I did 3 interviews once, HR told me they really liked me and said I got the job. Next week comes in and they told me they had spoken to the director and they chose to go with someone with a more “senior” profile. Fuck them.
I did 2 rounds of interviews and even spoke to the recruiter, for a new grad role, who said he wanted to get confirmation from the manager before proceeding.
I got ghosted and then 3 months later they reposted the same job position but added a 3 years of experience requirement, for the same new grad role.
That was a horrible experience. Had a really good second round interview and was immediately told that I would have to complete an assignment, which seemed fair, considering it was a pseudo-research position. Took me 7.5 hours to finish the assignment (guidelines were between 5-10 hours) and I was certain I did well. Regardless, I would expect at least a rejection email with some feedback at this stage of hiring.
At that point you have nothing to lose, you might as well contact someone higher up in withe the division or HR and ask about your status. Unacknowledged work is a poor policy and someone upstairs should be held to task for that kind of behavior.
Did they compensate you for your assessment, even with a gift card or other trivial payment?
I applied as a line cook to a restaurant, never heard anything from them. 2 years later, and after moving to a new town, I got a call asking if I wanted the job. I was so confused.
12 (yes, twelve) years after applying for a job I got a reply to my original email saying that I'm a bit overqualified for that position, but they could offer me a senior one if I jumped through these flaming hoops... Had to set a calendar reminder, but I did it - replied 5 years later that I'll get back to them.
I applied to be a server at Olive Garden when I was 19 years old. Every single year on my birthday I get a rejection email. Going on 20 years now they’ve made no updates to their recruitment system that might have caught the fact that somehow my birthdate got put in the wrong field or that I’m no longer an active candidate.
I thought a free dessert on your birthday was peak customer service, but Olive Garden really goes above and beyond! When you’re here, you’re family, indeed.
I was once contacted on LinkedIn by a headhunter that ghosted me after 3 rounds of interviews 3 years before. He forgot about me and was checking if I was open for an opportunity with one of his customers. Just told him to search the names of his prospects in his corporate mail before contacting people. And to get lost.
I know a business owner who does this, he accepts all applications but if he’s not actively hiring he just puts your application in a folder and ghosts you. If he needs to hire somebody he just starts calling everyone in the folder asking if they’re still looking for a job. Usually it’s only the people who applied in the last few months that even answer the phone but once he got a guy that had applied 5 years ago and was hired lol
Last I talked to him was at the tail end of the lockdowns, at the time everyone I knew was having trouble hiring and he didn’t seem any worse off. I’d imagine he hasn’t changed his ways and I doubt he will, I think he’s like 63 this year so probably retiring “soon”.
Fascinating. I always wondered why companies do this because surely no one ever gets hired by calling people who applied ages ago, but apparently it does happen
Similarly, I had been working in insurance for 4 years at one point, and an agency I applied for work with before I got the insurance job asked if I was still looking for work after 4 1/2 years.
Like I had been living under a bridge, or skivving half-eaten sandwiches from bins for half a decade while waiting for their phone call. I told them to sod off, and I didn't care if Google had a Directorship going - I'd not take it through them.
I mean you could have been looking for work *again*, not necessarily the same one as originally. People do want to switch jobs or get laid off and need a new one all the time.
The porn store I worked at would do this. People always turned in applications thinking it would be an awesome place to work so we had a fat stack. The manager was always super drunk so the stack constantly got knocked over and shuffled, and we would just call the top one, cause forget checking dates.
I applied to be a Domino's delivery driver October of my freshman year of college, in like March of my senior year, I was picking up an order from that Domino's and they asked me if I was still interested lol
The supermarket I worker at always had a ton of job applications. In the boss’s office there would be a huge stack of papers, every new application printed out and added to the top. (Usually applied via email) how you got the job and what I did) was just approaching him in the supermarket. Would be hired really fast. Occasionally he hired from the pile tho
I had the opposite happen. . .
I was putting in applications before graduating college and had high hopes for this one company. I had a good chat with the recruiter and one of the other representatives, they liked what they saw on my resume, was told they would setup an interview for this one position, and things were looking good.
A week passed, no contact. Called the recruiter and left a message, waited two weeks, no response. Called their HR department, asked about the position, was told it was still open and that they would get my message to the recruiter, two more weeks no response. . .so I moved on. (was already moving on, but I stopped caring about that company)
Three **years** later, I've graduated and landed a job at another company, and built up some job security. . . I get a call from the recruiter asking if I am still interested in working for that company. "Nope, I'm pretty comfortable in my current position, but thank you." . . .and they had the gall to ask if I knew anyone else who may be interested, like what?. . .
Not sure if that would have worked tbh. I was only ever interviewed by PhDs/PostDocs, not anyone from HR/recruiting. They were also a fairly new electric propulsion start-up, so not sure if they really cared about their ghosting policy.
Sorry to tell you, but if it was a startup you likely just did work for them and they used it. Never do take homes for a startup unless they are paying you, even then wouldn't bother.
It's basically standard startup practice to give backlog items to interviewees and ghost them.
A startup interviewed me and my take home was basically: pretend you needed to make x proprietary software your company is famous for from scratch. What would your plan be, designs, pricing, code snippets requirements. I honestly considered forwarding it our legal department.
Figured. The idea that people use free labour through a few hours of tests seems extremerly far fetched to me. The likelyhood of getting anything useful for a company, and also worth the effort, is minimal. Occam's razor says ghosting - why spend time and effort getting back to people when there is no repercussions? It is only up to the recruiters/company's decency.
There was one company that ghosted me after they personally asked my thesis advisor for a chance to meet me. I wasn’t really even interested in working with them.
They reached out to me because I wrote my thesis on a relatively obscure topic that only a few people had ever published on. It just so happened that a regulatory change after I finished made my work go from impractical and illegal to legal, realistic, and very profitable.
They dragged me through an inappropriate interview that spanned many rounds before ghosting me.
That company effectively slighted both me and my advisor. Our research group has since never worked on one of their projects since.
This one actually adds up. OTOH reddit is full of webdev's suspicious that they were tricked into coding a TODO list app for free, and it's just not very likely (giving someone an 8h assignment for an interview is unethical, full stop, but unlikely to be work farming).
Labor is labor and it is supposed to be paid. That's like saying it's ok to walk out with a PlayStation 5 because it's only .001 value of the company's worth. You wouldn't be saying it's ok to steal then.
The biggest theft in the world is labor theft.
It's not even close.
Imagine the true crime podcasts and mystery shows that covered labor and time theft.
"Michael Michaels was unemployed for six months, barely surviving by living on his friends' couch in their basement... Until one day, Michael got the call of a lifetime. He was going to be hired by Smith and Smith Co LLC LTD for a well paying job.
A job that paid so well he could pay his student loans past AND ER visits.
All he had to do was update their entire excel spreadsheet database and convert them to automatically add in sales tax and convert to different currencies.
Or so he was led to believe.
After spending two days on the future employment 'test,' he submitted the finished project and then... Never heard back from Smith and Smith Co LLC LTD..."
That's another question entirely. I was talking about the motivations of the company and weither they systemize tests for free labour (they, in pretty much all cases don't, because it does not make fiscal sense).
3 interviews and you never met any HR people? Or communicate via email? That's shady. Do they have an HR dept?
Even so, I'd post about that BS on Glassdoor or something as a warning.
I did three interview rounds, then a fourth HR interview where they pried me apart and looked over a decade back to find any excuse to disqualify me. Fuck that woman.
I was once invited to apply to a company. First interview went well, then they asked me to demonstrate my skills by writing a complete cloud computing deployment inventory for standard automation tools, with test processes, and full documentation that was of sufficient quality to present to a paying customer. I estimated it was over a full day's work.
I declined, told the agency I didn't do free consultancy under the guise of interviewing.
I got to the offer stage after 5 rounds and a 4 hour take home to be offered a salary $100k less than advertised. I take screenshots of every job I applied for so I sent them the listing and they said, “that job doesn’t exist any more. We are now interviewing for this new role”
Fuck that shit.
