Should I bail out now?

BlackEdelweiss

I graduated last year with a BEng. in Building Services Engineering. As with most of last years graduates I failed to find a job, I tried working for free for a while but it dident work out too well. I have tried to upskill myself by completing a small course in a niche market, funding it myself at great expense and I have sent out literally hundreds of C.V.'s to which I get the same answer if I even get a reply atall.
I cannot afford to keep doing courses and I cannot afford to go back to college full time so the skills that I have learned and the engineering mindset I had got myself into for the past few years are beginning to wane with lack of use. I have been told that hopefully things will pick up a bit in the next 2 years but by then I feel I will not be in a position to apply for any jobs atall in the engineering field and there will also be many of the currently unemployed engineers who have a wealth of experience to offer who will also be going for these jobs. I have also talked to Building Services engineers who have said this field will never recover and they are concentrating on training in the middle east from now on, not much room for me their either.
I understand there will also be a large number of these engineers who will never go back to engineering as they will have to find an alternative career now.
Should I just cut my losses and get out of engineering now, is there ever going to be a place in the engineering world for people like me who were unfortunate enough to graduate at this time and cant get that important first foot on the ladder.

Tail Wagger

BlackEdelweiss wrote: »

I graduated last year with a BEng. in Building Services Engineering. As with most of last years graduates I failed to find a job, I tried working for free for a while but it dident work out too well. I have tried to upskill myself by completing a small course in a niche market, funding it myself at great expense and I have sent out literally hundreds of C.V.'s to which I get the same answer if I even get a reply atall.
I cannot afford to keep doing courses and I cannot afford to go back to college full time so the skills that I have learned and the engineering mindset I had got myself into for the past few years are beginning to wane with lack of use. I have been told that hopefully things will pick up a bit in the next 2 years but by then I feel I will not be in a position to apply for any jobs atall in the engineering field and there will also be many of the currently unemployed engineers who have a wealth of experience to offer who will also be going for these jobs. I have also talked to Building Services engineers who have said this field will never recover and they are concentrating on training in the middle east from now on, not much room for me their either.
I understand there will also be a large number of these engineers who will never go back to engineering as they will have to find an alternative career now.
Should I just cut my losses and get out of engineering now, is there ever going to be a place in the engineering world for people like me who were unfortunate enough to graduate at this time and cant get that important first foot on the ladder.

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Depending on your individual circumstances and your marital status, children mortgage etc. If your a single person then you have no ties, you can go where you like. If It were me and I had no ties I'd be gone yesterday, time fly's by and you won't see 10 years going by and then you will be called over Qualified, (ie your to bloody old).

If it's money your short of (like us all) work a whatever you can pick up, maybe you could start up your own business, there are loads of options but it's your call....good luck

BlackEdelweiss

Tail Wagger wrote: »

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Depending on your individual circumstances and your marital status, children mortgage etc. If your a single person then you have no ties, you can go where you like. If It were me and I had no ties I'd be gone yesterday, time fly's by and you won't see 10 years going by and then you will be called over Qualified, (ie your to bloody old).

If it's money your short of (like us all) work a whatever you can pick up, maybe you could start up your own business, there are loads of options but it's your call....good luck

I'm married with 3 small kids, mortgage, car loan, the works. I would move away in a flash but to emigrate anywhere I want to go you need experience which I cant get. If I am to move the whole family I want to make it one move and settle, I dont want to be dragging them all over england, Wales etc trying to find the right thing.
I came to engineering after a few years as a chef, which I have recently been offered a job as again but this feels like a step backward after all my studying especially as I really wanted to get out of cheffing so much I went back to college. I am grateful to have a job offer and it is a morale boost to actually get a job after attending an interview, especially seeing as I havent been a full time chef in 4 years, I just wish I could get my foot in the door of an engineering office for an interview to see how I could get on.
I have an idea for a food related business which I think could be good if all the factors came together but I just dont know whether to push this out of my mind and concentrate on my engineering career or to drop the engineering and go for the food business. It is too stressful trying to think about 2 completely separate careers.

CatFromHue

Hi BlackEdelweiss

I dont think anyone here can make the decision for you unfortuneatly.

