Tips on finding entry level positions 2

[Mech1]

I'm a new user to Pro/E and at my current position the company only uses ACAD14. I've looked for entry level positions for Pro/E but have only found postings requiring 1000+ hours or more. If your fortunate you'll work for a company willing to train but i'm not in that situation. Any advice on getting past this obstacle?

 

[helpmewithintralink]

http://www.pejn.com

http://www.prouser.org

Send your CV to the places hiring experienced Pro/E people.
Most companies do not advertise the entry level Pro/E jobs, they are usually looking for CAD gods.

Where abouts are you located?

 

[Recneps]

Local tech school career placement offices (CO-OP) usually post job openings that are open to anyone, and they will generally provide OTJ training to get someone to the point that they can process low-level change orders, etc.

The company I previously worked for did this...I hired and trained about 8 people in my position. The only reason these jobs aren't easily found is that it's a gamble for the company. If you put in a bunch of training time and effort to get a new employee up to speed, there's about a 50% chance that they will either wind up being a sub-par employee or realize the amount of money they could be making somewhere else within a year.

If you are in the Atlanta, GA area, I might be able to put you in touch with a couple of companies that hire for entry-level positions.

Recneps

 

[Mech1]

I'm located in Orange County, California. Thank you for the advice!

 

[splichta]

Have you considered working for PTC? If you have an M.E. degree or related, they hire many new users, then train them to be Application Engineers and Consultants. They have an office in Orange County. That is the best way to become a very sharp user.

 

[DgenR8]

Hey I was in the same situation about 3 months ago.

I just graduated with a M.E. degree and I wanted to get a design job that used Pro/E. I had only about 200 hours Pro/E experience from school and, like you said, most companies want at least 1000 hours.

I knew design was the direction I wanted to go, and instead of taking some bad Quality Control job I stuck it out and took a typical student-type job. I found a drafting program in the area that used Pro/E and signed up for one evening class. This helped get me hired for my current position because my boss saw that I had I desire to learn, even though I didn't have adequate experience.

I just bought the student version of Pro/E and Mechanica so that I can learn techniques that I wouldn't learn at work. I can also build a portfolio of my work to show future employers that I know how to use the software.

 

[Recneps]

Yes, a portfolio is a good addition to your interview arsenal, but keep a couple of things in mind when building a portfolio:

- If you desire to use work that you have performed while employed somewhere, make sure that you are using generic representations (IE shrinkwrapped, exploded diagrams, etc) and that you have written permission from a supervisor to show them outside the company. Otherwise you may be unknowingly violating your non-disclosure agreement you signed when you were first employed.

- If you want to use work generated on the Student Edition of Pro/E, you will only be able to effectively use image representations of the data (IE TIFF, JPEG, BMP, PDF), since data created in the Student Edition will not open in a licensed version and vice-versa.

These may have been inferred already, but I figured that they are worth mentioning, as without them you could be facing embarassment and/or legal action.

Recneps