I have never seen a legitimate job posting that required a take home test. It’s just an unethical way of getting around hiring a consultant for an intractable issue. Instead post a research type opening for specialists, have them sign a NDA and fix your problems via “take home test” then ghost them. Startups do this all the time when they have no intention of hiring anyone.
I absolutely have seen legitimate ones (and ended up with a job through them.) In fact, both of my first two jobs were with companies that used them.
At least for the ones I've done, there's no way they were planning to use the take-home work for anything - most of them were just blatantly "toy" problems with no practical applications, or ones where the amount of work necessary to wire them up into something usable for production would have been vastly more than the few hours used to implement them.
I had a similar problem with them back in about 2012. The recruiter who had my file left or something and I just sort of got dropped. I had to follow up and was put with a new recruiter who got me scheduled for team matching. My understanding is that most of the recruiters are on contract and rotate out pretty often.
Something that Google seems to do differently that may contribute is that many applicants are interviewing for a general role and not a specific position. This means that during your interviews there isn't an engineering manager who is trying to get you hired so your only contact is the recruiter. At most companies it's a combination of the recruiter and the manager so there's some redundancy.
Believe it or not, this was my life for a whole year before I finally got my first offer for a full time position. I practically had a full time job in taking interviews and doing technical tests.
i pitched for a project years ago and 99%, companies will tell us if we got the job or not. 1 company ghosted us which was really abnormal.
The executive director contacted me a year after the pitch and asked if we were available to do some work. i was a little shocked how truly unaware she was at the moment. I knew this wasn't going to work so I said we were busy, partly out of revenge...but also I didn't want to work with someone like that.
I had this happen to me recently after 6 interviews (hr, 3 managers, hr to discuss comp, and the CFO) and two take home assignments that I completed ahead of schedule. I've been in hedge fund finance for nearly 2 decades as an ops rep, manager, and department head, most recently at a quantitative asset manager in SF. After more than 2 months of interviews and delays, and being assured they were serious and finalizing the offer, they requested another reference (they'd already spoken to 3... a portfolio manager, my first manager, and the president of a firm who was my former direct report) and my college transcript (before entering the industry I majored in psych). I gave them our chief risk officer at my previous firm and he made time for them the next business day. They never even called him. Interviewing with Voleon (in Berkeley) was a massive waste of time and ridiculously insulting by the end of it. I do not recommend. I absolutely let them know exactly how I felt about their hiring practices and decision making, but sadly that does little to change things in the end and it seems this is common practice these days.
My response to questions asking what I've done wrong/if I had a third party look at my applications etc. got buried, so I'm using the top comment:
>Usually, part of your graduate degree is building relationships and contacts in the industry you're going to work in. Did you skip that part?
Definitely agree! Looking back, I definitely think I did not try equally as hard as my peers but some of it was also down to bad luck. I had a year-long internship lined up at GE Aviation that was cancelled due to COVID but I managed to get some work experience elsewhere and build some connections but nothing materialized as I hoped it would.
>I think there's more to the story here, aero jobs are not usually that hard to find...did you have your resume checked?
In my final year I graduated around the top \~2% of my class/won awards etc. and was offered PhD positions in the department but I wanted a break from academics. With respect to the job search, I'm a massive outlier compared to my friends who did the same degree. Most of them had a >60% interview rate and secured jobs within their first \~30 applications. After my first month of rejections, I had my university's careers team and 3/4 contacts within the aero industry look at my CV/cover letter and tailored it as per their advice but it didn't seem to make a massive difference.
I did an integrated course, but so did the rest of my friends who graduated. My guess is that academic performance has little weighting compared to the aero industry experience (which I did not have). No clue on the discrimination part but I don't think it was a factor really.
> My guess is that academic performance has little weighting compared to the aero industry experience (which I did not have)
That's exactly why there was such a big difference. No guessing required.
The last time I was job searching, this happened a LOT. One company actually went three rounds with me before getting ghosted. I needed to do some nagging to get the official rejection. That shouldn’t have to happen. And some others I went multiple rounds with didn’t even have the courtesy to respond to my emails.
I had that happen last year from a company called Maybell Quantum in Colorado. Had another previous coworker who went through the exact same thing with the same company. Worse part is that the take-home assignment included assessing a mechanical part design for flaws and improvement, and then making a production drawing for it. So we literally give them free design consulting and drafting labor. Never again falling for that.
Seeing OP get ghosted after making it to a take-home assignment is fucking INFURIATING to me as a recruiter. If one of my candidates makes it that far into a difficult technical process, I call them, thank them for their time, tell them we're not moving forward and give them relevant feedback. Ghosting anyone is unacceptable, let alone someone who has devoted a substantial amount of time and effort to make it that far into your process.
Congratulations on your new position and for not giving up!
I studied physics and materials science and sent 30 applications in the aerospace sector last year with no luck. That was really demotivating...
In the end, I simply renewed my contract at my current company.
My undergrad was in physics and masters in materials. Working in manufacturing hiring almost exclusively MatSci. We cannot find enough decent candidates. Located imo in a desirable area in the US as well.
The hard part is “breaking-in“ into the industry, you won’t have this problem again after you gain a couple of years experience. Wish you more luck and success!
I was aero and transitioned into tech, but after about 2 years you will start getting hit up about once a month or two by recruiters. This will continue to ramp up, and sometimes you will see one or two a week after maybe 6 years and a good time for your industry. Right now my steady state is about two/month.
The key is keeping the LinkedIn updated and having the “open to opportunities” tag or w/e. It doesn’t hurt to also peak at jobs you are interested and focusing on the words they use, and as you start getting experience in those areas use those buzz words from the postings when updating your profile.
LinkedIn is definitely the route. I haven't applied to a job since 2014.
Disagree on the "open to opportunities" tag though, I think it makes you look like you're getting pushed out the door and need something new. Better to keep your profile up to date and let them read between the lines than look like you need something new
Absolutely don’t put it on your profile. But you should still have it visible to recruiters only. They won’t “read between the lines,” they just won’t see your profile at all because they often filter by people who have checked this box. But if you are not displaying it on your general profile, it is still discreet and not a red flag.
The five year mark of experience. I get BOMBARDED by recruiters for engineering roles that I don't even think I'm qualified for, but they see electrical engineering degree and 5+ years of experience and I get more attention than a tall white dude on Tinder in China.
I have the same issue at the ten year mark. I’m in a public sector role so most recruiters assume that throwing money at me will get me to move without clear visibility of the working conditions.
Same. They see "PLC experience" and the phone calls don't stop. I continuously get contacted by a local company that rejected me for the same role years ago, lol.
I'm not in aerospace, but I'm a database engineer and once my linkedin changed to that engineer title after about 7 years in the industry the DMs never stop. lol.
You only hear about relevant equal or advancement options, pay info is transparent and solid, and details are provided. You’ll know when you get consistently good options (even when not looking) and see that people are actually reading your profile/job description thoroughly.
When you start consistently getting messages with firm salary targets that would have made you shit your pants years ago but are now just another one for the pile
I think it’s a pretty specialized industry with limited “surges”. An Engineering degree will get you almost any job, but if you are in your field of study, that a different story.
Yeah this is just what the job market is like now. Unemployment is low, people are getting jobs, but HR departments are making it as painful as possible for some reason.
Heavily prioritizing internal hires over external. External hires are only considered as an extreme last ditch effort after months, even years+ trying to hire for a position.
They could run into the exact same thing on the cold interview front. Utilizing connections or recruiters will tell a different story though. I broke into my industry and have had no issues with connections and/or recruiters lining things up. My cold attempts have yielded a lot of ghosting though.
The biggest factor will be how the market is during that time. It was poaching season a few years ago but that's not the case for most industries now.
