to show more initiative (i.e. desperation) “I’d love contact information of students or colleagues of yours who are working in these industries. Can we connect next Tuesday?”

Bugging people works. I am counseling several new grads right now on their job search- and their reluctance to pick up the phone is striking. A successful job search requires a very big spreadsheet (which I’m sure your D has) and then detailed and specific follow up with each person on it.

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I’m sorry to hear that your daughter is struggling to find a job.

Does GT’s SWE chapter have networking and coaching resources for new grads?

I have a family member with interest in a related field who also had terrible luck with her school’s career center so she scoured LinkedIn for alumni in her major and just started cold messaging people. She got her first two internships that way. Pretty time consuming but it did pay off.

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Then your D will need to create her own networking opportunities.

She can probably still join various professional associations with a “student rate”- most of them will have job boards of opportunities which don’t get posted on Linkedin or Indeed. Some of the associations have local chapters which hold “lunch and learn” for professionals-- most are open to new grads as well. The talk/lecture/roundtable may or may not be interesting to her, but the people who attend may be in a position to help her. She can create a “nifty 50” list-- which is a comprehensive chart of the companies and organizations which work in medical equipment and devices (include the aftermarket, not just OEM’s). This will be her roadmap- she can gradually fill in the names of the people she needs to contact about potential openings on their team.

Etc. It’s not rocket science, but it is very time-consuming. Is she in touch with her team-members from her last few internships/jobs?

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The point of networking is not “hire me”. It’s to keep her contacts current and fresh, so if they get contacted about a role, they immediately think of her!!!

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I am under the general impression that job hunting in biomedical and technical areas is relatively tough right now. The availability of federal funding seems to be at best uncertain right now, which can give pause to anyone or any company thinking of hiring.

I have a daughter currently studying towards a PhD in a biomedical field. They are nervous about funding, although she thinks that hers will probably continue for another year (at which point I guess that we can cross our fingers and hope that things will be back on track??). The danger that quite a few recent former PhD students might suddenly all be looking for a job at the same time has occurred to her, but we are hoping that this does not happen.

This sounds very worthwhile whether paid or not (I do see the obvious issue with unpaid internships). I am assuming that your daughter has talked with whatever contacts she acquired through this internship. Is this correct?

I just took a quick look at this. To me it looks pretty good. It does however look like it is of rather short duration. The short duration might help in terms of total cost of the program, but does make a person wonder what job conditions will be like a semester from now.

I think that a person needs to network with whatever contacts they have. Professors from one’s alma mater is a possible source of people to talk to. Any managers or senior technical people from an internship is another source. Anyone she used to work with or study with who has found a job is another possibility. Being polite, kind, and patient is important.

Sometimes you just need to buy lunch or a beer for a lot of colleagues and contacts (one at a time), and hope that something comes up eventually.

And I think that things are tough right now in a lot of fields.

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I’m sorry she’s had such lousy luck. Times are tough, for sure. And young BME grads are certainly experiencing some struggles.

A lot of people, especially BME, do the master’s when the job search isn’t fruitful. It seems like she’d prefer to get a job, though? She’ll have to think hard about making the decision to take the best job she can get vs the costs/benefits of grad school.

What was her Mayo internship? Was it in an academic lab? The hospital? A company?

Does she have any other internship experience?

I’ve heard of new engineering grads doing literally hundreds of job applications just to get a handful of interviews and one offer. Even people with great credentials. And BME is one of the tougher fields within engineering for employment.

Breaking into the first job can be super hard but once she’s in the door it will be much easier. She may find herself tired and discouraged from the process of getting in that door.

You simply cannot beat GaTech’s reputation for BME, so she’s got a huge thing going for her. I know she hasn’t found career services helpful, but she should exploit that GaTech connection any way she can. She should keep attending the career fairs, and stay involved in clubs and whatnot as much as possible.

It’s possible she’s going to need to really grind hard and be ridiculously resourceful, creative, and proactive to nab her first position, whether she has a masters degree or not.

And that first position might end up being in a different topic, geographic area, and even a remarkably different field than what she’s hoping for.

She should spend some time looking at the reddit engineering resumes wiki (seriously, this page is a goldmine). She should do everything that page says to improve her application materials. And also explore some other relevant reddit pages to get info on the state of things and what things are working for others (such as: r/BiomedicalEngineers and r/Biotech).

There’s a possibility some places might be willing to hire her into an internship/co-op role even though she’s graduated. Most won’t, some will.

Looking for a job is going to be a full-time job, and that will be challenging since gaps in emploment aren’t great and she likely needs to just do something asap. Best of luck to her – she’ll get there eventually but it might be a grind.

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The career fairs are an excellent idea. She has a significant advantage over current students…she’s available right now; her transcript includes both semesters of senior year, she won’t be picky about location now that she knows how tough the job market is! Dayton Ohio? Fantastic. Des Moines? I can start on Monday. Wichita? Can’t wait to learn more about the city!

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Has she applied to J&J? I know they deal with HF but in this field she probably needs to be willing to relocate.

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Were these 2 separate internships or were they done together?

Were the experiences in an academic setting via the university or were they done with a company?

I’m not sure what you mean. Are you asking for recommendations on how your daughter can get a job? Or are you asking for recommendations for masters programs in that niche field?

In the original post you ask:

People here probably can’t give you those answers specific to your daughter. This is where she should ask her network, try to find people in the positions she wants and see how they got there, ask professors, contact alums, read the subreddits I linked in my previous comment, look at linkedin profiles and see who is doing what and how they’re affiliated, etc.

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