In order to provide a high quality of life for all humankind, the need for quality trained engineers is paramount. According to some reports, an increase from 400K to 500K has been seen on the number of enrollees in engineering courses over the last ten years. A great chance of a development in this progression is predicted in the coming academic years. Associations specially brought together for mechanical engineers see this inclination as a chance for further developing the channels through which engineers are much needed and improve the skills of the future ones to handle the real world.

How are improvements realized?

In regards to the K-12 curriculum on education, a concrete and stabilized collaboration with instructor and educators is prepared to take advantage on the important roles that teachers play for the learners. The following are some of the milestones conceived to be welcome improvements for pre-engineering education.

Supplying needed tools and teaching aids for institutions

Technological advancement is a tool for developing engineering concepts in a positive way. Reaching out to the minority groups and women in society is dealt with through the use of E-apps for high school learners and educators in the classroom. This is believed to give students a fresh perspective towards engineering, a factor which can lead to greater achievement later in life.

Interaction to educational institutions

Sustaining the visions of institutions such as universities and local colleges can be done through giving aid in any form to make contests and school events happen. Sponsorships and scholarships may be some of the many ways to show support for students taking up engineering.

Contribute to curriculum design

An initiative to supply contents and suggestions to current curriculum for engineering courses must be taken into account. This is one obligation of any community institution being part of a school/universities’ group of stakeholders. Proposing on added content may be considered, such as heightened focus on plan-construct tasks, additional field practice for professionalism and further adaptability on the course plan.

Educational norms for engineering are universally outlined and a demand for verification on a wide range of studies will inevitably tend to step up. Having said this, a goal to help members of societal groups for engineers is called for. This can be done by organizing and making easy proceedings of time allotted for formal training. What is probably best is to allow mechanical engineers to develop the impression of being a part of a society, which will guarantee prosperity.

Enjoy a previous article on a related topic

It’s All About the Right People | Engineering Staffing

In many ways, it is getting harder and harder to find the perfect fit for your business if you are hiring for an engineer. It seems that nowadays there are far more jobs in the engineering employment market than there are qualified candidates.

However, there are many features of social technology that your company can be using right now to draw in the right engineering candidates. LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and other sites are all helping people promote their assets and network with other professionals. In particular, LinkedIn is the top dog when it comes to the professional social media site people are using the most.

Use LinkedIn to Recruit Engineers

With close to 200 million users on LinkedIn as of 2013, the site is making it possible to reach those hard to find candidates with just a few clicks of the mouse. The ability to look for jobs and actually land them has made LinkedIn such a valuable resource to the engineering job market.

LinkedIn offers the capabilities to grow your network, both for the individual and company, which results in excellent advantages when looking for new job candidates or industry information. LinkedIn also has polls, surveys, and discussions that engage members and networks to help them build stronger bonds. Industry news is shared, company updates are given, and the latest job openings are passed around networks like fire within just minutes of posting.

Every week, professionals average 1 to 3 hours on the LinkedIn social media site. With this window of time, it is crucial that you are posting a continuous feed of insights, news, polls, data, information, and job listings on your LinkedIn profile so as to ensure you are seen when they are on the site. There are tools that work with LinkedIn and other social media sites that can post your status updates automatically for you, so you aren’t tied to your computer around the clock.

Job seekers peruse LinkedIn looking for any and every resource they can find that will give them that perfect opportunity they are looking for. With this being said, LinkedIn Groups are essential to the job seeker, and engineering professionals that are looking for jobs are signed up with them so you need to be involved in them as well.

The benefits of using social technology for recruiting engineers are really unlimited, but some of them include being able to invite applicants directly to your group, reaching all group members weekly via the Send Announcement tool. You can even invite your suppliers to the group to share information. Your group can be used to get referrals, applications, and comments, enabling your business or career to do many things, including website promotion.

It is critical to understand more about the engineering professional on LinkedIn in order to get them in your job applicant’s pool. When job seekers on LinkedIn see an engineering role they are interested in, they generally do 1-3 things.

1. Follow the company on LinkedIn.
2. Try to connect with the hiring manager via a request.
3. Join the LinkedIn group for that company’s career opportunities

If your company is not using LinkedIn to attract engineering candidates, then it should be. The social media site is heavily populated with qualified engineers, and should be utilized for your job hiring needs.

If you are looking for more resources to attract top engineering talent, contact the staffing experts at Venteon today!

