The Engineering Job Market: 2014 and Beyond

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) has released its projections for the engineering profession spanning through 2018. To visualize the progression of this job market, GlobalSpec has produced the infographic you see here.

Overall, the market for biomedical engineers and civil engineers seems to be trending the best, but engineering as whole is expected to grow steadily through to 2018.

Some criticisms of the BLS numbers are that automotive engineering is not represented here and that despite cries of an engineering shortage, many engineers are not seeing this play out in their marketplaces.  

Would love to hear your comments here. Do you think these numbers give an accurate picture of the engineering job market?

IT: Your Friendly Neighborhood Strategic Business Partner

We've been witnessing a major transition in the role of IT in most organizations from service provider (or resident "firefighter") to strategic business partner for some time now. Or at least we have been witnessing a lot of "talk" about this transition.

The reality in many organizations, particularly smaller shops, might be more that IT is now strategic business partner AND service provider, which means that tech job candidates need to showcase both skill sets. (Here at ITtechExec, we have been encouraging our IT clients to understand that they aren't just there to solve computing problems; they need to combine their tech knowledge with business vision.)

Nevertheless, the general consensus is that in 2014, IT as your "friendly" neighborhood strategic business partner will manifest itself through the use of all kinds of new and "hip" titles (let's face it, the easiest way to look like you are making a transition is to change a job title!).

Here are some we have come across and that will ramp up throughout the new year:

1. Business Intelligence Analyst: Now, this title isn't exactly new, but it is generally new to the IT arena now that big data is driving focus on business intelligence.
2. Director of IT Infrastructure: The idea behind this title is strategic visioning, advising CIOs (or whatever title they will be going by soon) on such things as the best networking and cloud-based technologies for your organization.
3. Chief Knowledge Officer: Although there seems to be a lack of agreement on exactly what this role entails, generally speaking, it is a subject matter expert in the company's industry that also has expertise in technology [you know, a little knowledge can sometimes be a dangerous thing :-)].
4. Technology Solutions Engineer: This title is the very essence of the transition in IT for this role is meant to look at all kinds of business problems and produce various options, using technology, to solve them.

The U.S. Manufacturing Job Market Turnaround?

Could it be that the manufacturing job market in the United States is beginning to turn around, even if ever so slightly? 

In 2013, Caterpillar, GE, and Ford each announced that they were going to bring some operations back to the U.S., thanks to rising costs overseas. And the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that there are 12 million manufacturing jobs across the U.S.  

So is that a sign of a turnaround?

 A report by CNBC from June 2013 indicates that despite the increase in job openings over the last few years, the market will not likely return to its golden days, but there are some markets that are doing quite well in the manufacturing sector.

The top 20 states for manufacturing job creation, according to the CNBC article, are as follows:

1. Michigan
2. Texas
3. Indiana
4. Ohio
5. Wisconsin
6. Washington
7. Illinois
8. Kentucky
9. Tennessee
10. Iowa
11. Minnesota
12. South Carolina
13. Oregon
14. Georgia
15. Pennsylvania
16. North Carolina
17. Utah
18. Colorado
19. Louisiana
20. Kansas

Nevertheless, despite the optimism that seems to be out there regarding job creation in this sector, many analysts are cautious. The industries with the most growth seem to be as follows:

• Pharmaceutical
• Semiconductor
• Broadcast equipment
• Navigation systems
• Medical instruments

Navigating Through Mobile Recruiting Waters

Boy, do we love trends. A study like the one by PotentialPark comes out that 19% of job seekers are using mobile devices to look for job opportunities, and suddenly we have an outbreak of mobile recruiting (the study also states that 50% can "imagine" doing so...whatever that means).

Social media is a buzz with how the mobile job search or "mobile recruiting" is (and I quote) "going to change everything."

Wow...it is certainly hard not to be impressed by something that is going to do all that!

(BTW, for the record, I also have no idea what "change everything" means, but as a career services pro, I have certainly heard it before!)

Now recruiters have moved from endless chats on "social media recruiting" to "mobile recruiting" as if they've unlocked some secret code. HR consultants are busy pressuring companies to "get on board" the mobile job market trend or...else! And everyone is dancing a jig that the resume is officially dead! (I'm not sure how turning the resume into a "mobile resume" makes the resume dead...but hey, it seems to make everyone happy to say it.)

