Engineering CV / Job hunt advice

[FRMATT]

I've recently completed my PhD and I have been doing some post-doc Research Associate work for the last 18 months, this overlapped with the last bit of my PhD.

Now feels like the right time to start climbing the ladder in industry, as my current contract is due to be renewed and the end of the year and don't have aspirations to pursue a career in academia. Aside from building up bit of further technical knowledge, I'm not really moving forward career wise where I am from this point.

I've been looking for around a month and signed up to a few CV sites, LinkedIn etc. I've found a few jobs that were of interest, but none have got to an interview stage yet. I think that my lack of team management experience is the aspect that is holding me back from the level of job that I am technically experienced enough to do. Whether I need to sell the small aspects of this I have done more or just lower my expectations in terms of salary / seniority I'm not sure. My undergrad degree was in Mechanical Engineering with my PhD and subsequent research work being thermofluids, optical diagnostics based in the power generation and automotive areas and I'm aiming for something around £40k.

If anyone can offer some advice and have a quick look through my CV I would very much appreciate it.

Thanks in advance

[Wayoftheflower]

15 years in Automotive. Graduated with a basic B.Eng and got a foot in the door through persistance and a lot of luck. My somewhat shambolic "career" has continued in a similar but not unenjoyable way.

Automotive does attract a number of "for love not money" people (and it can be enormous fun at times) so that does damp wages to some degree. In my Automotive engineering "career" I got to £40k after ten years via three different OEMs and a couple of big location changes to follow work.

The options for a PhD+ level of technical ability can be a little limited with quite a few desk bound MSoffice driving engineering administrators needed to support smaller research or development teams. The "technical specialist" role may be of interest to you but you'll need the very niche skills required. For a more general roll make the most of the adaptable skills you have. Simply being good with general data handling programs like Excel macros+VB and Matlab can make you stand out.

Harking back to my earlier comment on "For love not money" there are several automotive companies that lean on their prestige names to make heavy demands on employee's time, unsuprisingly they have high staff turnover but as a foot in the door to the industry they can make sense in the near term. But foot in the door is 90% of the battle in my experience.

[mikees]

Pm sent

[FRMATT]

Wayoftheflower said:

15 years in Automotive....

Thanks, I have heard similar things about the automotive area, plus that people often end up stuck working on a very small part of a project which can be confining for some. My research role has element of the "for love not money" in that the pay isn't amazing but the work is interesting. It is just the need to progress my career and earn more money to support my family that is driving my job search.

mikees said:

Pm sent

Thanks Mike

I'm based in Staffordshire/ Derbyshire area if anyone else knows of any roles available.

Since writing my original post I had a message back from one of the free CV review companies (who then want to charge £100+ to fix it) so I'm going to get the careers centre at university to go through it again as it only scored about 60% in their metrics. Hopefully that will improve the score in the automated CV check software that a lot of places seem to use now and I can at least get in front of a human to sell myself to them.

[oldbanger]

Rog007 is usually happy to review PHers’ CVs. He’s pretty spot on with advice.

If you are still interested in power generation I would be able to pass on your cv to a midlands based company, if that’s of any use.

[MrAverage]

Take a look at your local DNO, I'd imagine Western Power is yours.

Experience likes your leads very nicely into a protection role, which can be interesting and lucrative.

I'd put a CV in to show your interest and see whether any suitable roles pop up.

[BigBen]

Happy to take a look at your CV. Send me a PM and I will see if there is anything that might be of interest here (engineering consultancy)

Ben

[fuzzyyo]

FRMATT said:

I've recently completed my PhD and I have been doing some post-doc Research Associate work for the last 18 months, this overlapped with the last bit of my PhD.

Now feels like the right time to start climbing the ladder in industry, as my current contract is due to be renewed and the end of the year and don't have aspirations to pursue a career in academia. Aside from building up bit of further technical knowledge, I'm not really moving forward career wise where I am from this point.

I've been looking for around a month and signed up to a few CV sites, LinkedIn etc. I've found a few jobs that were of interest, but none have got to an interview stage yet. I think that my lack of team management experience is the aspect that is holding me back from the level of job that I am technically experienced enough to do. Whether I need to sell the small aspects of this I have done more or just lower my expectations in terms of salary / seniority I'm not sure. My undergrad degree was in Mechanical Engineering with my PhD and subsequent research work being thermofluids, optical diagnostics based in the power generation and automotive areas and I'm aiming for something around £40k.

If anyone can offer some advice and have a quick look through my CV I would very much appreciate it.

Thanks in advance

Having direct experience, academia is relatively generous with pay compared to the private sector (at the stage you're at) so i wouldn't expect to match your post doc wages straight off.

Don't bother with linked in etc. All you will get is recruitment agents adding you, not having a clue what you do, and send you lots of generic roles in vaguely related industries.

