What's the average entry-level engineering job like?

jack63
Fri, 19 Dec 2014 22:12:39 +0000

In my field, much of the “true” industry design work requires a PhD. This is partly what motivated met to go back to graduate school. You sometimes can get design work if you have a Masters degree and over 10 years of experience (some of which is already design work), but many of the engineers with this background started their careers in the 90’s. It really was a different economy back then.

C_mom above is right with the basic advice. Try to get as much information about the job when you interview. The issue is that some companies will be “put off” when they are asked too many specific questions about the job description. Only now that I have a PhD will I ask these questions and politely say in an interview that I’m not interested if it is not research and development. I guess I feel secure enough to do this now. Even though I will say I’m not interested very nicely, some people I’ve interviewed with are taken aback when I do this.