Woohoo! Everything's changed (or, er, changing)!  

Now it's all "faster" and "more meaningful" and "better for job seekers." Or, rather, it is going to be...soon...very soon.

Hmmm.

Now, I love my recruiting and HR friends. I really do. (So when I speak of them, I speak in general terms, not specific ones.) But I have learned from hard-earned experience working on behalf of top-quality tech candidates that when recruiters or HR consultants say something is better for the job seeker (or, worse yet, when they start using phrases like "enhancing the candidate experience"), it is really just code for "we want to believe we are helping the job seeker because we like to think we are doing it all for the love of God, country, and humanity." (For some reason, it is bad form to talk of the "business" of hiring, so they prefer to speak about hiring as a humanitarian effort.)

Believe me. This is certainly not the first time we have had this happen. Here are a few examples:

• Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS). The ATS was supposed to help job seekers because it was going to weed out all those unqualified people who were applying for the same position and it was going to bring your qualified resume to the top of the heap. In other words, it was the job seeker's friend, and it was going to make things better and easier. In reality, job seekers now just have another thing to worry about...how to make sure their resume "passes" through the ATS because the ATS generally does not work the way it should. There are cases upon cases of qualified candidates who get lost in its black hole. And job seekers spend a great deal of energy trying to figure out how to get around a company's ATS.

• Social Media Job Search. LinkedIn and the rise of the social media job search was introduced as the greatest thing for job seekers because now they could reach out to hiring pros across the world and "network" with them. And in some cases, it has worked...although getting pure stats on just how often is sketchy at best. More often than not, however, what has happened is that now job seekers are burdened with yet another element to their job search strategy. They suddenly have to figure out how to make social media work for them, and it isn't just enough to do face-to-face networking or attend professional groups. Now you must devote time to your online influence, content marketing, and quality communities. You must convince the world you are a decent-looking subject matter expert that people all over the globe will recommend because you blog well.
• Death of the Resume/Rise of the LinkedIn Profile. As a resume writer, people seem to take great joy in telling me how the resume is dead, how they hate resumes, and how no one reads them. They proceed to go on and tell me how the LI profile is so much better. And it is then that I know some recruiter told them all this. The reality is that although the traditional resume's role is changing (basically because now it just isn't "enough" anymore), it is still very much alive and well. (In fact, I might argue it is more essential than ever!). Here's the thing. The LI profile is important, and in mobile recruiting efforts, it will be even more important. But at the end of the day, no matter how much search goes on across LI, you still are being asked to present a resume. And as much as everyone hates them, they still better be good and on target, especially because no one is taking the time to read them through! And while the mobile resume might get you in the door, as soon as you walk into the room, the hiring manager (you know, the one who really makes the decisions in this whole thing?) will say, "do you have a [traditional] resume I can review?" No, all the rise of the LI profile has really accomplished is to add yet another skill to the job seeker's list of "must haves." You need an effective resume and an optimized LI profile. (And with mobile recruiting, apparently, you will also need a mobile resume now!) So, we went from having just one document, the traditional resume, that no one reads to at least three (plus they claim they want to see online content like web bios and pages, blogs, Klout scores, etc. You're telling me they have time to read all that but not a resume?)

So what does all this mean?  

You can thank the hiring industry (and it is an industry, not a charity) for making the job search even more expensive and confusing for you, the job seeker.

The problem, of course, is that in reality there is nothing about the hiring process that really "cares" for the job seeker. But, again, they don't like to admit it. Both external and internal recruiters are there to represent the company and its interests. If your interests as the job seeker coincide with those of the company (and you're willing to jump through its hoops), then you are most likely hired. If not, then, well, you're not.

 The "old" ways made this clear. The "new" ways cloud the issue.

Therefore, inevitably, then, any "new" process put in place by the recruiting and HR industry is necessarily going to benefit the hiring company the most. It has to. That is who they work for. That is who is investing in all these mobile recruiting apps and ATS (which isn't to say that these practices really work on the company side either; check out my earlier post on "From the Corporate Goo to the Tech Job Market Zoo").  

Now, all this doesn't mean the job seeker completely loses.

