🚀 go-pugleaf

SoL (soundoflight@hotmail.com) writes:
> cx172@FreeNet.Carleton.CA (Elat Lerner) wrote in message news:<bnm2dq$e1f$1@freenet9.carleton.ca>...
>> SoL (soundoflight@hotmail.com) writes:
>> > Computer / electronics engineering jobs seem hard to find everywhere
>> > these days... except for India that is. I have no problem believing
>> > that there are no computer engineering jobs in Edmonton - at least not
>> > in the public domain. Feel free to prove me wrong, because I need a
>> > computer engineering job, and have been looking without success for a
>> 
>> I don't want to be nosy so feel free to ignore my question:
>> 
>> Have you worked in this field before, or are you a new grad?
> 
> New grad, but I graduated with co-op designation (meaning 16 months
> work experience, the last 8 doing actual engineering work just before
> the market went to complete garbage in 2002).

So you feel the market changed for the worst in 2002?

>> If you are a new grad: When did you graduate and from what 
>> program? Did your classmates get jobs?
> 
> Graduated May 2003. As for classmates, I'm sure some got jobs, since a
> good number of people in my class had family working as an engineer
> somewhere to get them a job, and there are those guys with 95%
> averages who study all day but have no creativity - they always get
> jobs. 

Oh no they don't :-}

I remember vaguely a letter to the editor of the Ottawa Citizen many 
years ago, when the market was supposedly booming, written by an
engineer who graduated at the top of his class. He said in the letter
that he could not get a job.

> A lot of the ones like me, out there making our own way without
> someone to hand us a job are still unemployed, or at least heavily
> underemployed (working in tech support or doing web design, things
> like that). To be honest, I don't know of a single person from my
> class who got an engineering job, but I have only stayed in direct
> contact with a few.
> 
> I know a lot went back to school. I know a guy who went into education
> of all things after graduating. A prof told me that applications for
> grad school are at an all time high. As for official statistics, good
> luck finding them. Universities will brag about job statistics in good
> times, but right now I doubt they even keep track (no one has ever
> contacted me asking if I found work). If they it make public that only
> 40% of graduates find work in their field, who would join the program?

One of the positive legacies left behind by the Tories in Ontario is the 
so called Key Performance Indicators system. It is a standardized survey
of all graduates of all post-secondary institutions: universities,
colleges and private schools, that measure such things as % of graduates
working in their field of study, student loan default rates, etc.

> I was told by a recruiter that he sees "hundreds" of engineering
> resumes. I believe him. It's strange though... those unemployed
> engineers are a quiet bunch. I know they are out there but they don't
> make a lot of noise about it.
> 
> +SoL+

--
Labour market discussion for High Tech workers
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/OttawaHiTech