ME in need of Professional Development Advice
ME in need of Professional Development Advice
(OP)
Got my BSME in 2002 and worked for an aerospace company from 03-06. Since then I have been an entrepreneur in a completely unrelated industry (non engineering or manufacturing). I'm now looking to get back to my engineering career. I'm planning to take the FE when I've adequately prepped but in the meantime I still need to get a job. In an attempt to brush up on my skills I got my SolidWorks Cert and now I'm looking for more certs I can get relatively quickly and inexpensively to prove my competence has not diminished. Am I on the right track with this strat? If so, what are some additional certs i can pursue? If not, what should I be doing instead? Any advice here would be much appreciated.
Thanks in advance!
Thanks in advance!





RE: ME in need of Professional Development Advice
RE: ME in need of Professional Development Advice
1. Register for and take a review course for the FE. That should give you a good outline to study from based on the current exams.
2. If you have not already, write a good resume explaining what you have done and would like to pursue in the future.
3. Check into the ME market for the ME discipline you are interested in and research your potential employers. You taking the initiative to learn about them helps in any interview.
Mike McCann, PE, SE (WA)
RE: ME in need of Professional Development Advice
TTFN (ta ta for now)
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RE: ME in need of Professional Development Advice
Forget the FE and focus on getting an entry level engineering job or even an intern job. Once you get your foot in the door, you can focus on the FE.
RE: ME in need of Professional Development Advice
We have to train every new grad anyhow, why not the guy (or girl) who can rent a car?
RE: ME in need of Professional Development Advice
However, while on the job search there is no reason you can't apply to take the FE, do some self-study, and take the exam in the near future. You say that you want "to prove my competence has not diminished". Passing the exam is proof positive and a lot more focused than spending time and money on a grab bag of certs.
1. The NCEES study materials are low cost.
2. The FE exam can be taken on your schedule.
3. The FE exam pass rate is high. The intent is not to "weed out" engineers on this first exam.
4. If you pass, it is obvious to a potential employer that you are serious about a career in engineering.
5. There are no negative consequences for not passing... especially since you currently don't have an employer. If fact, "failure" establishes that, in the future, time and money spent on a conscientious FE study program will be well spent.
Some years ago, I taught a PE review course at a local college. The students who planned to take that exam when they were "adequately prepped" have never taken the exam. It is easy to talk yourself into that trap.
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RE: ME in need of Professional Development Advice
"Your chances of finding a job in the engineering field will be low at best."
Lets call this the positive scenario. Now lets suppose that for the neutral scenario, chances are null.
Can you enlighten us what the negative scenario would look like for him/her?
I am curious to learn and educate myself through your own eyes on how merciless the world we live in is.
RE: ME in need of Professional Development Advice
RE: ME in need of Professional Development Advice
Yes, the negative scenario is working outside of the ME discipline. Which could yield greater returns. Ya never know.
To increase my chances, I would perhaps go back to the university, while looking for a job, and take several additional evening classes to improve my chances for employment. At least you can avoid this non-engineering gap in employment.
RE: ME in need of Professional Development Advice
Based on your last input, can I make the interpretation that by broadening your skills/competency to non ME skills you could expand your job search to wide range of engineering disciplines, so that - even in the worst case - chances of finding a job in the engineering field would still exist? :)
RE: ME in need of Professional Development Advice
Actually, I was thinking of several more ME classes to show continued learning and marketability.
RE: ME in need of Professional Development Advice
RE: ME in need of Professional Development Advice
RE: ME in need of Professional Development Advice
RE: ME in need of Professional Development Advice
RE: ME in need of Professional Development Advice
Even if I were to get an engineering grad with limited experience from a decade ago for a fresh grad's rate, I'm not naive enough to think that such a person would be satisfied with the pay of a 3rd yr engineer once they have three years under their belt, even though that would actually be fair. So personally, I'd pass. I wish the OP well, but personally I wouldn't hold out much hope of returning to the engineering profession in an oversupplied labour market after a decade's absence. If there were actually a shortage of engineers, that would of course change.
RE: ME in need of Professional Development Advice
RE: ME in need of Professional Development Advice
RE: ME in need of Professional Development Advice
Terratek: 3 yrs + 3 yrs with a 10 yr gap between is worth more than 3 yrs, but less than 6 yrs if it were all gained in the recent past. 3 yrs plus 10 yrs of something outside the field is rather soon going to feel like an entitlement to being paid as if they had 13 yrs post grad of 100% relevant experience, irrespective of what it took to get an initial foot in the door. That's just human nature at work, which you ignore at your peril. It's a recipe for a rapidly growing mismatch between salary expectations and a reasonable calculation of market value, which often leads to hard feelings. It would get the resume filed in the blue bin automatically here unless the 3yrs of prior experience was exactly relevant.
RE: ME in need of Professional Development Advice
RE: ME in need of Professional Development Advice
RE: ME in need of Professional Development Advice
FWIW, I am also a hiring manager.
RE: ME in need of Professional Development Advice
We deviate from our plan from time to time, when exceptional candidates present themselves, but now we're MUCH more choosy when we do so because they have to compete against a much higher quality default outcome. Our approach wouldn't work for a firm smaller than a certain size, for sure. Others may have a different approach which works for them, and good luck to them with it.
I can guarantee that dswitherowME is going to face concern on the part of hiring managers about salary expectations after a few years, and in fact has asked for advice on how to overcome that concern in a covering letter etc. Aside from just honestly stating what was just said in their last post in a cover letter and getting others to read and edit it for effectiveness, my advice would be to try to find a 1st job through networking and personal relationships rather than by indirect means. The likelihood of making a connection which will give the prospective employer the comfort that you're sincere in this assertion and worth making a personal investment in, is much greater that way. I do wish you the best of luck. I don't know where you're from, or where you're looking for work, but maybe the labour situation is different there than it is here. Here, your situation would be very tough indeed.
RE: ME in need of Professional Development Advice
To add onto my earlier thoughts, the OP should get his resume out there ASAP and continue applying. Treat the application process as you would the actual job and spend a few hours each night applying. If you know the industry you want to be in, make a list of the large companies then spend some time googling to see who their suppliers, customers, and "partners" are to find additional job leads. One good way to get your foot in the door, especially if you may not want to stay in core engineering forever is to take a "technical specialist" or other such role within a corporate marketing, sales, product definition, or other departments as many companies in recent decades have replaced these typical "business" roles with engineers to provide a better interface between the customer and product/service development, hence a major reason for the drop in those with engineering degrees in "engineering" - bc those folks often earn more. And as always network, network, network....
RE: ME in need of Professional Development Advice
RE: ME in need of Professional Development Advice
By the way, I have nothing against statistics - it may give insight and reveal patterns at some occasions; it is when we try to stretch the reality into a model or a curve or even a number - that things start to not smell very well.
RE: ME in need of Professional Development Advice
I had friends whom returned to the industry after a long absence, and they had good luck coming back to the industry 'side-ways' in this method! Best of luck!