Getting out of Civil Engineering

nacimroc

courty08 wrote: »

I am due to graduate in May and have been for a long time considering going straight into another field be .....

In my opinion if you don't carry on into another course relatively quickly, it is amazing how hard it is to do after a few years. Once you get settled in with a mortgage, kids or rent etc, its hard to give up a salary for the posibile prospect of higher pay.

Max_Charger

Mother of god,this makes for depressing reading for anyone like me hoping to start an engineering course in sept...

Brian CivilEng

At the end of all of this I'll still say that when you can get the work, civil eng is a great job!

Cool croc

scotty_irish wrote: »

Most Civils I know are planning their escape. Me, I'm currently doing a PhD which will hopefully see me as a scientific programmer when I'm done. Big bro (4 years experience) is doing a Master's in Biomedical. Most of my classmates, graduated in '09, are in other industries now such as finance etc. Don't blame anyone for getting out. Engineers in Ireland and UK are over-worked, underpaid, under-appreciated. Look at continental Europe where engineers are respected, well-paid (even graduates) and have career prospects - not going to happen in Ireland/UK. Three mates working in France currently as one year graduates - all earning mid to high 30s and rarely work over 40 hours. If I ever do work as an engineer it'll be in France/Germany, not dealing with the sh*te in Ireland.

As for getting out, I'm sure you have plenty of transferable skills, I think your biggest hurdle will be convincing a potential employer that you'll will stay in the job even in the unlikely event that civil will recover - that you're not just taking the job because you can't get any better.

hey, how did your mates find out about the graduate jobs in France? I would be interested to know because I'm graduating in May as Civil Eng.

pljudge321

Max_Charger wrote: »

Mother of god,this makes for depressing reading for anyone like me hoping to start an engineering course in sept...

What branch of engineering. Chemical is as steady as ever and electronic and electrical are booming.

scotty_irish

Cool croc wrote: »

hey, how did your mates find out about the graduate jobs in France? I would be interested to know because I'm graduating in May as Civil Eng.

learn french firstly. some french companies are quite active recruiting in the UK so would have been on campus and advertising around the place. search on google too.

Max_Charger

pljudge321 wrote: »

What branch of engineering. Chemical is as steady as ever and electronic and electrical are booming.

Electrical,that gives me hope reading that anyway!

dundee80

I took voluntary redundancy and had up to 7 years experience in site engineering and consultancy. For as long as I was working as a site engineer I hated every moment of it. I had to go into work everyday pretending i was someone i was not. Trying to be ignorant and act like a bogger. Working on site alongside ignorant foremen and lads that spoke to each other and treated each other like dogs drove me away from the site work. I knew there was better out there.

Following this I worked in consultancy with a great company and great people. It was a totally different experience. I got fed up with it though, because it was very monotonous, work was drying up and I wasn't being challenged or learning new things. I am hesitant to leave engineering because I feel I didn't get a fair crack of the whip due to the down turn. I jumped at the opportunity of voluntary redundancy and got some travelling done, which was an amazing experience.

What I found about engineering was that you have to follow the work and if you plan on having a family in the future it's not ideal, if you constantly have to move around (internationally). Call me old fashioned but it's something I wouldn't be used to and i think its unnatural to be away from your family.

I looked into opportunities of getting into something else but all that bull**** of transferring skills doesn't hold up. Its now an Employers market and they are approaching universities for graduates rather than employing and retraining an experienced individual who can transfer skills. On the continent or in the states employers are more open minded about career changes. Then again they do have larger populations which makes them open to facilitate career changes.

Ive completed a postgraduate masters in business and have come to terms with having to apply for graduate positions. I'm in my 30s, it's heartbreaking but there's no future in civil engineering. My hope is to get in on a graduate programme and hopefully be fastktracked for responsibility and renumeration if I show potential. Thats the reality in Ireland today. If you are looking to get into another career then you have to do an add-on course and more than likely get into a graduate or intern programme. The boom times would have been the most ideal time to consider a career change, but that could raise the issue of when is the best time to do it!