For decades, human resource managers have recognized the key to success starts with the people – or human capital management as it’s often referred to. The concept of leading people through the ups and downs in business, while doing what it takes to preserve the company values and mission are the foundations of successful HR leadership. Yet, in an ever-changing engineering industry, this becomes challenging as various skill sets phase out and are replaced with new engineering techniques and technology.

The questions that keep many engineering company leaders up at night include:

• How can HR manage well through a changing atmosphere, yet still retain good employees and productivity levels?
• Is the engineering organization as flexible as it can be to keep up and stay ahead of important industry changes?
• Do my engineering employees have what it takes to lead my company into the next century strong?

While there is not much that can be done about change (which is an inevitable part of the engineering world) there are some ways to efficiently handle change management and remain competitive.

1. Realize that you must always be thinking “what’s next?” – As a leader, it’s up to you to see what’s coming down the pipe in your business. Be sure to stay in touch with your industry through networks and associations.
2. Continue to develop your engineering employees through succession planning. Today’s talent is tomorrow’s leadership. Take the time to regularly assess the skill-sets on your team and design development programs around the key skills needed for future success.
3. Give your employees a stable foundation on which to build their dreams. Create a mission statement and remind employees often of how this helps you to navigate all changes. This can provide a compass from which to build your business.
4. Encourage collaboration, technology and connectivity in the workplace. The use of social networking and more open work spaces can propel your engineering firm into greater levels of innovation and success.
5. Recruit and hire the best entry level engineers in the industry. Make sure your recruitment team knows what critical skills are needed to get the job done well. Consider the advantages of using an outsourced recruitment strategy, like working with Venteon technical staffing, to get the best contractors on board.
6. Convert to agile project management tools and processes. Change will always be a factor in engineering, so shift your project management to that of an agile work process. This will help your business to adjust to changes as they come more effectively.

Whether it’s the engineering leadership in your organization or the entry-level workers delivering mail in the mailroom, getting the right people to do the job makes all the difference in the world for the success of your organization.

The right engineering management team can take the raw materials they’re given to work with and transform them into a cohesive unit that’s designed to excel.

How do you accomplish this miracle in the modern workforce?

They achieve this pinnacle by building the people that work with them. While it may sound overly simplistic, the fact is, it works. Unfortunately, there isn’t a twelve-step program for success in this endeavor. Nevertheless, there are a few important factors to keep in mind as you begin your own program designed to build up your engineering work force.

1)   Show your appreciation. Employees work hard to make your business a success. However, nearly a third of today’s employees feel unappreciated enough that they’ve actually quit jobs over it. It doesn’t cost your business any money to recognize the efforts of the people who work behind the scenes to drive your company forward and can actually save a lot of money for your business by retaining employees and reducing absenteeism as well.

2)   Be sincere. This is critical. If the appreciation and/or praise seems false of forced it will ring false to the employee and have a potentially negative impact rather than the positive experience you intended it to be.

3)   Train managers to show their appreciation as well. For some people, this is a talent that comes naturally. However, other people struggle to find the words of encouragement and appreciation that are necessary to build a better workforce. Offer training so that they’re able to do this naturally and with complete sincerity.

4)   Constructive criticism is often necessary in the workplace. Consider asking permission before offering constructive criticism and always seek to find a way to present as an educational point in order to avoid the potential for negative reactions by employees. Training management to present criticism in a positive manner is another valuable tool to help build up your employees.

5)   Recruit the best engineering staff. The success of your organization depends on the quality and experience of the people you hire to do the job. Recruit from pre-screened pools of engineering talent, from a staffing agency that specializes in sourcing engineering talent.

Building up your employees is one of the most important tools you can use to grow your business today. However, it can also be a difficult path for some business owners and management teams to follow. Make sure everyone is on the same page and working together towards the same goal in order to achieve optimal results for your efforts. The results are sure to be even better than you had imagined.

Enjoy a related post:

Measuring Engineer Competence

Quality Leader – Global Black Belt

• 10 Years’ experience within Quality
• M.S. in Operations Management & Manufacturing Engineering & Management
• B.S. in Electrical Engineering
• Shainin Red X Journeyman & Shainin Red X Apprentice
• Six Sigma Black Belt & Green Belt
• ISO9001:2000, TS16949, Internal Quality System Auditing
• DFMEA, PFMEA, PPAP, APQP

Operations Manager/Corporate Finance

• Master of Business Administration Degree
• Bachelor of Accountancy Degree
• 20 years’ experience in Operations and Finance with Tier 1 Supplier’s
• 13 years’ experience working for a Japanese Supplier
• Experience working for a supplier of steel and aluminum stamping products
• Familiarity with stamping, welding, grinding and die equipment
• ERP Software experience: Implemented new ERP systems (QAD and MOVEX).
• Extensive MS Office Experience
• Experience Implementing Lean Office in multiple commercial departments

