<p>Again, I would argue that the vast majority of young engineers also have future plans…or should. Lifetime employment is an anachronism; companies can terminate you at any time, for any reason (or sometimes for no reason at all). </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>And that just begs the question of why can’t the mystique of engineering companies be enhanced? In fact, some have already done so: it is actually rather cool nowadays to say that you work for Facebook, Twitter, Google, or Apple. </p>
<p>The problem is that there are far too many engineering companies that seem completely unglamorous, if people have ever even heard of them at all. Nobody is impressed if you say that you work for Chrysler - heck, people probably just feel sorry for you. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>The answer then is to simply not operate those plants. The greatest source of growth within the semiconductor industry in the US in recent decades has been among the fabless semiconductor firms who outsource all of their production to contract foundries. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Then one step would be for to teach engineers how to enter that club by learning how to schmooze and communicate. For example, rather than force engineering students learn ridiculously useless garbage such as M.R. derivation, they could instead earn credit from joining their local Toastmasters Club to improve their public speaking skills. Every engineering student should have the opportunity to learn how to be a forceful and charismatic speaker. </p>
<p>{Note, this would simply be an option: those students who still insist on learning the M.R.'s would be allowed to do so optionally, but nobody would be forced to learn them.}</p>
<p>I definitely see the “Big Oil” mentality. Sure, the service companies, contractors, etc. will be quick to lay people off, but the major integrated companies aren’t going to shed many people. Maybe hiring freezes, etc. but not layoffs. I’m really shocked that more bright engineering students with top GPAs don’t try to get in the oil industry. The starting salaries are much higher than in other industries. I guess it must just be that working for BP or ExxonMobil isn’t as sexy as working for Google.</p>
<p>As absurd as it may sound, this is an assumption I don’t think you should make. My gut tells me that it was probably easier in the last decade for an MIT engineer to find a viable finance job than a viable engineering job. </p>
<p>I say this for the following reason. I’m a Midwesterner. Our top Engineering schools are Illinois and Michigan with Purdue and Wisconsin not far behind, and I would put Illinois and Michigan Engineering awfully close to MIT…I’m a Wolverine so I’m biased. The thing is I’ve worked in corporations in the midwest and seen the Michigan and Illinois grads struggle to find jobs just as much as anybody else. There just haven’t been that many good engineering jobs out there in the last decade.</p>
<p>Most hiring of undergrad engineers is regional too. Rarely does a Midwestern engineering company go to the east or west coast to hire an undergrad. The undergraduate engineering job is just not that hard, it makes no economic sense to go to hire somebody from the coast, and most engineering managers are from Midwestern schools who prefer thier own alma mater or another midwestern school. The same thing will apply to an MIT grad. They’ll be limited to the Northeast.</p>
<p>I think I was being a little unclear. What I mean by location-placement was relative to other elite schools. Just skimming campus recruiting and from past experience, I’m certain that the top firms/banks probably don’t recruit as heavily at BU/CCNY/Northeastern, if at all. </p>
<p>Of course this all comes down to perceived “prestige” MIT and other Ivy Leagues will always have an associated allure of elite status. By no means is it unwarranted but MIT is synonymous with high level math/physics skills. </p>
<p>A better comparison would to see banking/consulting placement of MIT versus other elite schools, such as Caltech, GATech, Michigan, Texas, TAMU and so forth. Though I’m sure that at the PhD level (quants) probably defect to the finance industry in higher numbers but I would attribute that due to scarcity of suitable jobs for PhDs anyway. </p>
<p>Jack makes a good point since geographic region really plays a big role in recruiting. I know that the oil and gas industry recruits HEAVILY from the south (Texas, TAMU, LSU and OU) due to proximity to Houston and the strong alumni network. Just looking over Chevron’s recruiting at MIT versus Texas, there is 4 times more recruiting events. Of course on the same token, Houston/Dallas doesn’t have a huge finance industry and as expected (and from my experience) you’ll see a lot fewer industry placements.</p>
