3iMaJ

I'm curious what his specialty might be.

jpanhalt

Unfortunately, a GPA of 2.66 is considered low at many American institutions due to grade inflation. Last Fall, out of a class of 60 students in organic chemistry at a local college, there were 2 C's and the rest were A's and B's. Ten percent of the students got more than 100% on the final exam (a perfect was 112%, so you could get more than 100% with essentially B+/A- work).

What 3v0 says is correct. You have to get past the first screen, and that GPA just sticks out. Therefore, leave it out of your resume.

As for the CEOs, for one thing they graduated several years ago. Their GPA would have to be adjusted by the
amount of inflation. Second, the traits of a CEO are not necessarily those of the best, brightest, or most productive employee. Cream is not the only thing that floats. John

3v0

I could not agree more on both counts. Thing about a good GPA is that it opens the door. Each year hired a few collage grads even when a company wide hiring freeze was in place.

Digitan's web site if full of completed projects featuring AVR uC's. A solid guess with be embedded systems.

This is a description of his latest project.
The time spent on these projects may account for the GPA. Projects are good, but maybe a few less project and more study time.

One key to a decent GPA is doing the work requested and moving on to the next assignment. For a gifted person it is easy to get wrapped up in an interesting assignment/project and let everything else slide. Anything past what the assignment required for an A is wasted time if you are looking for good grades. A lot can be learned but it can get you in trouble in other areas.

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quixotron

Yo, what companies did you reply to? Unfortunately, GPA and the school you went to play big parts. HR people are @$$holes sometimes, they do not understand that people make mistakes or had other obligations that made their school a rough experience. But there are ways to compensate for the gpa.

What are your interests? The CS, IT and software market is saturated. Everyone on this forum knows how to programs pics, write c code, assembly language and whatnot. But very very few have worked with VNAS, anechoic chambers, antenna ranges and rf devices.

My point is, you have to consider what you need to do to make yourself marketable. at purdue's job fair, ibm, microsoft, amd and intel had lines stretching outside the south annex memorial hall. if these companies can hire chinese and indians for 4000 USD a year, they'd do it. but foreigners arent allowed access to certain government and corporate information.

However at lockheed martin, raytheon, ball aerospace, northrop grumman and boeing, their stands were empty. they were looking desperately for rf/wireless and optics engineers. so maybe you want to reconsider another field that isnt saturated. because everyone and their momma is a programmer. programmers are a dime a dozen. a good emc/rf engineer is really really hard to find. you'll find as i do, that companies will wine and dine you, even spoil you to get you.

so picking a niche might compensate for your gpa. and dont worry about that gpa. doesnt mean anythin!. good gpas indicate that the person in question had everything given to them with no problems. companies also want people who suffered and react well under pressure, not some rich kid born with a silver spoon in his mouth! you'll find prject deadlines and budgets require very special people recruited beyond the gpa.

also, the key to a good gpa in addition to good study habits is...taking a load you can handle! as a undergrad, i would never take more than 2 engineering courses and a humanities in a single semester. id know guys who take 15+ credit hours and bomb every quiz and exam. i do not know how they did it..but certainly they weren't the cream of the crop. dont let that happen to you. school isnt a sprint, its a marathon. you'll take longer yes, but you'll retain the information better and your gpa will be a solid 3.0 at least.

and most important of all...pray to the lord. ask him for these things in christs name. accept the lord, keep his commandments and minister the gospel. he will take care of you and grant you whatever you want, so long as its within his principles. do this and you'll find your job hunting far easier.

dknguyen

Yeah those analog engineers are really precious. I don't think I know anyone specializing in it. I chose to go power and control though. If I had to spend another 2 years at the university, the next thingn I would focus on would be RF/Optics- damn hard though! The one RF course I took so far was by far the hardest course I've ever taken- but somehow it's far FAR from my lowest grade in a course. I remembered it as being a B, but I'm looking at my transcript and apparently it's the highest mark I've ever gotten: A-!

I already have no idea how that happened when I thought it was a B. Now I really don't know.

I loved the electromagnetics course I took though but due to my interests (ie. things I can build at home for my robots) I chose control and power systems instead.

Nigel Goodwin

I know it's soul destroying sending off applications and not getting any reply (do you enclose a stamped addressed envelope with each application?), but companies often get hundreds (or thousands) of applications for each job, so probably only reply to a small percentage of them.

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quixotron

Another thing...keywords. And who submits an application through letters nowadays?? Everythings done online. HR folks sift thru with keywords.

For instance, on my application, I type in RF, RFID, RDF and antennas. Bam i get two interviews a week and an offer every month. I'm not bragging what i'm saying is that you have to think like an HR. They dont have the time to get cuddly with someone's application. They just run the app thru a databse with keywords and that eliminates everything else.

alot of it has to do with keywords such as the field you're in and hot topics like RFID, wireless, etc.

quixotron

huh? no such thing here in the states, well at least at purdue. an A is an A. A B is a B. In most Rf courses and EM, there is no curve. Usually we'll get maybe 10-25 people sometimes. So you get what you get.

I heard soome schools dont give grades...strange.

dknguyen

Well, by analog engineer I mean anyone who's actually working with RF circuits or analog filters, etc.and not someone who is programming, working with digital/switching circuitry, or fabrication methods etc.

phil7890

DigiTan, if you have professors, church friends, neighbors, relatives, previous intern places/supervisors or know any person at companies you could be interested in, I suggest you use their help to refer you there. Print some cover letter and resumes, or put it on CD along with some project info/pictures. Keep this handy in case you have to hand it out on the spot. I think this is more effective than mass-mailing resumes on your own. I know you have some personal contacts in your job search but maybe should focus more on this method instead of mailing out resumes.

