Monday, August 08, 2005

Careers

Ya know, I used to think that if I got a degree and got a job in my line of work, that it would all be downhill from there. I figured all I'd have to do is establish myself as an engineer and keep working up that ladder; I wouldn't have to worry about what I want to do anymore. BIG misconception.


It turns out that in college (for me, at least) it's easy to determe what you want to do because all you have to do is determine a general field and major in it. That's it, plain and simple. Yeah, you have to figure out what you want to do, but that's a general decision. Once you graduate you have to look into all the millions of subcategories in your soon to be line of work and choose it. Once you've chosen it, you have to be sure that that's what you want to do because you've got to start working on getting your 5 years of experience in that field in order to be valuable. Once you've got your 5 years of experience, you're pretty much locked in that field. It's hard as hell switching to a different subcategoried field after those 5 years because all of your experience is in a field that isn't quite the same as the new job you might want to try out. Also, once you start your first 5 years of experience, you can't just move around in your career because you don't like it because that will make you look very unstable, which can cost you job opportunities. You have to just chose one and start on it, period.


Well, I'm at that point where I've got 2 years of experience in a subcategory of engineering that I don't like and I'm having a hard time just getting someone to look at my damn resume. Currently I'm a petroleum engineer but I want to go into mechanical engineering, which is what I got my degree in. Now, if I make the switch I'll be taking a pay cut. It could just be $2,000 a year, which is okay, or $8,000 a year, which I can't afford to do. On top of that, if I'm still at my current job by next year, my salary will increase by another 5 g's, making it even more difficult to switch because of the difference in pay scales, after all, if a company that is interviewing you doesn't think it can match your salary, your odds of getting that job are lessened because they'll view you as over-valued or over-qualified. I don't know what to do but I'm starting to become a bit frustrated, not because I can't get too many mechanical engineering firms to look at my resume, but because I don't know what field of mechanical engineering I should go into. Should I go into design, manufacturing, material research, efficiency costs analysis, etc, etc, etc. The list is endless. On top of that, let's say I go into manufacturing, do I want to go into ship building, aeronautics, pumps, oil and gas, heating and ventilation, heat exchange, etc, etc, etc?... yet another subcategory. THEN, you have to find a job in that industry, which isn't all that great for engineers. In this day and age it's pretty much take what you can get, which means there are tons of engineers out there that wouldn't mind switching jobs with other engineers but they can't because they're locked in their field of work by their experience. On top of all of this, my location's job industry consists mostly of the oil and natural gas business, which we all know is quickly depleting its resources, so will I have a job in a few decades? I'd move but I can't because I have a son I have to be close to, so I'm limited to the dirty south... and I do mean dirty. Frustrating, no?


So... here I am, on a time constraint because of an up coming pay raise (which I won't complain about, trust me!! but the time constraint sucks), with restricted option, and a constraint on my ability to move. I've been trying to think of a solution to all of this but for months I've been stumped. There are things I'm going to have to sacrifice... but I don't know which ones. I think I'm going to just apply for jobs and whatever job takes me, I'll make whatever sacrifice necessary. The problem is that since my experience is in the oil industry I may have to stay in that field and the sacrifice may be that I'll have an unstable career, after all, oil companies are notorious with big lay offs that usually last months... even up to a year or a little more. Is that lack of security really worth it?

[ TheSaga | 11:38 AM | ]