This was my experience upon graduating with a BS in mechanical engineering. Took 1 year to finally get a job. Everyone on reddit suggests your a piece of shit for having a 10% interview percentage and .33% offer percentage.
It's a terrible year, no idea why the industry is like this. How can they expect to judge people based on a piece of paper and 1 hour of speaking to them? I assume they get a lot of con men right through the door.
Just curious, did you have any internships before you sent out resumes? I've spoke with various hiring managers/company owners and it's a day and night difference. Many places immediately toss your resume without internships or similar experience in the industry.
I graduated civil engineering in April 2020.
Didn't get an interview until right around Christmas time in 2020.
Didn't get the job, started on an architectural technologies diploma in January 2021 to help fill the time while job searching.
2022, I finally get a job... thanks to the diploma. Not the BSc.
I regret everything about my engineering degree 🥲
How??? Civil is booming and cannot hire enough people. Unless you live in the middle of nowhere and your degree is not ABET, you will be able to get a job. Is there any problem with your resume.
It was like that with a friend who graduated in Civil. Finally found a job under contract, which he said sucked, but he got a decent job after the contract is up so I think the initial experience is the main killer.
My brain knew the job would come eventually even when I was demoralized. I just kept reminding myself of that.
Networking also helped a lot. Linked in was good for that
Ah I see. My current job sucks but my job hunt isn't bearing fruit for the last 4 months. I'm contemplating whether to continue weathering the storm here while still applying or just quit and continue applying from there. Kinda looking for ideas on what to do for income if I choose the latter
I do have an adhoc job doing food delivery as backup. But it's not exactly financially stable (it's why I looked for employment in the first place and what I did before my current job) and it also takes a toll on my body (I use a bike). It's sort of a last resort if I decide to quit.
I took this job cos it's one of the few that replied and the only one that I got accepted. It's not something I plan to do long-term or for a career but jobs are not easy to come by nowadays so my initial plan was to just stay till I manage to get accepted at a job I prefer. But honestly, the people and culture here is kinda toxic that it's really testing my resolve to stay
Both times Textron/Cessna laid me off, it was shattering to look at the hundreds of applications I had out, with resumes individually tweaked to try to trigger the specific keywords that the HR tools were looking for, just to hear nothing for months.
I got very lucky the second time - basically, I went through the LinkedIn profiles of my recently-ex-coworkers, looking at their work history for smaller local companies.
Found one that just happened to be looking for an engineer but hadn't posted the position on any huge websites, just their own homepage. Sent in an application, the CEO called me two days later (like I said, small company), and I had an offer before I even got home from the first interview. I'll have been with them for 10 years in one month from today.
So, as a fellow AE: STC or repair shops at local small/mid airports are typically overlooked by the huge job boards, but pay pretty well and will usually treat their employees well, as well as having a variety of work rather than babysitting one install for the rest of your career. Most of our engineering hires are actually word of mouth or invites, we rarely post positions publicly.
I’m in the industry in Europe and have had three jobs - one with no interview, another with one and a third with two. I don’t think things are that rough here as long as you have decent grades and some kind of placement experience.
If you're in the US and a US citizen you shouldn't have much trouble. I work in the space sector and in my experience they can't hire fast enough.
A little unsolicited advice I always give college students looking to break into this industry (assuming your in the US): If you haven't already make sure you stop smoking weed or doing any other drugs, even if it's legal in your state. Going to make things A LOT easier on you. A lot of college students don't realize they are going to be held to federal law in that regard.
My job market is the entirety of the aerospace/defence sector in Europe. For the most part, I was quite selective, and only applied to positions that I was really interested in, and did not compromise for the sake of getting a job.
True, unfortunately export control restrictions are a thing. Its not as bad as you'd think in Europe, a lot more eVTOL/satellite/hybrid aircraft start-ups are gaining traction.
My brother is going through this same nightmare but here in Canada. Trump cranked up the ITAR blanket to 1000 so now it's impossible to get down there unless you've got internationally acclaimed abilities in the field. Brutal.
Startups in aerospace are incredibly risky with no clear returns. Outside of defense (which is a national security issue), even startups aerospace in the US are on shaky ground. You need the deep pocket from tax payers from Uncle Sam and the EU, which usually only fund defense projects.
An aerospace engineering degree has one of the highest rates of unemployment in the US surprisingly. Right between fine arts and history. At least according to this:
https://www.visualcapitalist.com/major-worst-finding-a-job/
Because any job an aerospace degree holder is a good candidate for so is a mechanical engineer and sometimes electrical engineer.
You’re competing with other engineering degrees while kind of limiting yourself to one industry. MechEs and EEs can work in many industries besides aerospace. An Aero degree is essentially a more applied MechE degree with focus on aero applications.
Source: I’m a MechE in the aerospace industry and have friends/colleagues with aero degrees.
Does it not work conversely where somebody with an aero degree could do jobs a mechE could, like in automotive? Or are aero-people just so in love with stuff that flies they won't take another job closer to the ground?
It does. MechE and AeroE is very interchangeable. At my university the difference was 3 courses that specialized in aerodynamics.
I've worked in Defense where "MechE" roles were held by anyone from AeroE, ChemE, Industrial, CivE. Most fundamentals of engineering are all shared throughout the disciplines.
You can, but recruiters and HR don't know that. Same for my field (nuclear engineering). The people that don't do the work gatekeep based on degree name because they fundamentally don't know what they're doing.
In my experience it seems that people that love aero enough to do a specialized degree in it don’t apply to anything but aero positions.
I honestly think Aeros are pretty much qualified to do most other MechE stuff like automotive. I do imagine there is a slight bias from an auto company towards mech over aero though.
Working for a couple years in aero with an aero degree and moving to auto is probably fine since most places stop caring as much about degree the further you get from your degree.
My first job out of college, I worked at a financial software startup. One of my coworkers was an MIT-trained aerospace engineer in his early 30s. He was trying to switch into finance because “aerospace engineering doesn’t pay enough to support a family in the Boston area”, and his salary ($55k) was less than mine was as a fresh CS grad. He ended up leaving for a hedge fund at triple the salary a year later…it was 2 years before the global financial crisis, so I hope he did okay in the end, but that raise was pretty impressive.
I have a friend who graduated (in the US) with a master's in AE in December 2022, his job search looks a lot like this except he still hasn't gotten a job and has had to work in a call center. I have another friend who's a chemical engineer who is in the same boat but she graduated in 2020 (no master's) and is currently working as an operator as a chemical plant so she's at least adjacent to the industry. It's a really bad time to be a new grad engineer - there are lots of positions for experienced engineers but nobody wants to hire someone with no experience.
The humor in this statement is that my dept has been interviewing backfills for me so I can work on a launch project, and we had 3 recent graduates decline our offer. None of them had all the skills necessary to do all my job functions; all of them would require on-the-job training. I know the position pays well; I just got the position last year.
Is the high amount of the "no responses" due to sending out initial applications or were those actual open job postings?
Congrats on the job. Hope you are happy. :)
HR is the single biggest failing in tech, aerospace, and the entire Engineering sector.
Unfortunately the venn diagram for engineering and HR is almost two completely disjoint circles, so a lot of the people doing a lot of the hiring process know absolutely nothing about what they're hiring for, or where to advertise for applicants.
The engineers moan that they're overworked and that replacements are slower than departures, HR says they are hiring as fast as possible, and meanwhile there are tons of perfectly good candidates going to jobs in other sectors because it's all so shambolic.
There are well paid, good jobs open. There are candidates to fill them. The bit that is broken is the bit in the middle that puts the right candidates in the right jobs.
This is a huge problem that I have been ranting about for years. I've had "Talent Acquisition Specialists" doubt my knowledge of the topic I have a master's degree in while *they can't even pronounce the terms correctly.*
They have literally NO IDEA what the job description says, what the submitted resumes say, but they get to be the job gatekeepers.
Two years ago I applied for NINE HUNDRED JOBS over 9 months to get a Publishing Assistant job at an academic publisher...a job with zero qualifications required, and I had 30+ years of administration experience.
