NSBE - Fall 2012 - (Page 54)

Status False: The ‘Engineer Shortage’ Fails NSBE Fact-Check CoNTINUEd froM PaGE 53 “If there was really a shortage, (employers are) not acting in the ways one would expect,” says Dr. Hira. “They’re laying people off.” While one CEO was testifying before Congress that there was an engineering shortage, Dr. Hira says, the CEO’s company was laying off 5,000 workers. ImmIGRATION, OUTSOURCING Companies would rather pay nondomestic engineers about $12.75 an hour for a position that once paid $70,000 annually and get the best and the brightest from India and China, says Dr. Hira, coauthor of the book, “Outsourcing America.” Looking at the contradiction between industry’s and the demographers’ take on the STEM job market, Teitelbaum posits that if hiring managers see that a large fraction of the master’s and doctoral students they’re recruiting need visas to work, “they might interpret this as a ‘shortage’ of domestic engineers. Meanwhile, other industry leaders, including those from some of the top companies, report they are receiving huge numbers of job applications for the positions they have open.” “Industry lobbyists have also acknowledged that ‘shortage’ claims, even if they are not true, provide their politically most effective argument for lobbying the U.S. government to increase H-1B and related temporary visas,” Teitelbaum adds. EXACT mATCh REQUIRED With the campaign to educate more engineers, students are listening. The number graduating with a degree in engineering has inched up over the past 10 years, from about 66,800 in 2002 to 83,000 in 2011, says Brian Yoder, Ph.D., director of assessment evaluation and institutional research at the American Society for Engineering Education in Washington, D.C. “I’ve heard there’s not a need for more engineers, but I’ve heard that certain companies have a difficult time finding engineers for the price that they want to pay,” he says. “They want a lot, but they’re not willing to pay more.” Hugh Watkins, a mechanical engineer and former project manager in the defense industry, is one NSBE member who was recently in the job market. Laid off and out of work for nearly six months this year, he recently landed a position with a small engineering firm. Watkins says he had trouble getting hired because he didn’t have all of the skills listed on job postings. “It seems that companies are unwilling to provide additional training to develop the skills they want,” Dr. Yoder says. “That’s why we have the situation that we have.” Companies in the U.S. demand people who have the exact skills they need for a given job, he says. “As those skills are no longer needed, they cut the people and hire new people with the skills they need.” “Recruiters are telling me that for every engineering job opening, they have over 200 applicants,” Watkins says. In the 1980s and 1990s, engineers like him were getting calls from recruiters, he adds. in a global marketplace, where a “just-in-time” mindset is prevalent and, business leaders would argue, necessary for survival. Today’s engineer has to have more than technical skills to be successful, Dr. Carnevale says. “The job is different. That’s why they’re demanding all these skills. Someone who is technical is going to work on teams, do marketing, do product development,” he says. Engineers have to have creativity and empathy. Njema J. Frazier, Ph.D., director of NSBE’s Public Policy Special Interest Group, concurs that today’s engineer has to have more than technical skills to succeed. He or she needs to be able to manage budgets and possess soft skills, like communications skills, to move up the ladder. She and others we interviewed say a graduate degree that complements their engineering skills, such as an M.B.A., can help them transition into management. People on both sides of the engineering shortage argument agree that few companies want to pay veteran engineers to do straight technical jobs. To increase their staying power in the field, engineers have to go into management or consulting, or start their own companies. The other quality hiring managers look for is a passion for the work, says Leo Brooks, vice president of the National Security & Space Group at The Boeing Company’s Washington, D.C., office. They want people who are “doing a good job, showing the eye of the tiger — that you want to learn, that you want to grow,” he says. DEGREE STILL vALUED With technology integral to nearly every business, technical aptitude is increasingly necessary in senior positions, and an engineering degree is increasingly respected and valued, says Dr. Carnevale. But, he says, “if you’re talking to a young person and they’re really good at math and they want to be an engineer or a computer scientist, I tell them don’t do it. If you have good math and verbal skills, in the end they should go into business services, health care,” finance or business economics. “…In almost every respect, the jobs are better elsewhere.” “The key is that students really do need to be responsible for the development of a career,” says Dr. Kazmer, the UMass engineering professor. “(With an engineering degree), even if you don’t go out and work as an engineer, the fact is that you’ve been trained and you’ve proven yourself in a hard discipline. They might start their own business. They might work in small businesses.” And, for those who didn’t graduate from a top engineering school, take heart, he says. “I’ve personally looked at the data. What I’ve found is that salaries at second- and third-tier schools do start out lower than if you graduated from MIT or Stanford, but they ramp up to be competitive.” ■ Theresa Sullivan Barger is a freelance business writer and a former editor and business writer at The Hartford Courant. www.nsbe.org SURvIvAL SKILLS Engineers, like the companies that hire them, are competing 54 • CAREER ENGINEER • fall 2012 • http://www.nsbe.org

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of NSBE - Fall 2012

NSBE - Fall 2012
Contents
Lead by Example
Come Correct!
Kola Fagbayi of Shell
The Programs Zone
Veronica Davis Honored as White House ‘Champion’
A Catalyst for Change
NSBE and ExxonMobil Reward Retention ‘Impact’
Dr. Baratunde Cola Earns Presidential Research Award
Regional News
In the Lead
At the Vanguard
Staying Connected in Today’s Business World
Back to Indiana
NSBE Calendar
Seek 2012: An Experience Worth the Ride
The PDC Is Coming Soon, to Dallas!
The Professional’s Perspective
The Space SIG Lifts Off
CE Cover: Status:FALSE
Alumni Officers
Biggest and Best
What’s in a Name?
AE National and Regional Websites
Advertisers Index

NSBE - Fall 2012