<p>My first counterargument would be that your view is regionally and downwardly biased. Let’s face it, the Midwest - and the state of Michigan in particular - hasn’t exactly been the healthiest job market for engineering over the last decade, due to the labor travails of the US manufacturing industry (notably the auto industry). They don’t call it the Rust Belt for nothing. </p>
<p>On the other hand, while Massachusetts similarly suffered from a decline in manufacturing employment, it also successfully transitioned to a center of high-tech entrepreneurship; the Boston area is arguably the 2nd leading metro destination for venture capital investment in the entire country, if not the world (#1 obviously being Silicon Valley). The region is dotted with a proliferation of biotech/med-devices/semiconductor/software/infotech/nanotech firms, which provide a wealth of engineering opportunities. Never once have I met an MIT engineering student who truly couldn’t find a local engineering job. Granted, it may not be a job he actually wants - he may prefer finance or consulting (as I discuss below) - but that’s different from saying that he can’t find an engineering job at all. </p>
<p>But in any case, if you still disagree, then look at it this way. The truth of the matter is that while you might argue that there haven’t been that many new engineering jobs created, as Mr. Payne pointed out, there really haven’t been that many Ibanking jobs created either. I doubt that there are really more than a few thousand investment banking analyst job openings in the US every year - the link below indicates that there may be only 1000* in any typical year (with this year obviously lower than average). More importantly, the Ibanks hire from the entire gamut of undergrad majors, whereas engineering companies will generally only consider those who actually graduated with engineering majors, or in some cases, science or math majors. About 80,000 graduate with engineering bachelor’s degrees every year, and I have to believe that most of them do indeed obtain engineering jobs (as the engineering unemployment rate is lower than the overall unemployment rate nationwide). Even if only 60,000 new engineering openings are created every year (hence, a 25% unemployment rate for newly minted engineers), that’s still clearly an order of magnitude more new engineering jobs relative to Ibanking jobs. </p>
<p>Hence, the evidence strongly indicates that engineering jobs - however difficult they may be to obtain - are still far more easier to obtain than are Ibanking jobs. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Which is exactly what I said in the beginning of this thread.</p>
<p>However, I strongly suspect that this is a mere temporary squall and finance will return to its prolific ways - perhaps in a different form, but it shall return. After all, even after a crisis that gravely damaged the Federal government balance sheet that will necessitate tax hikes for generations to come, we as a society still seem unable to impart meaningful regulatory reform to ensure that it never happens again. Heck, it is now even more likely to happen again. We bailed out banks that were ‘too big to fail’, only to create even bigger banks that now truly are too big to fail - and now arguably too big to rescue. If you thought it was painful to bail out Bank of America or Merrill Lynch, imagine trying to bail out the merged dyad of Bank of America and Merrill Lynch, with a side order of Countrywide. </p>
<p>What is even more pernicious is the attitude that certain banks (i.e. Goldman) are not subject to regulations on compensation schemes under the notion that they paid back their bailout capital and are now wildly profitable again. That conveniently ignores not only the fact that that capital was not the only taxpayer benefit it enjoys - GS isn’t forfeiting its privilege to borrow at the discount window as per its rights as a Federally chartered bank holding company - but more importantly, because without a taxpayer bailout, there would be no profits for anybody as the entire financial system would have collapsed and all of the banks would have been reduced to penury. Basically, the banks want it both ways: they want the taxpayers to maintain eternal vigilance to bail them out of crises (even if caused by themselves), yet they don’t want the taxpayers to regulate their practices. Quite the ingenious scheme.</p>
<p>Well, I’m not sure that it is, simply for - as you already said - those schools (except perhaps for Caltech) do not have the inherent prestige associated with MIT or Stanford, which are seen as clearly on par, from a prestige standpoint, with the Ivies. In other words, the prestige matters more than does regional propinquity. </p>