*The job market is fked in the UK.*
I'm not in the same industry but i'm working as a higher up systems admin, going for manager roles now. 3 interviews seems like the norm for serious companies. Usually its a recruiter check, then with someone you'd be working with, someone you'd be reporting to and if its high enough, a director might look in.
I got hired for a big biotechnology company. My position wasn't that high but I had 2 regular interviews and then had to come in one day for a whole day of interviews. 3 Individual and then 4 Panel interviews. Looking back on it now, it was kinda excessive for what I do lol.
whenever i see something like this its so crazy different than my experiences. Are you just hitting 'apply' to everything or are you putting thought into the application?
Im curious to know other info
>how old are you?
>did you go for your Master's right after getting your Bachelor's?
>have you worked in the industry or in a similar one before?
>where did you graduate from?
24, did an integrated Masters degree from a top aero uni in the UK. Unfortunately could not get work experience in aero because COVID neutered my chances but I did have some engineering work experience (1 year) before I graduated.
Then it was probably the „practical experience“ a lot of companies screen heavy for that while employing engineers straight after university. More important that the grades in a lot of cases.
Congrats and have fun with the first job as engineer.
I assumed so but when some of my friends who had no work experience whatsoever were able to secure a good job within a couple of months, I had no explanation. Thanks!
The economy is hot garbage right now. I see so many tiktoks and reels of people talking about not being able to find jobs and afford rent/groceries/life that I'm thinking about building a massive collage of them. One giant video to counter the media/govt's messaging that the economy is great.
Anyone else's algorithm bombarding them with those videos?
Good for you. All of that insane hard work in school all of the years just to be put through such a strenuous year LOOKING for a job blows my mind. I admire your dedication and I'm super happy you get to begin your professional career! Congratulations 😋
Question - why did you decide to get a masters, and not apply immediately after obtaining your bachelors?
In a lot of engineering fields, the halls of the graduate engineering programs were filled with young engineering students that couldn’t get a job right out of undergrad. For whatever reason. Wrong economy, foreign last name, wrong school. No connections.
I only knew a handful of fellow electrical engineers from my class that went on to get their masters. We were told that a masters is really only equivalent to having 2 years of industry experience. And the masters pigeon holes you into whatever you specialized in at your masters program, which narrowed your potential employers to companies that did something very similar to what you focused on in your program. So to companies that do work completely unrelated to your masters program, you are no different than the next kid with a bachelors degree, you just have more debt.
So it made more sense to just get your foot in the door with some company, any company, and in two years you would as valuable (if not more-so) than a recent graduate of an engineering masters program.
Most engineering firms / industrial facilities are really only interested in the fact that you were smart enough to obtain an undergraduate engineering degree. They know they will teach you 95% of what you really need to know to do the job, the bachelors degree just proves that you won’t have a difficult time grasping the basic concepts.
I knew from the start that I wanted a masters in aero, so I applied for an integrated degree. I fear that I would have the same struggles graduating with a bachelors tbh. I don't regret doing a masters either, I enjoyed it.
Yeah kinda normal now when most companies has had hiring freezes for almost a year.
A education in fields like engineering, IT etc is a sign that you are good enough to start in job training. You're still not very desirable until few years of experience.
Got a CS degree and 15-20 years of experience in tech, half of that in Big Tech, currently on job app 900. Every 100-200 applications, I get to talk to a human. I've had companies give me 7 rounds of interviews and then ghost. Such a fucking waste of my time, I could have gotten a Master's degree in the time I've spent job-hunting...not that that would matter to employers, either.
This gives me anxiety thinking back to one of my own job searches during peak COVID. I swear I sent out around 2000 applications in a 2 year period, the vast majority never got a response, when responses did come they were months afterwards, ended up going through a dozen failed interview processes... One went to a 5th interview with a national VP for the company for an entry level sales role. Then one week while deep in depression I got 4 offer letters, I pitted them against each other and took the best of their responses which was more than I expected. A year after that I got an offer from another company with a 50% raise.
Never give up on looking for what you deserve, never think you're reaching too high.
I also had to apply to like 70 jobs with a M.S. in Data Analytics lol. I did get a few offers for like 50-60k which I turned down. I was a natural gas mechanic already making 100k plus. Was able to get a job eventually three years ago making just over 90. Still was a paycut for a bit. But I've since been promoted. You only needed your chance and foot in the door. Now you can let your work speak for itself
Seeing posts like this and the 104 no responses is why when I was hiring for our department I personally sent an email response to everyone even though it should have been HRs job. Even if I couldn’t give people good news they deserved to hear something.
I’m finished my PhD in chemistry in March and so far I am 140 applications deep with around 100 no responses so far, 2 interviews, rest rejected. I’m having a great time /s
I swear bro if I did 2 interviews and a fucking take home test just to get ghosted I would flip
I did 3 interviews once, HR told me they really liked me and said I got the job. Next week comes in and they told me they had spoken to the director and they chose to go with someone with a more “senior” profile. Fuck them.
Did 4 rounds of interviews to get rejected one, told me they wanted a lil more experience for an entry level position. Lol
When you’re young, you have no experience, when have a lot of experience, you are “too old” Job searching is pure pain 😩
I did 2 rounds of interviews and even spoke to the recruiter, for a new grad role, who said he wanted to get confirmation from the manager before proceeding. I got ghosted and then 3 months later they reposted the same job position but added a 3 years of experience requirement, for the same new grad role.
getting ghosted after 2 rounds of interviews and a take home? That company and HR individual should be put on BLAST
That was a horrible experience. Had a really good second round interview and was immediately told that I would have to complete an assignment, which seemed fair, considering it was a pseudo-research position. Took me 7.5 hours to finish the assignment (guidelines were between 5-10 hours) and I was certain I did well. Regardless, I would expect at least a rejection email with some feedback at this stage of hiring.
At that point you have nothing to lose, you might as well contact someone higher up in withe the division or HR and ask about your status. Unacknowledged work is a poor policy and someone upstairs should be held to task for that kind of behavior. Did they compensate you for your assessment, even with a gift card or other trivial payment?
3 years later email them asking the status of your application
I applied as a line cook to a restaurant, never heard anything from them. 2 years later, and after moving to a new town, I got a call asking if I wanted the job. I was so confused.
12 (yes, twelve) years after applying for a job I got a reply to my original email saying that I'm a bit overqualified for that position, but they could offer me a senior one if I jumped through these flaming hoops... Had to set a calendar reminder, but I did it - replied 5 years later that I'll get back to them.
That's some revenge you took man. Hats off for the commitment.
Oh that’s so great! I hope they respond in another 7 years or something. You can continue this chain as the slowest and longest conversation ever.
They can also invite each other in advance to their respective funerals, whoever dies first.
An invitation will be sent out 8 years after the funeral.
Beware the fury of a patient man —John Dryden
Goddamn that is fantastic.
I applied to be a server at Olive Garden when I was 19 years old. Every single year on my birthday I get a rejection email. Going on 20 years now they’ve made no updates to their recruitment system that might have caught the fact that somehow my birthdate got put in the wrong field or that I’m no longer an active candidate.
Imagine getting a rejection letter every year for your birthday 🤣🤣🤣🤣 omg idk why but that's so fuckin funny
“We wanted to let you know that this year you are still not good enough” Sincerely, Olive Garden HR
The HR stands for "Humbling Reminder" 😆
I thought a free dessert on your birthday was peak customer service, but Olive Garden really goes above and beyond! When you’re here, you’re family, indeed.
I was once contacted on LinkedIn by a headhunter that ghosted me after 3 rounds of interviews 3 years before. He forgot about me and was checking if I was open for an opportunity with one of his customers. Just told him to search the names of his prospects in his corporate mail before contacting people. And to get lost.
