Starting Out

It’s a good idea to begin looking for a job while you are still in college. Use the resources of your college’s career services office, attend employment fairs, build your personal and professional network to obtain job leads, become an active student member of professional engineering and advanced manufacturing associations, try to find a mentor (who can steer you toward career opportunities), and participate in internship and cooperative education opportunities (they provide good experience and promising interns and co-op participants often receive full-time job offers). Apprentices often receive job offers from the company that employed them as an apprentice.

New graduates and experienced engineers can obtain job leads by attending job fairs and networking events, working with recruiters, using the resources of professional associations (including job boards, mentor programs, and networking groups), and by researching job opportunities at the career pages of company Web sites.

Engineers can advance by receiving pay raises and supervisory duties, as well as by working for more prestigious employers. For example, an engineer with several years of experience might move from a regional manufacturing company to take a position with a national or international manufacturer. Experienced engineers who have a graduate degree in business management, engineering management, or facility management can be promoted to executive-level jobs or to the position of facility manager. Some engineers launch their own consulting firms. Others work as college professors or apprenticeship program instructors.

Read industry publications such as Manufacturing Engineering, https://www.sme.org/manufacturing-engineering-magazine, to learn more about the field.

Visit Web sites such as TryEngineering.org (http://www.tryengineering.org) to learn about different engineering fields and jobs.

Visit the following Web sites for job listings:

• https://jobboard.nims-skills.org/jobs
• https://jobs.ieee.org
• https://www.linkedin.com/jobs/advanced-manufacturing-jobs
• https://www.nspe.org/resources/career-center/job-board/job-board
• https://careers.swe.org