Having travelled following redundancy, Im content in the notion that life is all about enjoying. You need to have the correct work life balance. Only work blood, sweat and tears if it's your own business. From my experience civil engineers are exploited because companies try and keep there tender prices down to win jobs. In turn this reduces the potential for other engineers to be employed and workloads for employed engineers is overwhelming.

I've considered the possibility of working in the middleast, Asia or Oz to give the engineering the last horragh, try and make money for 5 years to get set up, and then get away from it, but am not having much success as the market is swamped and am now competing with engineers internationally.

Career change is a no Brainer for me. Bye bye engineering and good riddance.

Max Moment

dundee80 wrote: »

I took voluntary redundancy and had up to 7 years experience in site engineering and consultancy. For as long as I was working as a site engineer I hated every moment of it. I had to go into work everyday pretending i was someone i was not. Trying to be ignorant and act like a bogger. Working on site alongside ignorant foremen and lads that spoke to each other and treated each other like dogs drove me away from the site work. I knew there was better out there.

Alleluia Dundee, finally someone on the same wavelength as me. I am in the same boat, have 8 years Site Engineering / Consultancy under my belt and currently working as a site engineer. It's so true, I completely despise the role as you say you make yourself some you are not to do your job which is wrong on so many levels. I am sick of pig ignorant foremen and workers who have no respect for you or indeed themselves! If someone sat me down 12 years ago when I was starting college and explained the role I would have ran a mile. You go through a very tough education to become and Engineer where there are other careers which are far easier to get into and have a much better work / life balance. Again, hindsight is a great thing!

I would like to think that there is much better out there but at the moment I can see nothing and am at a loss as to which direction to take myself. Yeh I know, there will be loads of people saying that 'you should be grateful to have a job' and yes I am, but there's more to life and all that. I would love to try branch in to a new career but can not risk it currently for financial reasons in case it does not work out.

I am 30 myself and feel in someways I have wasted the last 12 years training and working as an Engineer as I seem to be at a dead end and now is the time for a change.

Anyways, best of luck Dundee with your new career direction. Keep us posted on how you get on...

A Primal Nut

If you are going to back to college the easiest thing for Civil Engineers would probably be to move into another branch of engineering - programming, telecoms, electrical; etc. I am sure they will still take your experience into account!

Also consider a masters in Project Management, or even rebranding yourself as a project manager on your cv if you have done that kind of work in the past. That way you can keep all your experience from your previous job but still work in something different, another branch of engineering.

Greengekko

Hi all,

I came across this thread and found it interesting as I have thoughts from working in engineering. Doing 60+ hours a week and employer just turns around and expects you to do more. No matter how much you do your never get the recognition. Not that one would be looking for a pat on the back walking out the gate every evening, but even just getting normal working hours where you can have a decent work life balance.

Just wondering in the end what did you decide to do? did you take up a different career?

godtabh

Greengekko wrote: »

Hi all,

I came across this thread and found it interesting as I have thoughts from working in engineering. Doing 60+ hours a week and employer just turns around and expects you to do more. No matter how much you do your never get the recognition. Not that one would be looking for a pat on the back walking out the gate every evening, but even just getting normal working hours where you can have a decent work life balance.

Just wondering in the end what did you decide to do? did you take up a different career?

Maybe you arent working for the right company?

Greengekko

@Gotabh - I believe you work with a consultancy. A lot different to main contractor work. you may not have had similar experience to the majority of engineers I have worked with/ spoken to where working hours did not reflect pay or the personal time missed due to long commutes after work. Im not sure if there is a union who soley represents engineers/site managers? anyway was just interested how this persons career path turned out.

Wildly Boaring

What's your experience?
Years / level / type of civils?

I've worked contractor and consultancy bsck and forth a couple times.

The point above is right.
You may just be with the wrong company.
It is not a contractor v consultancy thing. There are actually consultancies that are worse then any contractor.

If you like your work there is the right company out there for you.

It's an employee's market right now and in my opinon you need to use that to get in somewhere you're appreciated. The next downturn will come. It's unavoidable and if you are somewhere you don't like you will be completely stuck.