<p>Let me put it to you another way. The SF Bay Area is not exactly a major Ibanking center - certainly not significantly more so than either Houston or especially Dallas. Heck, the tallest building in Dallas is the Bank of America Plaza, and the JPMorgan Chase Tower is one of the tallest, which demonstrates that the banking industry is indeed prominent in Dallas. Yet SF, Dallas, Houston - none of them can compare in terms of Ibanking hiring to New York. The vast majority of newly minted Stanford graduates who become Ibanking analysts do not stay in the Bay Area, but rather are assigned to New York. </p>
<p>Yet I think there is little dispute that it is easier for a random Stanford student than, undoubtedly a random TAMU student, and almost certainly a Texas, Michigan or Georgia Tech student, to get a NY-based Ibanking job. Heck, I suspect it is easier for a Stanford student to get an Ibanking job in New York than it is for a TAMU or UTAustin student to get an Ibanking job even in Houston or Dallas. {In fact, it may actually be easier for a TAMU or UTAustin student to get an Ibanking job in NY than in Houston or Dallas, again, simply due to the sheer number of Ibanking jobs in NY relative to Houston or Dallas. It is a general rule that if you want an Ibanking career, you first have to start in New York (or London) with only rare exceptions.}</p>
<p>This quote seems to make it look like the layoffs occurred in areas that wouldn’t really be populated with ChemEs, PetEs, MEs, EEs, etc. Areas experiencing cuts were credit-card, IT, other services. I spent most of the ‘financial crisis’ working for one of the big integrated companies. Budgets, capital expenditures cut, hiring freeze, but no layoffs, nor really even any mention of layoffs.</p>
<p>*The layoff numbers are not connected to the previous plan to eventually consolidate or relocate all 750 non-refinery positions out of Ponca City within two years, beginning with 250 this year.</p>
<p>“This is a separate initiative,” Harlow said.*</p>
<p>I could be mistaken, but I dont think there is another industry in the U.S. that can come close to such a record. Yes, in the 1980s!!! which was now nearly a QUARTER CENTURY ago there were massive layoffs. However, much of the last 20 years has been spent trying to fill positions left void in the 80s. I can tell you from a recent personal experience that one of the larger firms has had the exact same hiring practice since 1995, which means 14 years, like clockwork, and no plans to stop. These larger firms still have pensions for ALL employees and benefits packages and pay that are unrivaled by companies in other industries. </p>
<p>Compare this to other major industries:</p>
<p>Airlines United Airlines has cut its workforce from 105,000 to under 50,000 since 2001. Even with these cuts they lose money, every year, like clockwork. Almost all other airlines have had similar cuts. Pension plans for the employees have been obliterated leaving many people in horrible shape.
Auto Industry Massive layoffs
Financial Industry Massive layoffs
Retail Industry Massive layoffs
Construction Industry Massive layoffs</p>
<p>Comparatively speaking, big oil is a safe haven. I dont even see the basis for a counterargument here. The assets developed by these companies are in production for 30 yr time horizons, demand fluctuates, but its a very limited natural resource serving a population that grows exponentially. Alternative energy will eventually take the reins, but for at least the next 30 years big oil is not a bad place to be.</p>
<p>* Aug. 2 2000–Exxon Mobil Corp. plans to cut 3,000 more jobs by 2002 as the oil and gas giant on Tuesday raised the amount of cost savings it expects to achieve from its recent merger.</p>
<p>Separately, the Irving-based company said it will buy back an unspecified number of its shares.</p>
<p>Exxon Mobil now says it plans to reduce its combined workforce by 19,000 employees, a 19 percent increase from its December estimate of 16,000 workers. While the earlier number would include 800 layoffs in the Dallas area, no new local numbers were available Tuesday. *</p>
<p>*Nov 21, 2008 - Oil majors Exxon Mobil Corp (XOM.N), ConocoPhillips (COP.N) and other energy companies top the list of U.S. companies with severely underfunded pensions.</p>
<p>…Exxon has the largest pension deficit of companies in the Standard & Poor’s 500 with a $6.7 billion shortfall, Conoco is fifth with a shortfall of $1.6 billion and Chevron Corp (CVX.N) comes in at eighth with a pension deficit of $1.2 billion, according to fiscal 2007 data compiled by Citigroup Equity Research.</p>