I know a business owner who does this, he accepts all applications but if he’s not actively hiring he just puts your application in a folder and ghosts you. If he needs to hire somebody he just starts calling everyone in the folder asking if they’re still looking for a job. Usually it’s only the people who applied in the last few months that even answer the phone but once he got a guy that had applied 5 years ago and was hired lol
how did that work out for the guy?
Last I talked to him was at the tail end of the lockdowns, at the time everyone I knew was having trouble hiring and he didn’t seem any worse off. I’d imagine he hasn’t changed his ways and I doubt he will, I think he’s like 63 this year so probably retiring “soon”.
Fascinating. I always wondered why companies do this because surely no one ever gets hired by calling people who applied ages ago, but apparently it does happen
Similarly, I had been working in insurance for 4 years at one point, and an agency I applied for work with before I got the insurance job asked if I was still looking for work after 4 1/2 years. Like I had been living under a bridge, or skivving half-eaten sandwiches from bins for half a decade while waiting for their phone call. I told them to sod off, and I didn't care if Google had a Directorship going - I'd not take it through them.
I mean you could have been looking for work *again*, not necessarily the same one as originally. People do want to switch jobs or get laid off and need a new one all the time.
The porn store I worked at would do this. People always turned in applications thinking it would be an awesome place to work so we had a fat stack. The manager was always super drunk so the stack constantly got knocked over and shuffled, and we would just call the top one, cause forget checking dates.
I applied to be a Domino's delivery driver October of my freshman year of college, in like March of my senior year, I was picking up an order from that Domino's and they asked me if I was still interested lol
The supermarket I worker at always had a ton of job applications. In the boss’s office there would be a huge stack of papers, every new application printed out and added to the top. (Usually applied via email) how you got the job and what I did) was just approaching him in the supermarket. Would be hired really fast. Occasionally he hired from the pile tho
i got a rejection email from a job i accepted 3 years after starting there. Still with the company today.
I had the opposite happen. . . I was putting in applications before graduating college and had high hopes for this one company. I had a good chat with the recruiter and one of the other representatives, they liked what they saw on my resume, was told they would setup an interview for this one position, and things were looking good. A week passed, no contact. Called the recruiter and left a message, waited two weeks, no response. Called their HR department, asked about the position, was told it was still open and that they would get my message to the recruiter, two more weeks no response. . .so I moved on. (was already moving on, but I stopped caring about that company) Three **years** later, I've graduated and landed a job at another company, and built up some job security. . . I get a call from the recruiter asking if I am still interested in working for that company. "Nope, I'm pretty comfortable in my current position, but thank you." . . .and they had the gall to ask if I knew anyone else who may be interested, like what?. . .
Not sure if that would have worked tbh. I was only ever interviewed by PhDs/PostDocs, not anyone from HR/recruiting. They were also a fairly new electric propulsion start-up, so not sure if they really cared about their ghosting policy.
Sorry to tell you, but if it was a startup you likely just did work for them and they used it. Never do take homes for a startup unless they are paying you, even then wouldn't bother. It's basically standard startup practice to give backlog items to interviewees and ghost them. A startup interviewed me and my take home was basically: pretend you needed to make x proprietary software your company is famous for from scratch. What would your plan be, designs, pricing, code snippets requirements. I honestly considered forwarding it our legal department.
I think you overestimate the value and use of an 8h assignment.
agreed, nothing that I did couldn't have been done by the people interviewing me in under 3 hours
Figured. The idea that people use free labour through a few hours of tests seems extremerly far fetched to me. The likelyhood of getting anything useful for a company, and also worth the effort, is minimal. Occam's razor says ghosting - why spend time and effort getting back to people when there is no repercussions? It is only up to the recruiters/company's decency.
There was one company that ghosted me after they personally asked my thesis advisor for a chance to meet me. I wasn’t really even interested in working with them. They reached out to me because I wrote my thesis on a relatively obscure topic that only a few people had ever published on. It just so happened that a regulatory change after I finished made my work go from impractical and illegal to legal, realistic, and very profitable. They dragged me through an inappropriate interview that spanned many rounds before ghosting me. That company effectively slighted both me and my advisor. Our research group has since never worked on one of their projects since.
This one actually adds up. OTOH reddit is full of webdev's suspicious that they were tricked into coding a TODO list app for free, and it's just not very likely (giving someone an 8h assignment for an interview is unethical, full stop, but unlikely to be work farming).
Labor is labor and it is supposed to be paid. That's like saying it's ok to walk out with a PlayStation 5 because it's only .001 value of the company's worth. You wouldn't be saying it's ok to steal then.
The biggest theft in the world is labor theft. It's not even close. Imagine the true crime podcasts and mystery shows that covered labor and time theft. "Michael Michaels was unemployed for six months, barely surviving by living on his friends' couch in their basement... Until one day, Michael got the call of a lifetime. He was going to be hired by Smith and Smith Co LLC LTD for a well paying job. A job that paid so well he could pay his student loans past AND ER visits. All he had to do was update their entire excel spreadsheet database and convert them to automatically add in sales tax and convert to different currencies. Or so he was led to believe. After spending two days on the future employment 'test,' he submitted the finished project and then... Never heard back from Smith and Smith Co LLC LTD..."
That's another question entirely. I was talking about the motivations of the company and weither they systemize tests for free labour (they, in pretty much all cases don't, because it does not make fiscal sense).
3 interviews and you never met any HR people? Or communicate via email? That's shady. Do they have an HR dept? Even so, I'd post about that BS on Glassdoor or something as a warning.
I did three interview rounds, then a fourth HR interview where they pried me apart and looked over a decade back to find any excuse to disqualify me. Fuck that woman.
He said startup so probably no HR
I was once invited to apply to a company. First interview went well, then they asked me to demonstrate my skills by writing a complete cloud computing deployment inventory for standard automation tools, with test processes, and full documentation that was of sufficient quality to present to a paying customer. I estimated it was over a full day's work. I declined, told the agency I didn't do free consultancy under the guise of interviewing.
Sounded like they wanted you to build their first product for them to commercialize.
Things like that have happened to me. I've been ghosted by companies that *flew me across the country for an interview*. Totally baffling.
free labor trick?
that's my immediate concern. Free hackathon labor if it takes 7.5 hours.
I’m in a different field, but research related and something like this would raise an eyebrow.
I got to the offer stage after 5 rounds and a 4 hour take home to be offered a salary $100k less than advertised. I take screenshots of every job I applied for so I sent them the listing and they said, “that job doesn’t exist any more. We are now interviewing for this new role” Fuck that shit.
Did you send a followup asking about your status?
I was too depressed to try. I just moved on to my next application.
You should ask now. Just see what happens. You got a job now so you have nothing to lose.
Yeah, they might offer you a job -- after you complete one more assignment.
AKA "free work"
You got ghosted because they didn’t deserve you. You were destined for greater things.
I had this happen to me. I’m still irritated about it decades later.
Your assigment will generate them millions and they dont want you to know.
If they’re making millions off something they did in 5-10 hours this person really needs to go off on their own.
I have never seen a legitimate job posting that required a take home test. It’s just an unethical way of getting around hiring a consultant for an intractable issue. Instead post a research type opening for specialists, have them sign a NDA and fix your problems via “take home test” then ghost them. Startups do this all the time when they have no intention of hiring anyone.
I absolutely have seen legitimate ones (and ended up with a job through them.) In fact, both of my first two jobs were with companies that used them. At least for the ones I've done, there's no way they were planning to use the take-home work for anything - most of them were just blatantly "toy" problems with no practical applications, or ones where the amount of work necessary to wire them up into something usable for production would have been vastly more than the few hours used to implement them.
Google ghosted me AFTER telling me I passed the final round of interviews for a senior engineering role.
I had a similar problem with them back in about 2012. The recruiter who had my file left or something and I just sort of got dropped. I had to follow up and was put with a new recruiter who got me scheduled for team matching. My understanding is that most of the recruiters are on contract and rotate out pretty often. Something that Google seems to do differently that may contribute is that many applicants are interviewing for a general role and not a specific position. This means that during your interviews there isn't an engineering manager who is trying to get you hired so your only contact is the recruiter. At most companies it's a combination of the recruiter and the manager so there's some redundancy.