Also bear in mind that a lot of the states and semi states are hiring mad right now. Councils, Irish water, waterways, ESB, TII. None will pay the best in an upturn but lovely to have the solidity. And none are the retirement home they are made out to be. Well maybe waterways??

Greengekko

3 years experience with large civil/building contractors - Industrial, healthcare and roads. Im currently with a decent company at the moment.
it is and it isnt, i found during the downturn that site management were dispensable in the eyes of employers as you could be replaced tomorrow with another engineer.
Ya local authority would be a decent choice will consider in future, it was an option earlier.

Wildly Boaring

Well one thing I'd say is 3 years isn't that long, straight from college I assume.

Do you see progression?
Very important if you are putting in those 60 hour weeks we all had to do that you are progressing.

See it myself the whole time. People who put in all the effort but don't get beyond engineer. That 60 hour week needs to get to a site managers position. Once at that level you will have more chances to move within civils.

It doesn't need to be manager on large scale. My first site was 2m, second 600k, third 1m.

Dealing with lot of LA lads now and the good ones are genuinely busy and enjoying it. Advice from a cousin who's in there years is to get in now during an upturn. They lose people to industry and of course they have more positions anyway. Sure none were hiring at all in downturn. Once in cant be sacked.

Personally I'd be looking more at ESB, bord gais and Irish water if I wanted that sort of work. More scope to advance career wise.

sk777

Civil engineering is a terrible and soul crushing career. If you are young get out of it. When in school and college people tell you, you will be rich and respected as a civil engineer. You will be neither. When you start to work as an engineer you will see that even senior management cannot afford to buy lunch every day and take miserable bags of sandwiches in to work every day. I have worked it in for years and my friends who dropped out of school and partied instead of working their a**es off during college earn more money than me now in basic jobs. I really wish I had never gone to college and enjoyed my life when I was young.
To give you an example, after about 10 years of working as a civil engineer (you will need to have a degree and masters before that), you will be earning about the same as a newly qualified accountant and they will get benefits which you can forget about.
Salaries are very poor all of the time, in good times you can expect your salary to go up a couple of grand a year. In good economic conditions there will be high demand, so a lot of consultancies get unqualified people to do a lot of the work and get an engineer to sign off on it. It is always a race to the bottom on tenders too so there is no hope of a good margin on jobs. In recessions engineers will be the first to go as capital spending always cut instead of reducing public sector pay. If you do get a job in the public sector, you will probably end up taking orders from someone with no qualifications and no engineering experience.
Many of my class who graduated over 10 years ago have tried desperately to get out of engineering, but recruiters look for experience in similar roles so no hope of escape. Oh yeah, you probably wont get a pension either so you better die before you're 65.

Greengekko

sk777 wrote: »

Civil engineering is a terrible and soul crushing career. If you are young get out of it. When in school and college people tell you, you will be rich and respected as a civil engineer. You will be neither. When you start to work as an engineer you will see that even senior management cannot afford to buy lunch every day and take miserable bags of sandwiches in to work every day. I have worked it in for years and my friends who dropped out of school and partied instead of working their a**es off during college earn more money than me now in basic jobs. I really wish I had never gone to college and enjoyed my life when I was young.
To give you an example, after about 10 years of working as a civil engineer (you will need to have a degree and masters before that), you will be earning about the same as a newly qualified accountant and they will get benefits which you can forget about.
Salaries are very poor all of the time, in good times you can expect your salary to go up a couple of grand a year. In good economic conditions there will be high demand, so a lot of consultancies get unqualified people to do a lot of the work and get an engineer to sign off on it. It is always a race to the bottom on tenders too so there is no hope of a good margin on jobs. In recessions engineers will be the first to go as capital spending always cut instead of reducing public sector pay. If you do get a job in the public sector, you will probably end up taking orders from someone with no qualifications and no engineering experience.
Many of my class who graduated over 10 years ago have tried desperately to get out of engineering, but recruiters look for experience in similar roles so no hope of escape. Oh yeah, you probably wont get a pension either so you better die before you're 65.

hahahah the last part, but yes all you said is nothing but the truth. I wouldnt advise anyone to do engineering

The Rape of Lucretia

sk777 wrote: »