My advice is to make a list of people you wish to work for, get a good cover letter explaining what you've done and good at (but don't make it too technical) and cold call them with your cv and cover letter, ideally someone not in the HR department but someone in the field you wish to work. If you need a hand you can pm me.

[rog007]

Happy to have a look and then take it from there based upon what I see.

[rog007]

Happy to have a look and then take it from there based upon what I see.

[FRMATT]

I've been for a couple of meetings with the careers help people and I think I've made some good improvements to my CV, so hopefully I get somewhere with the applications I've made since these changes.

I've also been in contact with some colleagues from the power station I did my placement year at, who have said they have some job applications opening in the next week or so

oldbanger said:

Rog007 is usually happy to review PHers’ CVs. He’s pretty spot on with advice.

If you are still interested in power generation I would be able to pass on your cv to a midlands based company, if that’s of any use.

Yes, that would be useful please. I've sent you a PM

MrAverage said:

Take a look at your local DNO, I'd imagine Western Power is yours.

Experience likes your leads very nicely into a protection role, which can be interesting and lucrative.

I'd put a CV in to show your interest and see whether any suitable roles pop up.

I've had a bit of a search and while the revenue protection stuff does sound interesting, my skills and interest are more suited to mechanical/ fluids problems than electrical wizardry

BigBen said:

Happy to take a look at your CV. Send me a PM and I will see if there is anything that might be of interest here (engineering consultancy)

Ben

Thanks, PM sent

fuzzyyo said:

Having direct experience, academia is relatively generous with pay compared to the private sector (at the stage you're at) so i wouldn't expect to match your post doc wages straight off.

Don't bother with linked in etc. All you will get is recruitment agents adding you, not having a clue what you do, and send you lots of generic roles in vaguely related industries.

My advice is to make a list of people you wish to work for, get a good cover letter explaining what you've done and good at (but don't make it too technical) and cold call them with your cv and cover letter, ideally someone not in the HR department but someone in the field you wish to work. If you need a hand you can pm me.

I have company in mind that I'm tempted to try this with, as they have some job adverts up but nothing that quite fits what I'd like. One of the lads that did a PhD at the same time as me worked there for his placement, so I'll get him to send me details of who I could write to.

rog007 said:

Happy to have a look and then take it from there based upon what I see.

Great thanks, PM sent

[oldbanger]

FRMATT said:

oldbanger said:

Rog007 is usually happy to review PHers’ CVs. He’s pretty spot on with advice.

If you are still interested in power generation I would be able to pass on your cv to a midlands based company, if that’s of any use.

Yes, that would be useful please. I've sent you a PM

I've replied

[shirt]

If power generation appeals and dont mind relocating you could easily get 40k as a starting salary with either an oem or operator.

GE have just offloaded their power generation business which has been rebranded as innio, they are hiring with locations in austria and the US. I know a few ex GE guys and none of them speak german.

Wartsila, cummins, rolls royce are all doing good business. In terms of operators the temporary rental market (utility scale rental) is predicted to triple in volume over the next decade and anyone who can bring fluids analytics to the party would be seen as an asset. Then there’s consultant engineers such as Ricardo who could apply that knowledge across a much broader range.

I work for an operator who would normally be very interested and in fact advertised for similar roles recently before pulling them as we have a hiring freeze on at the moment.

[FRMATT]

shirt said:

If power generation appeals and dont mind relocating you could easily get 40k as a starting salary with either an oem or operator.

GE have just offloaded their power generation business which has been rebranded as innio, they are hiring with locations in austria and the US. I know a few ex GE guys and none of them speak german.

Wartsila, cummins, rolls royce are all doing good business. In terms of operators the temporary rental market (utility scale rental) is predicted to triple in volume over the next decade and anyone who can bring fluids analytics to the party would be seen as an asset. Then there’s consultant engineers such as Ricardo who could apply that knowledge across a much broader range.

I work for an operator who would normally be very interested and in fact advertised for similar roles recently before pulling them as we have a hiring freeze on at the moment.

Unfortunately a large relocation is something I'm trying to avoid at the moment, as I have a 4 month old so being close to parents in North Staffordshire / Staffordshire Moorlands area is quite important. I'm happy with commute of up to an hour though putting Manchester, Birmingham, Nottingham areas within reach.

Interesting what you say about GE, as the company who own the power station I did my placement year at, and who partially funded my PhD, have separated their generation business from the customer facing part in a similar way.

I have a small insight into the utility scale rental market, as the current project I'm working on is a NOx reduction technology for all sizes of diesel engines and we have had a lot of interest from these types of companies from around the world, as there is likely to be lot stricter regulations surrounding these type of generators in the future as their use becomes more widespread.