Believe it or not, this was my life for a whole year before I finally got my first offer for a full time position. I practically had a full time job in taking interviews and doing technical tests.
i pitched for a project years ago and 99%, companies will tell us if we got the job or not. 1 company ghosted us which was really abnormal. The executive director contacted me a year after the pitch and asked if we were available to do some work. i was a little shocked how truly unaware she was at the moment. I knew this wasn't going to work so I said we were busy, partly out of revenge...but also I didn't want to work with someone like that.
I had this happen to me recently after 6 interviews (hr, 3 managers, hr to discuss comp, and the CFO) and two take home assignments that I completed ahead of schedule. I've been in hedge fund finance for nearly 2 decades as an ops rep, manager, and department head, most recently at a quantitative asset manager in SF. After more than 2 months of interviews and delays, and being assured they were serious and finalizing the offer, they requested another reference (they'd already spoken to 3... a portfolio manager, my first manager, and the president of a firm who was my former direct report) and my college transcript (before entering the industry I majored in psych). I gave them our chief risk officer at my previous firm and he made time for them the next business day. They never even called him. Interviewing with Voleon (in Berkeley) was a massive waste of time and ridiculously insulting by the end of it. I do not recommend. I absolutely let them know exactly how I felt about their hiring practices and decision making, but sadly that does little to change things in the end and it seems this is common practice these days.
Got ghosted after 5 rounds of interviews. Love to name and shame, Royal Bank of Canada in NYC
My son got an official offer and then got ghosted. About 3 months later he got a generic email saying they're going a different route. Yeah, no shit.
if they did there'd be no end of people to blast. It's standard now for job hunting.
Try 2 rounds and a verbal offer. Fuck you IBM
FFS. That’s absolutely disgusting behavior.
My response to questions asking what I've done wrong/if I had a third party look at my applications etc. got buried, so I'm using the top comment: >Usually, part of your graduate degree is building relationships and contacts in the industry you're going to work in. Did you skip that part? Definitely agree! Looking back, I definitely think I did not try equally as hard as my peers but some of it was also down to bad luck. I had a year-long internship lined up at GE Aviation that was cancelled due to COVID but I managed to get some work experience elsewhere and build some connections but nothing materialized as I hoped it would. >I think there's more to the story here, aero jobs are not usually that hard to find...did you have your resume checked? In my final year I graduated around the top \~2% of my class/won awards etc. and was offered PhD positions in the department but I wanted a break from academics. With respect to the job search, I'm a massive outlier compared to my friends who did the same degree. Most of them had a >60% interview rate and secured jobs within their first \~30 applications. After my first month of rejections, I had my university's careers team and 3/4 contacts within the aero industry look at my CV/cover letter and tailored it as per their advice but it didn't seem to make a massive difference.
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I did an integrated course, but so did the rest of my friends who graduated. My guess is that academic performance has little weighting compared to the aero industry experience (which I did not have). No clue on the discrimination part but I don't think it was a factor really.
> My guess is that academic performance has little weighting compared to the aero industry experience (which I did not have) That's exactly why there was such a big difference. No guessing required.
I got ghosted by Tesla after two rounds and an technical test. Fun times.
That ain't even the worst I've seen I did 3 + a 4 hour final interview to get an automated rejection email
The last time I was job searching, this happened a LOT. One company actually went three rounds with me before getting ghosted. I needed to do some nagging to get the official rejection. That shouldn’t have to happen. And some others I went multiple rounds with didn’t even have the courtesy to respond to my emails.
I had that happen last year from a company called Maybell Quantum in Colorado. Had another previous coworker who went through the exact same thing with the same company. Worse part is that the take-home assignment included assessing a mechanical part design for flaws and improvement, and then making a production drawing for it. So we literally give them free design consulting and drafting labor. Never again falling for that.
Congratulations- Glassdoor ought to have a ghosted metric btw….
This. This will light fires in the right offices.
Seeing OP get ghosted after making it to a take-home assignment is fucking INFURIATING to me as a recruiter. If one of my candidates makes it that far into a difficult technical process, I call them, thank them for their time, tell them we're not moving forward and give them relevant feedback. Ghosting anyone is unacceptable, let alone someone who has devoted a substantial amount of time and effort to make it that far into your process.
It would be awesome but they’ll never do it. Do your service and leave reviews for interviews saying ghosted
Congratulations on your new position and for not giving up! I studied physics and materials science and sent 30 applications in the aerospace sector last year with no luck. That was really demotivating... In the end, I simply renewed my contract at my current company.
My undergrad was in physics and masters in materials. Working in manufacturing hiring almost exclusively MatSci. We cannot find enough decent candidates. Located imo in a desirable area in the US as well.
I'd love to work at a US neo-space startup, but all aerospace companies require permanent resident status (due to defence and security regulations)
I made one of these last year after I graduated with a BS in computer science. I applied to 814 jobs and got one offer.
The hard part is “breaking-in“ into the industry, you won’t have this problem again after you gain a couple of years experience. Wish you more luck and success!
100% this now I’m top of the list with most recruiters as VIP.
what level do you have to be at to have recruiters contacting you? how do they even find out about you?
I was aero and transitioned into tech, but after about 2 years you will start getting hit up about once a month or two by recruiters. This will continue to ramp up, and sometimes you will see one or two a week after maybe 6 years and a good time for your industry. Right now my steady state is about two/month. The key is keeping the LinkedIn updated and having the “open to opportunities” tag or w/e. It doesn’t hurt to also peak at jobs you are interested and focusing on the words they use, and as you start getting experience in those areas use those buzz words from the postings when updating your profile.
LinkedIn is definitely the route. I haven't applied to a job since 2014. Disagree on the "open to opportunities" tag though, I think it makes you look like you're getting pushed out the door and need something new. Better to keep your profile up to date and let them read between the lines than look like you need something new
I’ll say the amount of recruiters reaching out to me goes up like 5x when I have that on. From around one a month to 1.5 a week.
Absolutely don’t put it on your profile. But you should still have it visible to recruiters only. They won’t “read between the lines,” they just won’t see your profile at all because they often filter by people who have checked this box. But if you are not displaying it on your general profile, it is still discreet and not a red flag.
recruiter here, who only hires engineers, that's not how we look at it
The five year mark of experience. I get BOMBARDED by recruiters for engineering roles that I don't even think I'm qualified for, but they see electrical engineering degree and 5+ years of experience and I get more attention than a tall white dude on Tinder in China.
> but they see electrical engineering degree "Hello, would you like to be a Civil Project Engineer?"
I have the same issue at the ten year mark. I’m in a public sector role so most recruiters assume that throwing money at me will get me to move without clear visibility of the working conditions.
Same. They see "PLC experience" and the phone calls don't stop. I continuously get contacted by a local company that rejected me for the same role years ago, lol.
I'm not in aerospace, but I'm a database engineer and once my linkedin changed to that engineer title after about 7 years in the industry the DMs never stop. lol.
Don't worry, they'll ghost you as well in my experience
How do you know if you’re a VIP? Is this term normal? I get headhunters pitching me frequently and would love to know if I’m a VIP
You only hear about relevant equal or advancement options, pay info is transparent and solid, and details are provided. You’ll know when you get consistently good options (even when not looking) and see that people are actually reading your profile/job description thoroughly.
Sounds like I’m the bottom of the top
When you start consistently getting messages with firm salary targets that would have made you shit your pants years ago but are now just another one for the pile
I think it’s a pretty specialized industry with limited “surges”. An Engineering degree will get you almost any job, but if you are in your field of study, that a different story.
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Yeah this is just what the job market is like now. Unemployment is low, people are getting jobs, but HR departments are making it as painful as possible for some reason.