Since you already have an engineering degree (doesn't matter what GPA), you have met the requirement to be an engineer. After being hired, the rest is to work hard and intelligently with team work - to contribute to the company. A large percentage of people we hire (technical, factory, office, etc) are referrals because we'll kinda hold the guys here accountable if their friends don't work out. 1/2

Also I think most college graduates do not jump into R&D right away. You may have to start as a field engineer, applications engineer, sales engineer, quality engineer, support engineer, tech marketing engineer, etc. After a few years, move over to the design side. From looking at your website you appear to have very good technical abilities and communications skills - most college students don't have an elaborate website showing various projects.

I think your communications skill is a huge asset because many of us tech people can't write but we still try anyways. If you can give presentations in a small, medium or large setting, be sure to let them know too. Anyways I think you may want to use this communications skill (along with your tech skills) as a major plus when you meet them. Every company will have lots of suppliers and customers to talk to - and we all want the best ones to do the talking.

For those companies/people that you have previously approached, you may want to re-approach them again and indicate you can accept a wide range of engineering-related positions. Sometimes a letter/resume from a few months ago “has expired”. Hiring managers will naturally contact the candidates in the order of the newest ones received – so, I think you’ll want to give yourself some visibility and place yourself in the front row by contacting them again.

Later in your workplace, you can transfer over to the design side or whichever group you like, or stay in the current field. Good luck.

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jpanhalt

We had electronic equipment that was serviced by the vendor. The field service engineer was most often trained to swap large sub-assemblies or boards, never to troubleshoot at the component level. Once in awhile, we got a really good service person who usually never returned. One of the good ones saved us over $4000 in 1980 dollars by suggesting the problem was just an IR sensor, which we took care of ourselves. So, I wondered why the good ones rarely returned. I don't think it was the way we treated them.

I was told by a friend in one of the vendor companies that field service engineers had a rotten life. Lots of travel, etc. It was basically a starting position and turn-over was high. Most important, the good ones got hired away, frequently by the clients. We offered one a job, but were outbid by another client company.

So, being a field engineer/instrument repair person might be viewed as a way to get a thorough interview at a place where you would really like to work. And BTW, we never once asked the GPA. Performance was the only measure.
John

Hank Fletcher

What does a background check entail and, in your particular case, reveal?

Mmm... fudging line.

Hank Fletcher

Ah, but dignity alone will never pay off your student loan, get a mortgage, or buy a ring for that special kind of girl who'll put up with an electronics nerd.

Rise up, brother. The only thing you need is a dose of hope. This time, as immediate as it may seem due to the frustration of it, will pass, and you'll persevere just as you've always done through the adversity in all the other times in your life.

What's bugging you is a new kind of thing, which in a strange way you should see as a kind of compliment. Before you graduated no one would hire you because you didn't have the qualifications, and you didn't think twice about it because like most reasonable people you figured it was a foregone conclusion: no qualifications = no job.

Now that you have the qualifications, you feel the kind of righteous indignation that everyone feels at some time in their career. I know this is a bit of a Job's comforter, but many people (including engineers like my Dad, the smartest guy I know) feel the injustice resulting from the conflict between their qualifications and the labour market even later in their careers. The early '90s was a terrible time for 50+ aged engineers to look for a new, lesser paying job. But they did what they had to do, and most got by not too bad because, well, that's what people do. Work -> Play -> Adversity -> Work -> Play -> Adversity -> Work -> Play... I'd be lying if I didn't tell you it's an endless cycle. Tough it out, it makes you stronger.

Whatsamatter? People don't read the ends of my posts? Still plenty of jobs up here in Canada for university grads, especially on the East Coast. If you feel the labour markets playing you, then play the market. If there are no jobs where you're at, look for jobs elsewhere. Dream about the life you want. Think about the life you want. Think about what you can do, right now, to move yourself towards your goal. Every resume you send out increases your odds, never forget that. You'll never make the basket if you just give up and don't shoot the hoop.

They taught you about electronics. Great. Did they teach you how to get a job? If your university was anything like mine were, job fairs and the like were a bit of a joke. I'm not going to base a serious life decision on what companies might have an interest in showing up at a job fair, anyway. But think about this: you're good at electronics, not at getting jobs. That's serious stuff. There are companies that make big money out of doing nothing more than hooking people up with jobs. That's who you're competing with. What's going to give you your edge? I've already suggested the easiest way for an individual to give himself the greatest advantage in the labour market: a willingness to relocate. It was true for the older engineers in the '90s, and it's still true today.

quixotron

his gpa probably. at purdue's job expo, there were recruiters that didnt even look at you unless you had a gpa above 3.25. one guy told me my gpa should be higher-i think it was the verizon guys, it was a 3.5, so I snatched my resume outta his hands in public.

sob! there are far more important things to consider then the gpa. i really feel for tan. bull$hit, i say!

phalanx

When I graduated in 2002 I had a solid 3.5 GPA but the job market was very bad for engineers (especially entry level ones) since so many experienced engineers were out of work. As a result of not being able to find engineering work, I taught high school for a year and then did house inspections for an insurance company for a year after that.

After 2 years of job searching I finally found a company that would give me a shot and I haven't looked back since.

Jobs in your field are not guaranteed so you have to be willing to do whatever it takes to keep yourself afloat until that time comes.