career advice for a recent graduate - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: chandin
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: January 11, 2012, 06:00:17 am
content: So I just graduated last year from uni with a bachelors in electrical engineering and managed to maintain a WAM (weighted average mark) of 75.My real interest is in electronics design, but I was thinking is there a real future for a electronics engineer in a first world country anymore (seeing as most electronics jobs are outsourced to asia )?The only big electronics company I know in Australia is Altium, but I have heard mixed things about Altium.

author: westfw
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 11, 2012, 06:53:54 am
content: No placement assistance from your school? That's normally a big win, because you get companies that are prepared to "take on" the usual "wet behind the ears" engineering graduate.Surely there are "not huge" electronics companies, and or international companies with design groups in AU. I know cisco has/had a large engineering contingent there, for instance (I don't recall whether they were hardware or mostly SW; I only worked directly with SW types.)

author: chandin
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: January 11, 2012, 07:04:52 am
content: Quote from: westfw on January 11, 2012, 06:53:54 amI don't know of any placement assistance that my uni provides, but I will double check with them. I have a friend working at cisco I will ask him if they do hardware work there

author: gregariz
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 11, 2012, 07:17:36 am
content: I think to answer that you have a lot of questions to ask yourselfThings like...a. What are your skills right now, can you design anything right now?b. How much money do you expect to make at it?c. Are you prepared to move around/away from family?d. Would you be prepared to go it alone and start your own business, now or ever? do you have any ideas?e. Would you be prepared to forget about designing circuits and instead do maintenance / systems integration / management of something?I'm one of those guys who left Australia because of the lack of design work there some years ago. I have friends running their own businesses with varying/cyclical success who have remained in Australia. Its possible to do, but not always a sure thing. Most of the guys I know over about the age of 45 have ended up consulting or trying their hand at their own business or moving out of the sector completely because of the continuously poor market.BTW, altium is not a big company - but there are a few offshoots of the larger multinationals there - a few hotspots related to defence constracts and some of the government offshoots like dsto/csiro.

author: slateraptor
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 11, 2012, 07:23:13 am
content: Don't forget about the defense and industrial sectors. Plenty of opportunities there, especially for home-grown citizens.

author: vk6zgo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 11, 2012, 08:25:23 am
content: I'm not an Engineer,myself,but I think you may be battling to find much design work in Oz.Most of the EEs I've known spent most of their time more on systems design---Working out how to put other people's designs to work in a complex system.For instance,an EE at a TV Studio may oversee the design & installation of a new editing suite,or an Earth Station.Certainly not the bleeding edge design of new devices from scratch,but it tends to "knock the edges" off a new graduate,& give them abetter idea of "the art of the possible",including seeing how other people do things.VK6ZGO

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: January 11, 2012, 08:54:41 am
content: Quote from: chandin on January 11, 2012, 06:00:17 amFew people will care what score you got :-> Seriously.QuoteYou are completely wrong. Sadly that is a commonly overhyped generalisation.There are countless jobs in the electronics industry in every country, you just have to look.Sure, there are countless more in say the US than Australia, but if you want electronics design work in Oz, you can get it.Go on the jobs boards and start searching.Drive around some common industrial parks and note down names of companies and look them up.There are plenty of ways to find jobs, and even more if you are willing to relocate interstate.QuoteAltium are not an electronics company, they are an EDA software company, and they moved lock stock and barrel to China. I no longer consider them an Australian company. They are not hiring unless you live in China or the Ukraine, and work cheap.I was one of a less than a handful of electronics hardware people at Altium, and now they have none at all.Dave.

author: chandin
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: January 11, 2012, 09:55:12 am
content: Quote from: EEVblog on January 11, 2012, 08:54:41 amhaha I posted my mark because from most of the blogs Ive visited I found that it was highly competitive to gain entry into these design companies and they always look for the best so I wanted to see where I stand.Thanks for the tip Dave, I will have a browse through some research parks, I'll start with Macquarie.

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: January 11, 2012, 10:06:02 am
content: Quote from: chandin on January 11, 2012, 09:55:12 amIn the US, yes, they generally care a lot more about that sort of thing than here in Oz.Yes, they look for the best, but the "best" isn't the one with the highest score. The best is the one with the right attitude and enthusiasm, the one that's worked on the best stuff outside of school etc. See my two job interview tips videos.QuoteCochlear for starters.I know for a fact that they hire graduates, and they have a policy of moving them around divisions to get experience in all sorts of areas.Dave.