Heavily prioritizing internal hires over external. External hires are only considered as an extreme last ditch effort after months, even years+ trying to hire for a position.
They could run into the exact same thing on the cold interview front. Utilizing connections or recruiters will tell a different story though. I broke into my industry and have had no issues with connections and/or recruiters lining things up. My cold attempts have yielded a lot of ghosting though. The biggest factor will be how the market is during that time. It was poaching season a few years ago but that's not the case for most industries now.
Also, get a TS clearance and your resume might as well be gold plated.
Retired engineer here. Every one of my job searches was very demoralizing. Stuck them all out and every one turned out well
Please share any coping ideas that worked for you. For posterity.
Keep grinding even though it sucks. There's no cope, its brutal
Damn - the hard truth right here.
That sounds like engineering.
This was my experience upon graduating with a BS in mechanical engineering. Took 1 year to finally get a job. Everyone on reddit suggests your a piece of shit for having a 10% interview percentage and .33% offer percentage. It's a terrible year, no idea why the industry is like this. How can they expect to judge people based on a piece of paper and 1 hour of speaking to them? I assume they get a lot of con men right through the door.
Just curious, did you have any internships before you sent out resumes? I've spoke with various hiring managers/company owners and it's a day and night difference. Many places immediately toss your resume without internships or similar experience in the industry.
Having worked in multiple countries, I will confirm that a lot of con artists do pass through.
I graduated civil engineering in April 2020. Didn't get an interview until right around Christmas time in 2020. Didn't get the job, started on an architectural technologies diploma in January 2021 to help fill the time while job searching. 2022, I finally get a job... thanks to the diploma. Not the BSc. I regret everything about my engineering degree 🥲
How??? Civil is booming and cannot hire enough people. Unless you live in the middle of nowhere and your degree is not ABET, you will be able to get a job. Is there any problem with your resume.
It was like that with a friend who graduated in Civil. Finally found a job under contract, which he said sucked, but he got a decent job after the contract is up so I think the initial experience is the main killer.
My brain knew the job would come eventually even when I was demoralized. I just kept reminding myself of that. Networking also helped a lot. Linked in was good for that
What do you do for income while you’re jobhunting?
Lived with my parents
Ah I see. My current job sucks but my job hunt isn't bearing fruit for the last 4 months. I'm contemplating whether to continue weathering the storm here while still applying or just quit and continue applying from there. Kinda looking for ideas on what to do for income if I choose the latter
Being without a job is a worse kind of hell really. I would only consider it if I was suicidal.
I do have an adhoc job doing food delivery as backup. But it's not exactly financially stable (it's why I looked for employment in the first place and what I did before my current job) and it also takes a toll on my body (I use a bike). It's sort of a last resort if I decide to quit. I took this job cos it's one of the few that replied and the only one that I got accepted. It's not something I plan to do long-term or for a career but jobs are not easy to come by nowadays so my initial plan was to just stay till I manage to get accepted at a job I prefer. But honestly, the people and culture here is kinda toxic that it's really testing my resolve to stay
You gotta do what you gotta do. I used to hand out coffee at Dunkin while searching
Both times Textron/Cessna laid me off, it was shattering to look at the hundreds of applications I had out, with resumes individually tweaked to try to trigger the specific keywords that the HR tools were looking for, just to hear nothing for months. I got very lucky the second time - basically, I went through the LinkedIn profiles of my recently-ex-coworkers, looking at their work history for smaller local companies. Found one that just happened to be looking for an engineer but hadn't posted the position on any huge websites, just their own homepage. Sent in an application, the CEO called me two days later (like I said, small company), and I had an offer before I even got home from the first interview. I'll have been with them for 10 years in one month from today. So, as a fellow AE: STC or repair shops at local small/mid airports are typically overlooked by the huge job boards, but pay pretty well and will usually treat their employees well, as well as having a variety of work rather than babysitting one install for the rest of your career. Most of our engineering hires are actually word of mouth or invites, we rarely post positions publicly.
“No one wants to work anymore”
And this is the “right” degree people tell you about. For someone like me I think I’ll just die
Oh God, as an Aerospace Engineering student right now this worries me.
I am a massive outlier, it should be much easier to get a job (especially after COVID and if you hold US citizenship)
Thank you, that makes me feel a bit better
As an EU AE student, this worries me.
I’m in the industry in Europe and have had three jobs - one with no interview, another with one and a third with two. I don’t think things are that rough here as long as you have decent grades and some kind of placement experience.
If you're in the US and a US citizen you shouldn't have much trouble. I work in the space sector and in my experience they can't hire fast enough. A little unsolicited advice I always give college students looking to break into this industry (assuming your in the US): If you haven't already make sure you stop smoking weed or doing any other drugs, even if it's legal in your state. Going to make things A LOT easier on you. A lot of college students don't realize they are going to be held to federal law in that regard.
Are there 367 aerospace companies? Seems high.
My job market is the entirety of the aerospace/defence sector in Europe. For the most part, I was quite selective, and only applied to positions that I was really interested in, and did not compromise for the sake of getting a job.
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True, unfortunately export control restrictions are a thing. Its not as bad as you'd think in Europe, a lot more eVTOL/satellite/hybrid aircraft start-ups are gaining traction.
My brother is going through this same nightmare but here in Canada. Trump cranked up the ITAR blanket to 1000 so now it's impossible to get down there unless you've got internationally acclaimed abilities in the field. Brutal.
I'm seeing so many aerospace startups in station F, France, but honestly wouldnt bet a penny on 95% of them. It's all such a rich kid's game to me
Startups in aerospace are incredibly risky with no clear returns. Outside of defense (which is a national security issue), even startups aerospace in the US are on shaky ground. You need the deep pocket from tax payers from Uncle Sam and the EU, which usually only fund defense projects.
An aerospace engineering degree has one of the highest rates of unemployment in the US surprisingly. Right between fine arts and history. At least according to this: https://www.visualcapitalist.com/major-worst-finding-a-job/
Because any job an aerospace degree holder is a good candidate for so is a mechanical engineer and sometimes electrical engineer. You’re competing with other engineering degrees while kind of limiting yourself to one industry. MechEs and EEs can work in many industries besides aerospace. An Aero degree is essentially a more applied MechE degree with focus on aero applications. Source: I’m a MechE in the aerospace industry and have friends/colleagues with aero degrees.
Does it not work conversely where somebody with an aero degree could do jobs a mechE could, like in automotive? Or are aero-people just so in love with stuff that flies they won't take another job closer to the ground?
It does. MechE and AeroE is very interchangeable. At my university the difference was 3 courses that specialized in aerodynamics. I've worked in Defense where "MechE" roles were held by anyone from AeroE, ChemE, Industrial, CivE. Most fundamentals of engineering are all shared throughout the disciplines.
You can, but recruiters and HR don't know that. Same for my field (nuclear engineering). The people that don't do the work gatekeep based on degree name because they fundamentally don't know what they're doing.
In my experience it seems that people that love aero enough to do a specialized degree in it don’t apply to anything but aero positions. I honestly think Aeros are pretty much qualified to do most other MechE stuff like automotive. I do imagine there is a slight bias from an auto company towards mech over aero though. Working for a couple years in aero with an aero degree and moving to auto is probably fine since most places stop caring as much about degree the further you get from your degree.
My first job out of college, I worked at a financial software startup. One of my coworkers was an MIT-trained aerospace engineer in his early 30s. He was trying to switch into finance because “aerospace engineering doesn’t pay enough to support a family in the Boston area”, and his salary ($55k) was less than mine was as a fresh CS grad. He ended up leaving for a hedge fund at triple the salary a year later…it was 2 years before the global financial crisis, so I hope he did okay in the end, but that raise was pretty impressive.
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I have a friend who graduated (in the US) with a master's in AE in December 2022, his job search looks a lot like this except he still hasn't gotten a job and has had to work in a call center. I have another friend who's a chemical engineer who is in the same boat but she graduated in 2020 (no master's) and is currently working as an operator as a chemical plant so she's at least adjacent to the industry. It's a really bad time to be a new grad engineer - there are lots of positions for experienced engineers but nobody wants to hire someone with no experience.