<p>…“Energy sector pension funds were the worst funded,” Levkovich wrote in a recent report. "*</p>
<p>Exxon Mobil Corp’s (XOM.N) pension deficit, which was the highest among U.S. blue chip companies in 2007, more than doubled in 2008 to above $15 billion, according to a filing by the oil company on Friday.</p>
<p>Now to be fair, some of the larger oil companies - ExxonMobil in particular - can probably cover their pension shortfalls through capital infusions. However, large pension shortfalls also often times augers benefit modification, particularly to closing or greatly limiting the membership and/or payout structure for new hires. This is precisely how IBM reformed its pension system in the early 2000’s to great controversy.</p>
<p>With the notable exception of the financial industry, I don’t think anybody is recommending those industries you listed. Frankly, I don’t know that some of them are particularly relevant to the topic anyway. I don’t know too many engineers who enter the airline industry. The aircraft manufacturing industry perhaps, but not the airline industry. Similarly, I don’t know too many engineers who enter retail. Construction perhaps, pertaining mostly to civil/structural engineers, but I’ll let somebody like aibarr speak to that industry. It certainly seems as if her firm has a filled order book. And sure, we can all agree that the auto industry - which does employ thousands of engineers - is an unmitigated disaster. An engineering student who has the choice between working for the auto industry or the oil industry is probably better off with the latter.</p>
<p>Which then leaves the financial industry, which I assume would mean Ibanking and comparable ‘high finance’ positions (for I suspect few engineers become commercial bankers or loan officers). The fact is, as has been discussed in this thread, most new Ibanking analyst hires don’t plan on staying for more than a few years anyway, whereupon they’ll either jump to either another job or to an MBA program, and similarly most Ibanking associate - that is, post MBA - hires similarly won’t stay long but are simply using the opportunity to head for, say, a job in corporate finance or VCPE. To be laid off is then, while painfully jarring, to be forced to accelerate the career plans you were probably planning anyway. Harvard Business School, for example, just matriculated its largest class ever, many of which are surely are laid-off investment bankers. </p>
<p>But more importantly than security of employment is security of skills. Unfortunately, if you work as an oil engineer for many years and are laid off, the only choice you have is to work for another oil company. Your skills are not highly transferable outside the industry. We can debate how transferable are finance skills, but they certainly are seen as more transferable, in that many will parachute out of the industry and into a job in corporate finance or other management. For example, I know one guy who was laid off from Goldman Sachs in 2008 and was recently hired to head a new division at Dell.</p>
<p>It is harder to find data on this than I thought. However, looking at Oil and Gas Extraction as an industry by itself, BLS shows the following:</p>
<p>Interestingly, since 1999 the workforce has GROWN by 20%. Now, obviously IT and other tech industries have experienced far greater growth but this is an oligopoly with MAJOR barriers to entry. IT and tech firms seem to sway with the tide as startups can quickly gain market share with new products. Here, there are no new products, there are no startups. Just massive corporations with revenues and profits exceeding the GDP of many countries. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Now, I would be lying if I said that I would ever trust my retirement to somebody else. On a long enough timeline pensions will be obsolete for all companies in all industries and social security is headed in that direction as well. However, to answer your question:</p>
<p>Exxon Mobil Corp 2008 2 $11.68 billion
2 Exxon Mobil Corp 2007 4 $11.66 billion
3 Exxon Mobil Corp 2008 1 $10.89 billion
4 Exxon Mobil Corp 2005 4 $10.71 billion
5 Exxon Mobil Corp 2006 3 $10.49 billion
6 Exxon Mobil Corp 2006 2 $10.36 billion
7 Exxon Mobil Corp 2007 2 $10.26 billion
8 Exxon Mobil Corp 2006 4 $10.25 billion
9 Exxon Mobil Corp 2005 3 $9.92 billion
10 Exxon Mobil Corp 2007 3 $9.41 billion</p>
<p>Exxon can afford to fund this pension. In fact, 6 billion short is a drop of water in a lake of money. Since 2005 they have posted ten QUARTERLY earnings > 9 billion. The Airline and Auto industries, which have been synonymous with pension cuts, simply had no earnings, only losses. Again, Im not suggesting to bank on any company planning your retirement, only that if I was to bet money on who could fund it ExxonMobil would be at the top of the list.</p>
