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Agree. I can't count the number of under thirties that tell me they're a "welder" in "the Patch" and they don't own any welding equipment and can't indicate the "tickets" they have.
as Dad said, in l965 when there became a glut of Engineers : Did they become Eng. because they wanted to be Eng. or because someone told them it made lots of money?
There are lots of reasons people become engineers... but I doubt the primary reason is making lots of money. Unless this person has some low standards. People that want to make "lots" (relatively more than) money... any health profession. Even assistants are making $$. I know some pharmacist that I think are complete morons making quite a better living than my super duper smart engineering friends (one being an MIT grad).
The engineers I know... at least the competent ones just want to make new and cool ****.
If the guy is 27, he probably got his bachelor's degree five years ago. I can't in my wildest imagination picture me sitting around for FIVE YEARS after college, waiting for my dream job to fall out of the sky. (For starters, I couldn't have afforded to.) If he was doing internships or volunteer work in his field to gain experience, I'd have no problem that he didn't bring in cash. But while he's losing five years of experience toward his future, someone else who graduated the same year he did took a crummy job and has already moved up to where this guy probably thinks he should start ... and likely never will given the fact that he's taken this pre-career vacation.
The smoking, the beer, and the inactivity has probably caused this fellow to forget half of the engineering he learned as an undergrad. He'd better revise his career goals because he already missed the boat unless a stunning need for engineers suddenly and shockingly occurs in the nation.
The engineers I know... at least the competent ones just want to make new and cool ****.
That is true. It's not always about the money. I get to make stuff that has never existed before and use new and interesting technology. I enjoy my job...
Given that the original post itself was highly suspicious in that the engineer seemed more like a caricature of "those lazy unemployed people" vs. an actual human being, I'd say the answer to your question is "yes."
Anyone who thinks we live in a meritocracy is either deluding themselves or has simply experienced plenty of good fortune in life and is not able to differentiate between that good fortune and their own skills - in short, the Just World Fallacy.
There are countless people who are skilled in their fields who are out of work. Why?
1) Not enough jobs: Nobody cares how skilled everyone is if there are 10,000 people in a given field and only 5,000 job openings... they can all be skilled experts, and only half of them will be employed.
2) Absurd job requirements: You can be very skilled in your field, but since your field doesn't happen to include 3 to 5 years of experience in this year's hot field of study, nobody cares. In short, yes, you may be a skilled mechanical engineer who designs a specific type of DoD systems, but if there's no demand for that current skill set today, than you will NOT be able to transfer your experience over to a similar field. Nope - you either have 3 to 5 years experience in whatever EXACT background the company wants, or you don't get past the resume filters and are instead declared "useless" and "unskilled."
3) Connections beats performance: Even if you are qualified for a job - and the job exists - you can still lose out to a connected nit-wit because too many people are more interested in hiring and retaining buddies than workers.
We were at a pub. He was a smoker. He was drinking $5 beers. His arms were sleeves of tattoos.
He told me that he spent his days on line filling out resume's and going to job fairs.
He's been unemployed since graduating low in his class.
I offered him a job with my business (contracting and painting) but he had no interest in "manual labor".
What are your thoughts?
Since I was once a 30-year-old unemployed engineer (non-smoker and no tattoos though), I think you have no clue how the system works. He's actually taking his job search seriously, so don't get on him about that. Depending on how you "offered" him a job in "contracting and painting," he might have interpreted it as you saying you don't think he can get an engineering job. If you said something like "well I know you're still searching for an engineering job, but if you're interested, I run a contracting and painting business and I'd be more than happy to have you earn a few extra dollars while you continue your search," then he might have been a bit more interested. It also might be that you're a stranger and he doesn't trust somebody he just met. Or maybe he's making some money on the side already.
A better thing to have done would have been to mention any contacts you might have with people in his area of field, and maybe gotten an e-mail address or something. That might have been a lot more successful.
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