You have been offered a job as a chef after being away from it for a few years. Who's to say you wouldnt be offered a job as an engineer after being away from it for a few years.

Or who's to say how long if you turned down the chef job it would be before you get an engineering job.

Or could you take the chef job and continue to apply to eng companies?

I know im not being too helpful and I wish you the best.

What about taking the chef job and doing another part time course?

BlackEdelweiss

All replier are helpful, sometimes it is just good to vent a bit of frustration on these forums and sometimes somebody might just come back with a reply that hits the right spot.
My main problem about applying for engineering jobs in a few years is that I dont have any experience in it to fall back on in the future, all I have is what I learned in college and I am sure you all know how good/relevant most of that information is in the real world. At least with the chefing I had several years of work behind me and I was able to draw on this in the interview.
It is very expensive to do courses outside of the standard college system, I have already spent €1500 and to complete this course to the advanced modules will take another €2000 at least. There are another 2 shorter courses I want to do aswell to bring me up to speed on the software used but these are a pipe dream at the minute. It is hard for me to justify this spending on myself when I have a family to think about, my wife worked full time in a job she hates just to help me through college, I dont know how much more I can expect her to do.
I will keep sending out C.V.'s, the law of averages means that sooner or later at least one of them has to get a result

bfocusd

I worked in a building services consultancy for about 2 and a half years,
When I started there in early 2007 the company had various offices all over Ireland and international offices, in Dublin there was about 150 and at the moment there is about 25 people left.

From what I’ve heard its still one of the biggest in Ireland,
The majority of offices have cut staff levels to approx 5/6 people!

The majority of people I have worked with immediately moved to either Australia or Canada, but they were single men with no ties, I think it would be a last option for your family if things didn’t turn around as such.

I finished there in august and have seen only 2/3 jobs suitable for me.
Even if there is a job on the market, its ridiculous the amount of CV’s being sent in.
I’ve heard that on average about 200-300 CV’s are sent in within the first couple of days!!

A friend of mine was a unemployed QS, he set up his own business and he’s overwhelmed with the work load as any building work going ahead is being done on a very small budget, and the smaller companies fees are nothing compared to the bigger consultancy fees, everyone is undercutting each other to get the job.

At the moment for me I’ve had more of a chance of getting a job through recommendations from past colleagues rather than sending out my CV, I’m sorry to say but at the moment its more who you know rather than what you can do or what Certs. you have..

For the moment I think there is no harm in you keeping the job as a chef,
Hopefully Its making a living for your family, I’m sure it’s a pain after studying for that long and then to be told at the end there is no jobs.

Hopefully something turns up, good luck!

Cheeble

It's a bit off the wall, but is there any way that you can use your experience as a chef to get you into engineering?

For example, there must be companies who make/sell equipment into kitchens and the catering trade. Can you remember who were the manufacturers of the kitchen equipment you were using when working as a chef?

If you can think of a few names, you could try a direct, speculative approach, explain your situation and offer to bring an experienced chef's perspective to their design, manufacture or sales. I'd say a guy like you could be very good at selling technical equipment and facilities into the catering trade?

Good luck anyway.

Cheeble-eers

BlackEdelweiss

Cheeble wrote: »

It's a bit off the wall, but is there any way that you can use your experience as a chef to get you into engineering?

For example, there must be companies who make/sell equipment into kitchens and the catering trade. Can you remember who were the manufacturers of the kitchen equipment you were using when working as a chef?

If you can think of a few names, you could try a direct, speculative approach, explain your situation and offer to bring an experienced chef's perspective to their design, manufacture or sales. I'd say a guy like you could be very good at selling technical equipment and facilities into the catering trade?

Good luck anyway.

Cheeble-eers

Thats not a bad idea, I'll definately look into it. The restaurant industry was pretty hard hit by the whole recession though, when all the engineers and architects etc lost their jobs they dident have the money to eat out anymore. I was quite lucky and also quite surprised to get the chef job I mentioned as they are hard to come by these days. The industry is picking up a bit though and any upturn in the market directly influences the restaurant trade so it could be a case where lots of restaurants who have not upgraded or invested any money in their kitchen during the quiet times might now be in a position where their equipment is in bad need of repair or replacement.
Thanks for the idea and all the other comments, they are all appreciated.