8/21/2019 COM Meyler 13 Recruiters Finding Breadth Outscores Depth

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I

Recruiters are finding

breadth outscores depth

IN engineering

ANATOMY OF A

T

TS NOT ALWAYS EASY TO HEAR THIS, but the ME who just

landed a new job may have known more about elec-

tronics than the other candidates did.

Employers complain that its difficult to find engi-

neers with the right skill set. Engineers report that

getting a job is harder than ever. But as a recruiter who

specializes in technical fields, Ive seen the job hunt

from both sides. I can tell you that adaptabilitythat is,

the ability to keep up with the rapid pace of change

and practical skills rank high with todays employers.As always, it is vital that an engineer have depth of

understanding a specialty, but that has to be combined

with a solid grounding in a range of useful subjects.

Recruiters, both at my company and those Ive talked

to at other firms, are finding that breadth of knowledge

and experience trumps depth in the form of over-spe-

cialization in engineering. In recruitment, this means

finding the engineer who fits a job opening to a T.

Thats how Nathan Clark, engineering director at kVA

in Macomb, Mich., looks at the breadth and depth of

skills needed by candidates for engineering jobs. As an

automotive-oriented consulting company, kVA focuseson electromechanical systems, vehicle safety, and train-

ing managers to meet the ISO 26262 stan-

dard, which addresses functional safety for

automotive electrical and electronic safety-

related systems. The company is based in

Greenville, S.C.

For the vertical stem of the T, kVA

seeks engineers with a depth of

knowledge in a particular disci-

pline such as ME, Clark said.

But they also need a broad

range of skills in other areas

or disciplinesthe horizontal

crossbar of the T. For MEs, this

usually means electronics, or software develop-

ment, or modeling and simulation. The best jobs

are won by candidates who demonstrate a breadth

of knowledge and experience in their own disci-

pline and the disciplines related to it.

At one end of the range is mechatronics. Theseelectromechanical devices with sensors, power

sources, electronics, software, and control algo-

rithms are the intelligence embedded in nearly

all new products. Employers look for very specific

sets of skills, experience, and training in these

disciplines.

At the other end of the range are a myriad of spe-

cialties. Some examples from recent ME searches

taken on by my company highlighted skills needed

in quality assurance, Six Sigma implementation,

non-destructive testing, reliability analysis, and

stress/strain calculations. Each of these requiresknowledge of statistics.

Searches for metallurgical engineers usually ask

for extensive ME skills in failure analysis, creep,

stress, strain, and similar physical properties. Ther-

mal/mechanical skills are a plus, especially in areas

such as friction analysis, lubricants, and thermal

breakdown.

My company, Wingate Dunross, has a specialty

niche in renewable energy, such as large-scale elec-

tricity storage. The jobs were trying to fill might

require ME candidates with skills in electrochem-

istry, fluid dynamics, electrical systems, electronics,and control software for complex new types of

vanadium batteries.

The bulk of W-D searches are in areas

like materials science, nanotechnology,

electronics, fossil-fueled and renew-

able energy, chemistry and chemical

engineering, and dealing with

disruptive technologies in

general. Strong skills in

finite element analysis,

simulation, and optimiza-

tion are invariably sought.

Whenever competi-

tive forces gain ascendancy

MECHANICAL ENGINEERING | A PRIL 2013 | P.45

VERTICAL STEM

Recruiters seekengineers with a depth

of knowledge in a

particular disciplinesuch as ME.

HORIZONTAL

CROSSBAR

Recruiters seek engineerswith a broad range ofskills in other areas or

disciplines related totheir specialties.

BY NICHOLAS J. MEYLER

8/21/2019 COM Meyler 13 Recruiters Finding Breadth Outscores Depth

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If only half of them decide to retire, that is

almost a quarter of an experienced workforce.

They are very worried about losing the

skills and experience of their Baby Boomers,

said Jay Rogers, vice president of recruiting at

Randstad Engineering. They are hiring engineers

from other fields and retraining them, which is

something new.

Demand from power-generation companies

is a driver of the recruiting business for Rand-

stad, based in Atlanta. In power gen, MEs are

valued highly for their analytical skills, Rogers

said. MEs are needed to manage scheduled-

maintenance outages and restarts. Experience

Power generation companies are looking at the prospect of a brain drain...

POWERGEN AND THE BOOMERS

POWER GENERATION COMPANIES ARELOOKING AT THE PROSPECT

ofa brain drain. Generally accepted data from the EdisonElectric Institute indicates that 45 percent of engineers now

on the job will be eligible to retire in five years.

to the mix of skills and capabilities for MEs, there is

no combination that's not in demand somewhere.

For the automotive industry, Foster said, There arejust not enough of these broad-gauge engineers with

multiple skill sets to go around. MEs with minimal ex-

perience outside their discipline still command good

salaries, however, because ME is fundamental to so

many other areas of engineering. Foster said that ex-

perience in manufacturing, electronics, or mechanical

is always in demand.

D

IVERSITY IN THE WORKPLACE EMERGEDas a challenge

and opportunity at Sequence Staffing, a staffing

and recruitment firm in Roseville, Calif. As we

look at our northern California markets, diver-sity accounts for two huge trends in the engineering

workplace, said Frank DeSafey, a Sequence Staffing

principal.

Perhaps uniquely in our time, four generations

of engineers are active, he said. This diversity in

ages presents huge opportunities for fresh, even

unorthodox, thinking that accommodates a variety

of different societal viewpoints. Secondly, diversity

is the norm worldwide in skill sets and nationalities.