But it does mean the job search has become a multi-layered, time-consuming, even painful process for the job seeker who is sent mixed messages and hoop after hoop to jump through. The waters are murky and tough to navigate.

So, yes, mobile recruiting will make things "convenient" for job seekers. Sure, it will be nice to have a mobile version of your resume handy. But don't be too fooled. Your 5 minutes of convenience now will cost you.

Is Your IT Resume Ready to Face the Tech Talent War?

As we charge ahead into 2014, gone are the days when we would argue over whether a war for tech talent really existed. Now, it seems, the general consensus is that this war is very much alive and well and that it will only escalate as we move into the second half of the decade.  

Unfortunately, that is generally where the agreement ends.

For although there seems to be a lot of talk about this war, you will find (as in most wars) a lot of confusion about what caused it and even less understanding about how to resolve it (but instead a whole lot of finger-pointing). Oddly enough, despite the cry for more strategic visioning on the part of tech candidates, there seems to be a severe lack of it on the hiring side as well.

If you scour long and hard enough, you can find all kinds of statistics, like how few people are graduating with computer science degrees and how current tech professionals are looking for corporate wonderlands. You will see calls for better hiring practices and for corporations to step up their benefits and "fun" meters.

You also will see blame placed at the foot of universities that haven't adapted to the changing marketplace fast enough and at the foot of cultural dynamics because more women aren't taking up technical careers. High schools are blamed for poor curriculum in the math and sciences, and U.S. parents are blamed for not encouraging their kids to focus on tech careers more.

As if that isn't enough, we also have industry execs putting forth clarion calls for techie MBAs and companies filled with staff who all understand computer code (just enough to be dangerous) from the marketing department to the CEO. In other words, techies need to speak less Geek, while non-techies need to speak more of it [so they "in theory" can meet in the middle]. IT as a service provider is out (at least "in theory"), and IT as a strategic business partner is in (at least "in theory").

In the meantime, while all this pontificating is going around, real, live tech candidates are wondering just what to do with their IT resumes.

Here are some tips for positioning your resume to meet the demands of this tech talent war:

• Show, don't tell, that you are a team player. And by "team player," I mean successful in collaborating across business segments. Highlight experience that showcases instances of where you collaborated with various company operations and used your knowledge base to improve on those operations, not just to fix computer problems.
• Don't run away from service provider skills, but show that you are agile enough to use them in a strategic way. It's great you can put the fire out, but what can you do with these skills to resolve the needs of business? Again, IT as a strategic business partner is hot right now. So you need to play along, and your resume should show that you have and will continue to do so.
• Recognize that metrics matter...to leadership...if not to you. Often those with highly technical skills don't track and give as much weight to the quantifiable results of their work. Instead, they would rather focus on how they accomplished such and such miracle. The problem is that leadership likes to communicate results, not necessarily the nitty-gritty. So candidates need to show both, the measurable results as well as the know-how.
• Be forward-thinking. Companies don't just want to know what you've done but how you will take that knowledge and use it to better their environments. So be innovative. Brainstorm ahead of time some ideas for improving business operations and prepare an "innovation" page that showcases those ideas.

Climbing Out of the LinkedIn Wasteland

You would be hard-pressed to hear many negatives about LinkedIn these days, especially when it comes to the job search and personal branding. It is very popular to talk about how LinkedIn is the place to be for career networking and the job search.

And certainly recruiters love it.

Let's face it. It has made their jobs a lot easier. Talk about access to a major database of active and passive job seekers...all at their fingertips for very little investment on their part.

"The resume is dead!" They will gleefully proclaim while they ooze their love for LinkedIn profiles (despite the increasing skepticism over how truthful or accurate most LI profiles actually are AND the fact that the LI profile is essentially a resume in disguise, and not even a good disguise).

Never mind that the hottest trend to hit the hiring industry since the inception of LinkedIn itself, mobile recruiting, is a flutter with the possibilities of using LinkedIn on your smartphone or tablet.

Why, it's a hiring wonderland!

So Why, Then, Am I Calling It a Wasteland?