<p>Big oil will layoff if they aren’t making money. I’m not sure what the argument is. In 1999, at a modern price low they were making no money. After the subsequent price increase from that point, they started hiring again. That <em>is</em> the reason there is virtually no technical staff with 10-15 years experience at virtually any major integrated company.</p>
<p>Actually, what is really interesting is that more than 100% of that growth has happened only in the last few years. Employment clearly declined for many years after 1999, and only recovered to the Jan 1999 level of employment in late 2006. The data actually demonstrates the strong boom/bust nature of the oil industry that has characterized its entire history. 1999 was a brutal year in which nearly 10% of all jobs in the industry were eliminated.</p>
<p>Besides, the real issue is not so much what happened in the past, but what will happen in the future. Will Big Oil keep hiring at the same frenetic pace of the last few years, or will it enter another decline, as in 1999-2004? Who knows? </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I already mentioned that ExxonMobil clearly has the cash to fund its pension. But the question is - will they, and why haven’t they done so already, if it is so easy to do? In recent history, ExxonMobil seems to have found far more pressing priorities to devote its earnings - such as large stock buybacks and (recently) acquisitions of foreign oil reserves.</p>
<p>And, as I said before, one of the most common methods that companies use to mitigate pension shortfalls is to simply close the pension to new hires, as is their prerogative, and as IBM infamously did. While the firm will then meet the extant obligations of existing pensioners, that doesn’t do any favors for the new guys who were hired after the pension gate was shut. Hence, if you’re a current engineering student, I wouldn’t count on joining ExxonMobil or any other Big Oil company after graduation for pension benefits that may no longer be open to you.</p>
<p>Sakky…I still don’t think the MIT engineers have had similarly viable engineering opportunities as they have had opportunities in finance. We may agree on some level, but this topic just wierds me out.</p>
<p>It’s as if an undergrad engineer from MIT is faced with the decision to go to a major engineering company like Intel who saying “we’ll train you to design chips for a few years, you have a reasonable chance at a career path, and you may be able to continue your education while working(Masters) or go back for a PhD after a few good years of working for us”. The MIT undergrad then turns this down to go into finance. I can’t imagine this is happening. Those engineering opportunites happened in 1999 or 2000…but not now.</p>
<p>I have no doubt MIT engineers are getting engineering jobs, but I just don’t think they’re great jobs…we may actually agree on this point. They may be getting jobs as test engineers or manufacturing engineers. They may be getting jobs in Start-ups. You may think Start-ups…“how exciting”…“great opportunity”…“they’re chosing this over a major engineering company”… “for Ivy league students and MIT student only” I’d say it isn’t 1999 and most start-ups position for undergrads are pretty bad…barely viable. You come in a test stuff for a year or two, don’t do any design work, have no career path, and are the first laid off after a couple years. I say this from personal experience interviewing over the phone and being flown to Califronia to interview for start-ups. Also, from discussion with former collegues at these start-ups in California.</p>
<p>The point is the major engineering companies in this country just haven’t hired much in the last decade except for a period from maybe mid-2003 to mid-2005. Actually a lot of growth in Electrical and Computer engineering has actually been in start-ups. From my experience, start-ups were the only type of companies hiring after about mid-2005, and they were hiring right up to the beginning of this recession…late 2007. I’m sure they were running of the fumes of the fininacial industry.</p>
<p>As My. Payne just pointed out, when companies don’t hire, they don’t hire…not even if you’re from MIT. The world seems to think that finance is stealing qualified engineers away from top engineering positions. I get frustrated. This isn’t happening. The situation has been far more complex.</p>