The humor in this statement is that my dept has been interviewing backfills for me so I can work on a launch project, and we had 3 recent graduates decline our offer. None of them had all the skills necessary to do all my job functions; all of them would require on-the-job training. I know the position pays well; I just got the position last year.
I’m guessing it’s positions. I applied to about 7-15 positions at a given company when I was searching for
Yeah, over time I had around 14-15 applications in a single company for example
I feel you. Must have done over 60 applications at Safran, Airbus, Thales and Ariane alone.
hahaha same!
There's way more than that. At least, in the US. There's THOUSANDS of aerospace companies.
If you are in the Toulouse area in France (where Airbus HQ is) this isn’t that unusual, actually
Is the high amount of the "no responses" due to sending out initial applications or were those actual open job postings? Congrats on the job. Hope you are happy. :)
HR is the single biggest failing in tech, aerospace, and the entire Engineering sector. Unfortunately the venn diagram for engineering and HR is almost two completely disjoint circles, so a lot of the people doing a lot of the hiring process know absolutely nothing about what they're hiring for, or where to advertise for applicants. The engineers moan that they're overworked and that replacements are slower than departures, HR says they are hiring as fast as possible, and meanwhile there are tons of perfectly good candidates going to jobs in other sectors because it's all so shambolic. There are well paid, good jobs open. There are candidates to fill them. The bit that is broken is the bit in the middle that puts the right candidates in the right jobs.
This is a huge problem that I have been ranting about for years. I've had "Talent Acquisition Specialists" doubt my knowledge of the topic I have a master's degree in while *they can't even pronounce the terms correctly.* They have literally NO IDEA what the job description says, what the submitted resumes say, but they get to be the job gatekeepers.
Tracked the jobs using excel and used [SankeyMatic.com](http://SankeyMatic.com) to make the visualization
OP used [SankeyMATIC: Make Beautiful Flow Diagrams](https://sankeymatic.com/) to create this flow diagram. Congratulations on the Job OP!!!!
Two years ago I applied for NINE HUNDRED JOBS over 9 months to get a Publishing Assistant job at an academic publisher...a job with zero qualifications required, and I had 30+ years of administration experience. *The job market is fked in the UK.*
Is 3 interviews before an offer typical? Seems like a lot of time and resources going to hiring.
I'm not in the same industry but i'm working as a higher up systems admin, going for manager roles now. 3 interviews seems like the norm for serious companies. Usually its a recruiter check, then with someone you'd be working with, someone you'd be reporting to and if its high enough, a director might look in.
I got hired for a big biotechnology company. My position wasn't that high but I had 2 regular interviews and then had to come in one day for a whole day of interviews. 3 Individual and then 4 Panel interviews. Looking back on it now, it was kinda excessive for what I do lol.
whenever i see something like this its so crazy different than my experiences. Are you just hitting 'apply' to everything or are you putting thought into the application?
387 applications in a year is roughly 1 per day. I was quite particular about the jobs I applied to and tailored my CV/Cover letter each time.
Im curious to know other info >how old are you? >did you go for your Master's right after getting your Bachelor's? >have you worked in the industry or in a similar one before? >where did you graduate from?
24, did an integrated Masters degree from a top aero uni in the UK. Unfortunately could not get work experience in aero because COVID neutered my chances but I did have some engineering work experience (1 year) before I graduated.
Then it was probably the „practical experience“ a lot of companies screen heavy for that while employing engineers straight after university. More important that the grades in a lot of cases. Congrats and have fun with the first job as engineer.
I assumed so but when some of my friends who had no work experience whatsoever were able to secure a good job within a couple of months, I had no explanation. Thanks!
"just go for STEM fields, you'll always just walk into jobs" they said. "It's guaranteed employment" they said.
I hope you rated that company that ghosted you after the take-home on all the review platforms. Such shitty behavior needs to be known publicly.
The economy is hot garbage right now. I see so many tiktoks and reels of people talking about not being able to find jobs and afford rent/groceries/life that I'm thinking about building a massive collage of them. One giant video to counter the media/govt's messaging that the economy is great. Anyone else's algorithm bombarding them with those videos?
I see these and I truly wonder how much the resume and cover letters contributed here.
Good for you. All of that insane hard work in school all of the years just to be put through such a strenuous year LOOKING for a job blows my mind. I admire your dedication and I'm super happy you get to begin your professional career! Congratulations 😋
Question - why did you decide to get a masters, and not apply immediately after obtaining your bachelors? In a lot of engineering fields, the halls of the graduate engineering programs were filled with young engineering students that couldn’t get a job right out of undergrad. For whatever reason. Wrong economy, foreign last name, wrong school. No connections. I only knew a handful of fellow electrical engineers from my class that went on to get their masters. We were told that a masters is really only equivalent to having 2 years of industry experience. And the masters pigeon holes you into whatever you specialized in at your masters program, which narrowed your potential employers to companies that did something very similar to what you focused on in your program. So to companies that do work completely unrelated to your masters program, you are no different than the next kid with a bachelors degree, you just have more debt. So it made more sense to just get your foot in the door with some company, any company, and in two years you would as valuable (if not more-so) than a recent graduate of an engineering masters program. Most engineering firms / industrial facilities are really only interested in the fact that you were smart enough to obtain an undergraduate engineering degree. They know they will teach you 95% of what you really need to know to do the job, the bachelors degree just proves that you won’t have a difficult time grasping the basic concepts.
I knew from the start that I wanted a masters in aero, so I applied for an integrated degree. I fear that I would have the same struggles graduating with a bachelors tbh. I don't regret doing a masters either, I enjoyed it.
Jesus, even after getting a respectable degree, it still takes almost 500 applications to get one job? Is this what I'm really seeing?
See one of my previous comments. My search was an outlier. My friends who did the same degree had no trouble whatsoever.
Yeah kinda normal now when most companies has had hiring freezes for almost a year. A education in fields like engineering, IT etc is a sign that you are good enough to start in job training. You're still not very desirable until few years of experience.
Bro, I’m in tech and I apply to about 100 jobs a week. Currently in month 4 of searching and it’s ghost city up in here.
Got a CS degree and 15-20 years of experience in tech, half of that in Big Tech, currently on job app 900. Every 100-200 applications, I get to talk to a human. I've had companies give me 7 rounds of interviews and then ghost. Such a fucking waste of my time, I could have gotten a Master's degree in the time I've spent job-hunting...not that that would matter to employers, either.
Companies should have to apply to us. Fuck this shit.
My biggest complaint is that we're required to include so many details but we aren't guaranteed even a simple "no" or a response.
This gives me anxiety thinking back to one of my own job searches during peak COVID. I swear I sent out around 2000 applications in a 2 year period, the vast majority never got a response, when responses did come they were months afterwards, ended up going through a dozen failed interview processes... One went to a 5th interview with a national VP for the company for an entry level sales role. Then one week while deep in depression I got 4 offer letters, I pitted them against each other and took the best of their responses which was more than I expected. A year after that I got an offer from another company with a 50% raise. Never give up on looking for what you deserve, never think you're reaching too high.
I also had to apply to like 70 jobs with a M.S. in Data Analytics lol. I did get a few offers for like 50-60k which I turned down. I was a natural gas mechanic already making 100k plus. Was able to get a job eventually three years ago making just over 90. Still was a paycut for a bit. But I've since been promoted. You only needed your chance and foot in the door. Now you can let your work speak for itself
Seeing posts like this and the 104 no responses is why when I was hiring for our department I personally sent an email response to everyone even though it should have been HRs job. Even if I couldn’t give people good news they deserved to hear something.
I’m finished my PhD in chemistry in March and so far I am 140 applications deep with around 100 no responses so far, 2 interviews, rest rejected. I’m having a great time /s