Despite LinkedIn's enormous growth, it is pretty lacking in participation. In fact, those who are participating the most are, well, recruiters and career pros like me and active, very active, job seekers.
Most pros see LinkedIn as a place to throw up a profile, without much effort or thought behind it; add a few connections (the purists will add ONLY people they have worked with); and pretty much forget about the whole thing. Sure, they might join a few groups that sound interesting, but really, who has a lot of time for that?

That is, of course, until they decide to start a job search. Suddenly, they realize that's where the recruiters are, and LinkedIn takes on a whole new meaning.

LinkedIn is just a reflection of how professional networking in general has always been.

An afterthought.

Important when the need arises.

Often a wasteland of inactivity.

Let's face it. When times are good at work, the last thing you want to think of is networking and career management.

After all, you like where you are and you don't want to leave. A job search is so dreaded, so why even think of one? And with internal promotions set to be on the rise, who cares about recruiters anyway?

The problem with this mindset, however, is that it ignores a lot of things (and it misses the whole point of LinkedIn in the first place). Here are just a few:

• It's so much nicer to turn recruiters down when they come to you than to have to chase them down later. After all, they much prefer to steal currently employed professionals than unemployed ones. So optimizing your profile to attract opportunities should be a continuous thing. It is NOT a matter of timing. You can always say, "no." But just having a profile isn't good enough. You need to understand how they conduct their keyword searches. Otherwise, they might pester you for jobs you have no interest in.
• LinkedIn has become a professional stalking tool. Your colleagues are checking you out on there. So even when times are good at work, your profile still matters, and it is going to play a role moving forward in internal promotions and in the encouragement of more social media involvement by companies. Companies that were once hesitant about social media are now starting to see some benefit in having their employees represent their brand.
• LinkedIn is really just a numbers game. For those high-minded individuals out there who like to tell you that LI is a more "quality" social media environment, they are skipping over the part that LI rewards those with larger networks and more endorsements with more exposure. It's that simple. And if you are really good, and build your network up with your target "market," you will most likely have one effective network.
• Study upon study has been done on the value of a connection. This is a phenomenon I have experienced for myself on several occasions. The mere fact that I shared a similar connection with someone else was enough for that person to feel comfortable hiring me. People want to search their network and the networks of their "friends" to see who they can recommend.

There is no doubt that you can waste a lot of time on social media.

But turning LinkedIn into a wasteland is not the answer either. Instead, finding a way to spend an hour a week on a tool that makes professional networking a lot easier is certainly worth it.

I know...the whole thing seems a little shallow.

Of course it is! All networking has a bit of that in it, no matter how high minded we get about it. But it is a lot less so when it is something you do consistently when you aren't expecting anything from it than when you only do it during a job search...

Listen. You don't have to love LinkedIn. You don't even have to like it much. But ignoring it, especially if you have another 10+ years left to go in your career, is not wise, either.

See it for what it is, and use it to your advantage.

The Re-Making of IT Careers

We've been witnessing a major transition in the role of IT in most organizations from service provider (or resident "firefighter") to strategic business partner for some time now. Or at least we have been witnessing a lot of "talk" about this transition.

The reality in many organizations, particularly smaller shops, might be more that IT is now strategic business partner AND service provider, which means that tech job candidates need to showcase both skill sets. (Here at NoddlePlace, we have been encouraging our IT clients to understand that they aren't just there to solve computing problems; they need to combine their tech knowledge with business vision.)

Nevertheless, the general consensus is that in 2014, IT as your "friendly" neighborhood strategic business partner will manifest itself through the use of all kinds of new and "hip" titles (let's face it, the easiest way to look like you are making a transition is to change a job title!).

Here are some we have come across and that will ramp up throughout the new year:

1. Business Intelligence Analyst: Now, this title isn't exactly new, but it is generally new to the IT arena now that big data is driving focus on business intelligence.
2. Director of IT Infrastructure: The idea behind this title is strategic visioning, advising CIOs (or whatever title they will be going by soon) on such things as the best networking and cloud-based technologies for your organization.
3. Chief Knowledge Officer: Although there seems to be a lack of agreement on exactly what this role entails, generally speaking, it is a subject matter expert in the company's industry that also has expertise in technology [you know, a little knowledge can sometimes be a dangerous thing :-)].
4. Technology Solutions Engineer: This title is the very essence of the transition in IT for this role is meant to look at all kinds of business problems and produce various options, using technology, to solve them.