<p>By the way, I do think looking at the job sucess of top midwestern engineering grad school is a reasonable good gauge of the job prospects of MIT grads. Midwestern engineering companies hire regionally(as in a bunch of states). Just because the state of Michigan is in bad shape doesn’t mean Umich grads don’t regularly get recruited to all over the Midwest.</p>
<p>I’m not sure whether that’s a good or bad thing. Big Oil is an oligopoly, which means that in terms of employment, only a handful of companies exist. Strike out at all of them, and that’s game over: you’re not going to work for Big Oil. On the other hand, there are thousands of tech firms. If you have marketable skills, you will surely be able to find a job at at least one of those firms. Sure, many tech firms are unstable, but that may not matter when a plethora of other firms abounds. Silicon Valley is replete with stories of engineers losing their job in the morning and then finding another job that very afternoon - in a few cases I know, at another company in the very same office park. Again, that demonstrates the difference between security of employer vs. security of skills.</p>
<p>There is no doubt that tech hiring is more volatile, and for risk-averse people, that would be a major detraction. However, for others, that’s a major plus. Let’s face it - you’re not going to become a millionaire by the time you’re 30 if you work for Big Oil. However, there is a chance - however small - to do that in tech by joining the right startup.</p>
<p>So let’s use Berkeley EECS as an example, as Berkeley’s data, unlike MIT’s, actually offers the advantage of listing job titles. I also don’t think that Berkeley engineering hiring patterns would be particularly superior to MIT’s, if anything, the opposite would be true. I also concentrate on EECS since that is the specialty that you seem to want to examine. </p>
<p>Now, arguably some of the positions listed would indeed be equivalent to the ‘test’ or ‘manufacturing’ engineers that you so deplore. On the other hand, I would argue that to be an ASIC Design Engineer for Brocade or a Hardware Engineer at Intel is a pretty darn respectable engineering job. </p>
<p>Couple that with the fact that MIT EECS students report significantly higher salaries than do Berkeley EECS students, and that seems to strongly indicate that MIT students are finding even better engineering jobs than are Berkeley students. {Note, this can’t be due to a high proportion of finance/consulting jobs garnered by the MIT engineers, as finance/consulting jobs usually have lower salaries than do EE jobs, but offer far higher bonuses.} </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I would argue that it is happening now. Again, let’s keep in mind that there aren’t exactly a whole lot of Ibanking jobs available. A link that I provided asserted that only 1000 Ibanking analyst jobs are available in this country every year. While I happen to think that estimate is a bit low, I doubt that it is more than a few thousand. Many (probably most) students who want to enter Ibanking won’t get in. I also know plenty of MIT engineering students who wanted Ibanking jobs but simply didn’t get an offer and so had to take engineering jobs. However, I can’t even think of a single example of the reverse: an MIT engineering student who couldn’t find a single engineering job and so had ‘no choice’ but to take a job in Ibanking. Ibanking is no ‘safety job’ by any stretch of the imagination. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>That is not germane to the conversation at hand, for those are problems that would afflict all engineers, not just engineers from MIT. You said it, and I agree, if a company isn’t hiring, then it isn’t hiring, and that would be the case whether you’re from MIT, University of Michigan, or anywhere else. I see no reason to believe that this is a problem specific to MIT. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>How so? Exactly where do you think the top engineering students are going then, if not to finance (and consulting)? </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Uh, no, I think it is a terrible proxy for the job prospects that MIT engineering students face. After all, you said it yourself, most engineering hiring is local, and the entire Midwest (not just Michigan, but the entire Midwest) industrial base has been hammered for years, hence the term ‘Rust Belt’. On the other hand, Massachusetts is a world center of high tech innovation and technology - arguably the 2nd leading area in the world after Silicon Valley. Just as an MIT engineer may have difficulty finding a job in the Midwest due to the lack of local ties, a Midwest engineer may have difficulty finding a job in Massachusetts. But - let’s face it - who has a better tech economy, Massachusetts or the Midwest? I don’t think that’s a close call.</p>