4 replies to this topic

[Samovar]

I'm a chemical engineering graduate from May 2025, and at the time, I was not applying for jobs because I already had an offer from a startup. In the summertime, before the position began, the startup went belly up, and now I had to hunt for a job. Unfortunately, I have somewhere between 50 and 100 rejection emails in my inbox from between September of last year to January of this year. I've only had two phone interviews that ended with an enthusiastic "You'll hear back from us next week" - only to never hear back from them.

Unfortunately, during my undergrad, I did not pursue any co-ops or internships, so I have zero chem e experience outside a 3.48 GPA. I've tailored my cover letters and tweaked my CV to no avail.

I personally want to work in Controls, but I've not limited myself to entry level controls roles. I've applied to Chem E roles everywhere from California and Texas to Kansas and North Carolina. I live in NYC where there's not many Chem E roles hiring so I've been willing to expand geographical search. But still no luck.

In the meantime, I'm about to take the FE Exam which I've spent the last month preparing for, and I'm going to try getting an ISA certification to appeal to the companies hiring controls engineers. But other than that, it's a scary thought to be approaching 1 year of graduating and still have no job to show for it. And according to one of my former professors, at least 15% of the graduating class don't have a job either.

Is this normal?

[latexman]

Have you asked your University’s placement department for assistance?

[Pilesar]

Keep seeking. The function of the resume is to get an interview, not the job. Resumes are screened to eliminate many candidates automatically. The 'no experience' may be kicking your resume into the trash when that sort is made. 

 

Your current method is ineffective. I do not know specifically why that is, but the results show this clearly. Consider this as a control problem and tune your parameters. Research companies and contact them personally if possible. When you get rejections, contact the company to find out why. Talking to a real person at the company is key. The hiring person can explain what criteria is important to them. When I've done this, sometimes I got useful criticisms that helped me on later interviews.

 

Get a job. It may be doing work you never dreamed of doing. It took me six months to get my first job out of college even with good co-op experience and good academics. That job was quality control in a chemical lab. I felt lucky to get that job as I had just about exhausted my efforts and struggled with discouragement. Within a year, they decided to no longer pay me and I was out of work for eight months. My next job was contract work analyzing statistics at a chemical company. After the assignment was completed, the company hired me directly as a process engineer. I won't go into my full career of hirings and firings, but I've worked for more companies than most engineers and often in different fields of chemical engineering. This varied experience helped me more easily see problems from different perspectives. 

 

If you get rejected by a company you really want to work for, then re-apply! Companies do not have good memories and different jobs have different hiring managers within the same company. The next day after I accepted one job offer, I got a postcard in the mail "thank you for applying but we don't want you" from the same company! They were not rescinding the job offer... the postcard was just sent by another group at the company.

 

When you do get a job, don't get into debt. Save money for the next time you are out of work. 

[breizh]

Hi,

What do you mean by Controls? Quality control? Instrumentation? 

If you are talking Quality control, you may need to discuss with pharmaceutical companies, in this regards you should learn about cGMP.

This should boost your CV.

Breizh

[deft clay]

The job market for engineers is known to be pretty terrible right now. Sustained high oil prices would really help. To answer your question, this is normal during a down cycle like now. If things were hopping and popping, you could get multiple offers out of college. Good luck.