Program Manager/Engineering Manager

• BSME
• Experienced in product manufacturing / investment cost development, manufacturability in product design / validation, production process / tooling development, process capability, program planning / tracking, PPAP, APQP, production launch activities and directing teams in the activities listed.
• Commodity experience includes metal stamping and roll-formed functional and class A components and systems including progressive / transfer / line dies, component parts, finishing, sub and complete assemblies utilizing fastener / in-die mechanical / MIG weld / spot weld technologies. These commodities have been implemented in interior / exterior hardware, frame, suspension and seat systems.

Engineering Manager – heavy background includes:

• Production Welding Engineering/Tooling Manger: Manager over the welding, stamping and tool
• room.
• Engineering/Tooling Manager: Supervisor over 4 engineers & 24 tool & die makers.
• Molding/Stamping Process Engineer: Serving as tooling/stamping engineer of professional
• engineering staff group for supporting manufacturing and tool & die shop.
• Tooling Engineer: Designed tooling, worked with outside vendors, try-out and de-bug for new and
• in house built tooling. Quoted, reviewed and outsource work.
• Journeyman Tool & Die Maker: 18 years’ experience in heavy and light tier 1 & 2 automotive
• stamping. (Presses from 45 tons to 5400 tons.)
• Transfer, tandem, progressive, multi-slide, forging, and compound dies.

Technology companies are under threat today. The workforce in this field is getting older and many of those who postponed retirement during tough economic times are ready to retire. This could be problematic for many companies who do not realize the contributions and skills these professionals bring to their company. At the risk of losing their engineering know-how, some may need to take some time to map competency in this field.

What Is Competency Mapping?

In this industry, competency mapping focuses on the soft skills and behaviors that make the best employees in the field. How is it possible to assess something this complex in this type of profession?

Since engineers tend to be problem solvers by nature, there are only two areas to measure. That is the problem and how to solve it. Some companies use a grid approach to determining the competency of staff. This helps establish any gaps in skills and areas for potential training opportunities. However, the key is to know how to set up these grids so you can determine competencies and the training needs of your engineers.

Two Maps

The first map will be  to determine competency and will be  an Outcome/Experience map. This will take into account all of the actions that you require your engineers to do and will help you to determine if they are capable of doing them. In essence, it will be a grid that shows the knowledge your engineers have in regards to each piece of equipment they will be dealing with. The y-axis would be the equipment and the x-axis would be used to rate their knowledge and competency with each piece of equipment.

The second map will be  to determine knowledge and capability. Here, you will use the grid to chart out the cognitive abilities of engineers and determine where the training needs are for individuals. The y-axis would be used to show the degree of utility of the task they need to perform. The x-axis would be divided up into the cognitive levels of ability to be able to perform the task.

Using these two maps combined you will be able to see the things you need to look it in regards to replacing your retiring engineers. These grids will help you to use the existing resources you have to work with your newer employees so they will be able to perform the engineering tasks that you need them to.

Venteon makes it easier to determine the skills and competency of staff thanks to their wide range of workforce management resources and staffing services. You’ll be able to design a strategic succession plan that will keep your company staffed with skilled workers who have the right backgrounds and competencies you need to rise above the competition.

It’s difficult to find new engineering clients. For that reason, it’s growing more important than ever to maintain the engineering clients you have. It is more expensive and time consuming to try to find new clients to work with than to take steps to retain the ones you have. Doing this may seem difficult to do initially. However, with a concentrated effort on the way you operate your business, you may see improvement.

How To Hold Onto Your Clients

When it comes to maintaining engineering clients, consider the following tips. You may just need to readjust your methods slightly to see improvements.

1. Know your clients well and understand what they need from you. Find out what your clients actually need, not what you can provide to them. To do this, you must understand the client’s goals. This is part of maintaining a positive relationship with the client.
2. Be specific about what you will deliver. It is essential to have clearly defined expectations. If you are writing an engineering proposal, ensure it is very specific about the services you will offer, how they will be delivered and what the expectations should be. There’s no room for misunderstandings then.
3. Deliver what’s realistic. There is no benefit to your business or the client by overpromising. Be specific on what you can and will deliver and then deliver it. If you fail to achieve those overstated promises, the trust is broken. It is very hard to regain this trust again.
4. Show that your service is valuable to the company. To do this, you need to show that your service is benefiting the company’s bottom line. To do this, you may be reducing costs, improving profits or eliminating some type of cost to the client in another way. When you are valuable to the bottom line, you are likely to stay onboard.
5. Provide something more than the next guy. This does not mean you have to give away your services. Rather, find a way to add value to what you are offering. For example, you may want to improve the speed of completion or add in something different to the proposal. This value added bonus is a nice attraction feature for the company.

