Engineering Career and Job Hunting Advice for April 2017

Stories of interviewees being asked to solve engineering problems - basically working for free - have been around for a long time. Dilbert comic strips have been drawn about it. Job search forums have posts by people telling of ridiculous and/or insulting treatment. Fortunately, at least in the engineering world, those instances are relatively few and far between. This first article this month address the issue. The others cover both employers and employees - and prospective employees. I try to weed out the ones written by people who do nothing but give regurgitated advice to others without actually having much experience themselves (author names get familiar after years of searching for this stuff). Having held many positions over my career, I have been subject to many different interview styles ranging from being deluged with system and circuit questions to being asked mostly about personal and behavioral characteristics.

• Should You Do Free Work at a Job Interview?, by Alison Greene
• How to Get Your Resume Ready for a Job Search, by Lily Martis
• Choosing an Interview Style and Format, by Will Zimmerman
• How to Find a Good Mentor, by Victor Lipman
• How to Get Replies to Your Messages on LinkedIn, by Marcelle Yeager
• Brexit May Take a Toll on Tech Jobs in the UK and EU, by Ron Schneiderman  - Here is yet another instance of a writer with an agenda (anti-Brexit), who will almost certainly be proven wrong (they usually are wrong about these things). Note the use of many conditional statement - that's a sure sign.
• Engage Employees in Candid Conversations, by David Lee
• Career Planning: How to Venture into the Gig Economy, by American Management Association
• A Job Reference Checklist for New Grads (and Everyone Else), by Ray Bixler
• Burnout Sabotages Performance -- Here's How to Handle It, by Vicki Salemi

Posted April 24, 2017