We get a lot of requests from overseas firms look-

ing for American-trained engineers and, vice versa,

from American firms looking for engineers trainedelsewhere, DeSafey said.

Diversity can be a challenge to manage in the

workplace, which drives the demand for MEs, he

noted. More than engineers from other fields, MEs

usually have good communications skills, the ability

to write clearly, a willingness to accept responsibility,

and the basic skills to manage outside resources and

diversified teams.

This is why there is a rising preference for MEs

as generalists rather than specialists, he said. We

over inertia, technology and product development get

closer to the bleeding edges. That is where engineers

encounter the knottiest challenges bound up with thebiggest opportunities. Bleeding edges demand of MEs

the ability to think of products as completely integrated

systemsincluding their production and the needs of all

who use or touch them.

This is best dealt with by systems engineering, which

is the discipline that most closely aligns with the T,

Clark at kVA said. Systems engineers think holisti-

cally about concept, design, development, production

processes, and operations plus risk management and

sustainabilitythe entire product life cycle in all its

dimensions.

ACCORDING TO CLARK, SYSTEMS ENGINEERSare specialists

in simplifying complexity, resolving ambiguity, and

focusing the creativity of othersbut they are not

generalists. Todays engineering students learn to

define system boundaries, goals, and functions. They also

learn to anticipate failure modes, to plan for mitigation

and recovery, and to define and manage interfaces.

In the process, they learn to translate the languages

spoken by the various disciplines that are involved in

every cross-functional project, Clark added.

All too often engineering specialists cannot under-

stand one another, and the problem goes much deeperthan jargon and idiomatic expressions. Systems engi-

neers skills are unmatched for removing organizational

barriers, streamlining communication, ridding it of am-

biguities, and improving collaboration among everyone

while reducing wasted effort such as rework.

Barton Foster of The Barton Group, a recruiting firm

in Livonia, Mich., noted that, We find that MEs with no

manufacturing experience dont really have the under-

standing of basic production processes that are required

for the best jobs that command the highest salaries. As

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MECHANICAL ENGINEERING | APRIL 2013 | P.47

in commissioning new plants is a plus.

So is knowledge of heat transfer, thermal

properties, and electrical transmission and

distribution.

The hardest ME spots to fill in power

generation are in nuclear, where Randstad

fields very high demand from prospective

employers. One of Georgias big utility com-

panies is building two multibillion-dollar re-

actors. According to Rogers, skills most in

demand are in heat management; rotating

equipment such as turbines, pumps, and

generators; transmission and distribution;

and electrical and electronic systems.

Frank DeSafey at Sequence Staffing in

Roseville, Calif., however, is skeptical about

some of the common assumptions about

the Baby Boomer retirements. True, there

simply are not enough trained people to go

around, hence the high demand from all

market sectors and disciplines, he said.

But this demand is a very complicated pic-

ture. You have to factor in the outsourcing of

so much technical work, a more indepen-

dent young workforce wanting to work from

home or wherever.

According to DeSafey, The picture is

further complicated by the Baby Boomers

themselves. Their retirement plans have

been disrupted by the recession. When

Boomers do retire, will they be replaced

one for one or in some very different ratio?

No one knows.

need ME applicants with proven flexibility in their

approaches to solving problems. They need to be able

to demonstrate their adaptability.In my experience, this is something that many

early career engineers just dont get. Confronted with

knowledge explosions in every technical field, many

engineering professors urge students to keep up by

delving deepertaking in-depth extra coursesin

their specialties. But engineering students who have

spent too many years solely in academia are less desir-

able to many employers. Such students are seen as

lacking experience with deadlines, with the pressures

of work, or with the need to make a profitable product.

THE DIRTY SECRET THAT MANY PEOPLEin industry andacademia dont like to talk about is that the half-

life of knowledge is short. In a lot of fields, half of

what engineers needed to know when they were

hired may be outdated or irrelevant in a few years.

Engineers with multi-disciplinary skills are much

more adaptable, and more in demand, but in engineer-

ing there still are more specialists than generalists.

Recruiters note that people who are overly special-

ized in one area may find their skills become obsolete.

Successful engineers, they say, reinvent themselves

continuously. Yesterdays CAD/CAM whiz may turn

into a vice president at an orthodontics software com-pany that relies on advanced modeling and imaging

software, one recruiter said.

From my perspective as a recruiter, one of the

biggest challenges a working engineer has is staying

ahead of skills obsolescence. For most engineers, the

problem is finding the time to learn about innovations

and reinvent their careers. If they are working 50 hoursa week and have a family, its a difficult balancing act.

What is amazing, however, amid the unceasing

cross-pollination among engineering disciplines, is

how successful engineers are in moving from one field

to another. These engineers obviously need breadth of

engineering exposure balanced with depth in a special-

ized field.

The demands of todays competitive business environ-

ments tilt the balance toward breadth. As technologies

mature, the balance will tilt back toward depth. But this

assumes an end to disruptive technologiesand no one I

know foresees that. ME

...The hardest MECHANICAL ENGINEERING spots to fill in power generation are in nuclear

Recruiting and placement is an $11 billionbusiness, of which more than a third isclassified as technical recruiting. Standardrecruiting fees are 30 percent of the first-year salary. For a high-profile CEO, fees mayreach 50 percent, or several million dollars.

Source: The Association of Executive Search Consultants, New York

$11,000,000,000

NICHOLAS J. MEYLERis general manager of Wingate Dunross Inc., an

executive search firm in Agoura Hills, Calif., and president of its technol-

ogy unit. Jack Thorntoncontributed to this article.