Overall, you need to work to build relationships with those who you will work with within the company. Doing so can make a big difference in whether or not you get to stick around or if you are the next one cut off the contractor’s list. By showing your worth, you’ll be able to maintain that engineering client long-term.

Venteon can help you to develop positive working relationships with the engineering teams you need to stay on top of your market. By providing you with access to high quality engineering staff, your projects will excel client expectations. In Michigan and Minnesota, work with Venteon for engineering staffing support.

Quality Leader – Global Black Belt

• 10 Years’ experience within Quality
• M.S. in Operations Management & Manufacturing Engineering & Management
• B.S. in Electrical Engineering
• Shainin Red X Journeyman  & Shainin Red X Apprentice
• Six Sigma Black Belt & Green Belt
• ISO9001:2000, TS16949, Internal Quality System Auditing
• DFMEA, PFMEA, PPAP, APQP

Operations Manager/Corporate Finance  

• Master of Business Administration Degree
• Bachelor of Accountancy Degree
• 20 years’ experience in Operations and Finance with Tier 1 Supplier’s
• 13 years’ experience working for a Japanese Supplier
• Experience working for a supplier of steel and aluminum stamping products
• Familiarity with stamping, welding, grinding and die equipment
• ERP Software experience:  Implemented new ERP systems (QAD and MOVEX).
• Extensive MS Office Experience
• Experience Implementing Lean Office in multiple commercial departments

Program Manager/Engineering Manager

• BSME
• Experienced in product manufacturing / investment cost development, manufacturability in product design / validation, production process / tooling development, process capability, program planning / tracking, PPAP, APQP, production launch activities and directing teams in the activities listed.
• Commodity experience includes metal stamping and roll-formed functional and class A components and systems including progressive / transfer / line dies, component parts, finishing, sub and complete assemblies utilizing fastener / in-die mechanical / MIG weld / spot weld technologies. These commodities have been implemented in interior / exterior hardware, frame, suspension and seat systems.

Engineering Manager – Heavy Background

• Production Welding Engineering/Tooling Manager:   Manager over the welding, stamping and tool room.
• Engineering/Tooling Manager:   Supervisor over 4 engineers & 24 tool & die makers.
  Molding/Stamping Process Engineer:   Serving as tooling/stamping engineer of professional engineering staff group for supporting manufacturing and tool & die shop.
• Tooling Engineer:   Designed tooling, worked with outside vendors, try-out and de-bug for new and in house built tooling.  Quoted, reviewed and outsource work.
• Journeyman Tool & Die Maker: 18 years’ experience in heavy and light tier 1 & 2 automotive stamping. (Presses from 45 tons to 5400 tons.)
• Transfer, tandem, progressive, multi-slide, forging, and compound dies.

Senior Product Development Engineer SDRCIdeas – Interior Trim   

• Responsible for the ‘11MY VW411 New Model Sedan interior trim (soft and hard), ‘12MY Nissan Armada/Frontier and the following production and mid-year refresh. ‘10MY Nissan Mexico Car platforms; Altima, Maxima, Sentra, Versa trim components.
• Working knowledge of the Nissan G2B/Team Center Passion system, Data Notes, NDS/NES testing requirements.
• Development of fit and finish sections and joint checks with manufacturing and suppliers.
• Interaction with VW GoB, Nissan Motors, Nissan Mexicana, M-TEK Manufacturing and various tier 2 suppliers.
• Investigate program warranty concerns and propose corrective actions
• Create, propose and negotiating design specifications, changes, costs and timing
• Investigation of new suppliers, technology and products.
• Benchmark competitive products,  vehicle tear down activities for VA/VE opportunities.
• Preparation of DVP&R, APQP and DFMEA documents.
• Understanding of testing specifications and methods for VW, Nissan and Japanese Industry Standards.

Complete Seat Engineer

• Bachelors of Science in Mechanical Engineering
• Masters of Business Administration
• Develop and led exceptional, high performing product engineering teams for numerous automotive and industrial customers including GM, GE, Ford, Chrysler,JCI,TRW, Tremec, Iomega, Ethicon.
• Provide complete product design and dimensional analysis for various seating hardware components including frames, recliner and adjuster assemblies.
• Manage engineering development lab responsible for seating systems, advanced automotive seating concepts and seat assembly methodologies that included 65 employees.
• Decreased production waste by 25% within the seat assembly process.

