Need Advice re Welding Engineering Jobs

By Junior Guy Date 12-12-2002 03:20

I'm a junior engineer, my background is metallurgical engineering. I finished my degree almost four years ago. Since I've graduated I've been working in a consulting environment. I'd like to get into a fabrication/production environment, preferably where they make things such as ships, equipment or other large other large structures. Ideally an environment where I can put metallurgy and welding engineering together. I'm trying to keep well rounded in other disciplines, have learned a lot of QA/QC and I recently obtained my CWI.

My problem is I'm getting frustrated with job hunting. Applying online gets my resume thrown in a pile, headhunters don't seem to anxious (unless they are looking for more candidates to add to the number of applicants) and it seems without a contact at the larger companies your resume gets thrown on a pile or I get told I need more experience. Its very frustrating, any suggestions, ideas?

By scmait

Date 12-12-2002 13:03

My suggestion is probably not what you want to hear, but here it is...keep pluging away. I know quite a few individuals that have sent out reams of paper in the form of resumes before they got the job they wanted. One other suggestion is to join (if you haven't done so already) AWS and/or ASM. Then get involved in the local chapter and network (as they say).

SCMait

By Niekie3 (***)

Date 12-12-2002 18:45

Hi

In South Africa, you would not be considdered a "junior" engineer with 4 years experience. You would be seen as an engineer. I suspect that the "lack of experience" may relate to your welding experience. You do not state that you have obtained a qualification in welding engineering. I believe that your problem may lie here.

I have a materials engineering degree, and I can say with certainty that this is not enough to have the necessary welding process and associated knowledge. Only once I completed my welding engineering qualification did I have this know-how.

I would therefore recommend that you try to obtain a welding engineering qualification and accreditation if you want to work as a welding engineer.

I may be missing something from the American perspective?

Regards
Niekie Jooste

By Junior Guy Date 12-13-2002 04:48

Thank you both for your responses... I should start off with I'm in Canada not the US. Here, Junior Engineer's have less than 4 years experience or are EIT's (my situation for the next month or two).

You are right, I definitely have more to learn when in comes to welding processes (particularly less mainstream processes, ie not SMAW, GMAW, GTAW, FCAW); however, I do have welded design training and some practical welding experience. Not too mention working along side and under the supervision of a Welding Engineer for the past few years has given me quite a bit of experience. I am a firm believer in hands on learning, which is why I would like to work for a fabrication/production environment.

The experience I was refering to in my post was practical/job experience. I am not really sure if an additional degree/accreditation would open more doors because, I would still be missing actual work experience. I'm sure additional accreditations wouldn't hurt, though. I suppose it should be something to look at.

Regards,
JG

By George-kh (**)

Date 12-17-2002 14:35

My experience says, without qualification you can not be success. Best way is joining SLV-Duisburg in Germany to pass “International Welding Engineer” course. It just takes 3 months. It’s a short time for that. Unfortunately the last English language course in SLV has just finished. You can be keep in touch with them to know when is the next one.