Civil engineering is a terrible and soul crushing career. If you are young get out of it. When in school and college people tell you, you will be rich and respected as a civil engineer. You will be neither. When you start to work as an engineer you will see that even senior management cannot afford to buy lunch every day and take miserable bags of sandwiches in to work every day. I have worked it in for years and my friends who dropped out of school and partied instead of working their a**es off during college earn more money than me now in basic jobs. I really wish I had never gone to college and enjoyed my life when I was young.
To give you an example, after about 10 years of working as a civil engineer (you will need to have a degree and masters before that), you will be earning about the same as a newly qualified accountant and they will get benefits which you can forget about.
Salaries are very poor all of the time, in good times you can expect your salary to go up a couple of grand a year. In good economic conditions there will be high demand, so a lot of consultancies get unqualified people to do a lot of the work and get an engineer to sign off on it. It is always a race to the bottom on tenders too so there is no hope of a good margin on jobs. In recessions engineers will be the first to go as capital spending always cut instead of reducing public sector pay. If you do get a job in the public sector, you will probably end up taking orders from someone with no qualifications and no engineering experience.
Many of my class who graduated over 10 years ago have tried desperately to get out of engineering, but recruiters look for experience in similar roles so no hope of escape. Oh yeah, you probably wont get a pension either so you better die before you're 65.

You have to be with one of the big firms to be able to afford to bring miserable bags of sandwiches with you - we can all dream of that. With us, most of us are only eating with what we get from the StVdP or at one of the drop in centres. Impossible to afford any decent accommodation - it was only because three of us got promoted recently that we were able to get a group of 8 of us to move out of the squat, and club together to share the rent in a 2 bed terraced house. It works OK though because we arent all on the same shift and can rotate the beds. Worst was recently where one lads mother died and he couldnt afford to get home to the funeral. 18 years an engineer, and career progressing very well. We all chipped in for him, and to be fair to our company, they made up the difference so that he could get a return ticket to Athlone.
The bottom line is though, that we love being engineers and arent really in it for the money.

onrail

The Rape of Lucretia wrote: »

You have to be with one of the big firms to be able to afford to bring miserable bags of sandwiches with you - we can all dream of that. With us, most of us are only eating with what we get from the StVdP or at one of the drop in centres. Impossible to afford any decent accommodation - it was only because three of us got promoted recently that we were able to get a group of 8 of us to move out of the squat, and club together to share the rent in a 2 bed terraced house. It works OK though because we arent all on the same shift and can rotate the beds. Worst was recently where one lads mother died and he couldnt afford to get home to the funeral. 18 years an engineer, and career progressing very well. We all chipped in for him, and to be fair to our company, they made up the difference so that he could get a return ticket to Athlone.
The bottom line is though, that we love being engineers and arent really in it for the money.

What industry are you in?

uptherebels

onrail wrote: »

What industry are you in?

Look at the name.. T.R.oL

onrail

uptherebels wrote: »

Look at the name.. T.R.oL

Cheers - I'm a bit naive in the mornings!

onrail

There has definitely been a rise in the salaries being offered out there, but they're still well below an acceptable standard.

Given the pick up in the economy and the massive demand for engineers, is it now safe to say that the rates of pay aren't a supply/demand issue?

Is it simply a down to us all in the industry constantly cutting the legs from each other?

ingeneer

I've definitely noticed a big scramble to hire structural engineers in the last few months. Getting contacted on LinkedIn on a weekly basis by recruiters. Seeing a lot of people move around without an issue. Also seeing a lot of public, semi-state companies etc hiring (ESB, Councils, DAA).

I have around 6 years experience and it seems to me that there is a big shortage of people in that 5 - 15 years experience range. I'd like to think if I moved sometime this year I'd by looking at a 10 to 15% increase at least. Still often think of leaving the private sector consultancy end of things, as it can be crazy stressful at times (lot of responsibility, under-resourced). And the wages are still too low imo. Having said that there seems to be so much work going on (housing shortage, office space shortage, dublin airport expansion, metro north, etc.) that maybe the tide will turn this year and salaries will get to an acceptable level.

Anyone else feeling cautiously optimistic about 2019 and the next couple of years?