Materials Manager

• Over 20 years of experience in the materials field.
• Updating and maintaining customer forecasts, analyzing data, and predicting customer demand.
• Supervise and oversee cycle counts, verify and validate scrap counts, maintain vacation schedules, and backup coverage.
• Maintain and update the production schedules to ensure efficient runs and on time deliveries to the customer.
• Experience with stamping materials
• Implementing and design of new warehouse systems
• Experience working with OEM’s
• Strong customer relation skills

Are you in the engineering field? If so, you have the best chance at finding your dream job right now. With the employment rate in this field at an astounding two percent, there may not have been a better time to land that key position you have been dreaming and hoping for. From the electrical and computer programs to the environmental positions and even the auto industry, engineering candidates with well-qualified schooling are a shoe in.

The Rise of Employment

In September of 2009, unemployment rates for the engineering industry were at an all time high. They hit 6.4 percent then. Of course, this may seem minimal considering the total unemployment rate for all sectors stood at 10 percent at the time. However, by mid-2011, this rate was under two percent.

Who Is the Ideal Candidate?

If you are an individual who is young and have a promising degree behind  you, employers want to work with you. Demand is evident across the board in various industries too, including and especially electrical, biomedical, aerospace, environmental, mechanical, computer, automotive and petroleum industries.

Many engineers are finding new positions, too. For example, some are finding research and development work. Others are working in the pharmaceutical industry. From designing electrical systems for buildings to managing power plants, electrical engineers are finding a huge surplus of jobs in some areas. Jobs in sustainability are also promising.

How About Money?

Not only are positions readily available, but salaries are looking good, too. Some engineers in this field will be making close to $80,000. Sign on bonuses, company profit sharing and other key benefits are a part of the package. In some industries, for well-qualified candidates, that is just the starting pay.

Why So Much Demand?

There are many reasons why this field continues to be so in demand for employees. Consumers continue to demand solutions for technologically difficult problems. These are not small time problems either. They include shortages of clean water supply, faster computing, smarter computing, and global warming.

The demand is also high because there are fewer graduates leaving school with this degree. In some cases, just 4.5 percent of all undergraduates leave school with an engineering degree.  Keep in mind these individuals do not have licenses. To get a license in the field, you need four years of working experience to sit for the exam.

If you are in a position of being an engineer  now is the prime time to make that leap into a secure, big company that wants to hire you. Whether you are going to design amazing new products or just fill the gaps, there are jobs waiting for you.

For more information on engineering portfolios and finding the top engineering talent, contact Venteon today!

As an engineering job candidate, you are up against dozens of others with the same or better credentials that you have for any job you apply for. Right out of school, it is even worse. The competition can be intense. To ensure you are getting the best possible chance at breaking the ice and getting your foot in the door, create an engineering portfolio. Like any artist that wants a job, you need to show prospective employers exactly what you have to offer.

What Can You Create?

In any situation, engineering candidates need to show off their skills but without experience that may seem difficult to do. The best route to take around this is to create some type of portfolio of what you have to offer. For example, a civil engineering student may wish to invest time in creating a website where he or she can showcase projects. This way, the employer is able to click on a link, see exactly what the student can do and become far more impressed than what any resume can offer.

Resumes Are Not Enough

Like reading one textbook to the next, the resume of any engineering student just entering the employment field is going to be limited. The best way around this is to find a way to offer something more. Resumes are too inner focused and they serve only the employee. Some employers and HR professionals are not even reading the flood of resumes they get and instead are focusing on those prospective candidates with more to offer.

What’s In Your Portfolio?

Now that you know the value of it, it is time to consider what a portfolio really is to you. In short, this is a tool that is available in some type of digital format or another medium that you can easily show to prospective employers. You want a way to show off your skills.

An online portfolio is often the best option. It can provide a simple-to-access resource that provides plenty of information in one place. It is easy to share and provides you with numerous ways to showcase your material. On the other hand, digital products are only so good. You may wish to create something that is in paper form that you can hand in to any job position you are applying for.

Be sure that your portfolio contains important information and collected items. They should be examples of your work that you are confident in. Be sure to focus on items that showcase your deep love of a project or your extensive skills. Make them specific and make sure they are authentic. Offering something like this could be just what you need to do to get prospective employers to pick up the phone and call you for an interview.