Funai fall report
Kenta Ohtaki
University of California, Irvine Materials Science and Engineering
12/06/2017
As I can see the end of my PhD journey, I started to look for jobs during summer. I have been
hearing about job openings here and there ever since I started my PhD program but I did not really
pay attention since the graduation was so far away. However, when I went to a winter school for
microscopy in winter and met someone from industry, I thought I should start preparing because I
did not have any elevator talk ready. Before summer break, Intel had an information session on
campus. I knew it was a little bit too early to start applying for jobs, I went to the session just to
see what it is like and then I received a phone interview for a process engineer position on theweekend of the same week. Shortly I had a site interview in Portland. Intel was nice enough to pay
all the expenses and gave me a day to explore the area. The work environment and the city,
compensation were perfect, but I had to decline the offer because the position was too far frommaterials science field and I knew I would not be happy if I work there and I did not start working
knowing I will quit eventually. After this interview, I started making better resume and LinkedIn
account for other jobs and attended workshops for making a good resume and CV. During thisprocess, I really constructed the foundation of myself and what I want as my career, which seems
to be something that should have already clarified.
Even though I have been working in radiation damage field (nuclear energy related subjects), I am
not very interested in working in this field as my career. I am more focused on the techniques andskills used for my projects, which leads me to materials characterization and failure analysis. This
field is very wide and sort of vague yet applicable to any kind of industry. Thus I started looking
for materials characterization engineer positions and failure analysis engineer positions in various
companies namely Apple, Intel, Boeing, GE and other companies. It is difficult to hear back fromthem and they have electronic system to pick which resume to send to the recruiters and you haveto include certain keywords in the application form to be considered as a candidate by thiselectronic system. I applied for several positions but I rarely hear back from them. As I apply more,
I get better at tailoring the resume for each company.

I also had some connection or leads for job position in some companies. As a lab assistant, I talkto a lot of users from industry and sometimes they like my work and get interested in having me.
There is one particular example which went well. I was helping a professor from the physics
department and it took a long time but he was really impressed my skills and told me that there
was a company called EAG that visited the materials characterization facility and he is trying toconnect industry and the school. So he send an email to the vice president of the company and cc’dme saying he might be a good candidate. I didn’t want to miss this opportunity and at that time I
did not know when I am graduating or what field I am interested in, so I decided not to reply tothe email. Then after applying to some companies and figured out how to approach them I finallydecided to shoot an email to the vice president. Surprisingly, he was interested in seeing me andeventually invited me to an informal meeting since they were not hiring at that time. The meeting
was pretty much like regular formal interview. They showed me around the labs and the office andI felt very welcoming vibe from those instruments they have, which I did not feel from the
instruments at Intel. Maybe this is something only experimentalists can feel but it was very
important feeling to tell if you are going to be a good fit to the team. They told me I have to wait
until they open the position to public before we talk about hiring me so I will see what happens.
After EAG, I also had an interview with Apple. I was looking for a failure analysis engineer
position but my PI had a student who now works in the reliability team in Apple. So I asked her
about her position and I decided to take the onsite interview. Even though the interview went well,they told me that I would be a good fit in the failure analysis team which is not currently hiring.
So I also have to wait for them to open the position.
My PI wants me to stay as long as possible and publish papers and help new students and pass allof my techniques but after a long conversation, we decided to wrap around April-May after thespring break. Since once I start a quarter, I have to pay the tuition, we have to think quarterly (threemonth inclement). So I will try to finish up everything in 2-3 months while TAing for the last class.
Five years passed by so fast but I am excited to get out and be exposed to a new environment.