Advanced degree vs Experience
I have a PhD in Mechanical Engineering but no industry experience. I have applied for a design engineer position in my home town (no relocation needed). I was looking through the salary center, and the initial offer is about 50th percentile of Design Engineer III. The question is whether Design Engineer III (4-6 years of experience) is the right level I should compare with? Would DE II or DE IV be more appropriate? I've filled in a few online applications for other positions, and those often ask how many years of experience I have on the field? My usual answer for those is 6 years (the time it took for the PhD), is this the best way to compare the academic experience to work experience? Thanks! Well, to begin with, it' s probably not a good idea to lie about your work experience! Going to school, i.e. "working on your PhD," is not the same thing, by a long shot, as actual real-world work experience! The level of the position you apply for should fit what you' ve really accomplished. If the position doesn' t require a doctorate in mechanical engineering, I sincerely doubt that any employer is going to pay you more for a degree the job does not require. You should be looking for jobs that require a PhD and no experience, but I think you' re going to find that they' re few and far between. Experience is the key element missing from your resume, which could mean that you' re going to be looking at entry-level jobs with most employers - advanced degrees or not. With all due respect, degrees without experience just aren' t worth all that much. Add 3 to 5 years of actual work experience with the doctorate and THEN you' ll have something valuable to sell to employers. Right now all you have a pieces of paper and there is no way on earth to compare academic experience to work experience. And if you continue to claim 6 years of "work" experience and an employer wants to know WHERE you worked, you' ll be out the door so fast you won' t know what happened. A lot of education and no experience spells "entry-level" to me. While a PhD is a good thing, it does not substitute for actual experience. Why didn' t you do any internships during all those years? You should look for one now even though you' ve graduated. An employer wants to know that a new employee knows how to function in the "World of Work" and you' ve got absolutely nothing to show that you can do that. They also want to know that you' ve built time and knowledge in the real world application of your field. You just don' t do that in school. Think of it this way, in order to be a world class concert pianist, you need education in music theory, music history and the technical end of reading music. That' s what you' ve got now. You also need practice, practice, practice actually putting your fingers on the keys and pounding out songs. You can be a pretty good piano player without learning to read music and knowing how pianos are made but you won' t soar to great heights until you have both sides. You should be looking for entry-level positions for the next several years until your experience catches up with your degree. In the meantime, you' re going to have to suck up your pride and accept that you may be working below your level of education until the two converge. And I find it hard to believe that you don' t see that putting down you have 6 years experience is just a flat out lie. Thank you for the valuable advice. I was afraid this was the case, but seems that in a couple of years I will be in a better position. I should have been more specific with my original post, the reason I have used the 6 years of experience on my job application as I have worked through my doctorate program, although in academic environment, performing Finite Element Analysis which is one of the requirements for the positions I have applied for, and my dissertation work is on FEA, in a program sponsored 50-50 between an industry participant and the government. I originally was applying for entry level positions and had a few interviews while still in school, and was mainly told that I was over-qualified for those. It was after these experiences that I visited with my campus career services, and was given the advice from university career services to use that aswork experience in applications. I guess there is a reason that their"help" never lead to anything Again, thank you for the advice. It confirms my original approach that I' m better off accepting the offer and proving during the first year that I actually know what I' m doing There' s a big difference between a school project (even one sponsored by business) and "experience". Experience would be going to work at the employer' s location on a regular basis, having a supervisor who works for the company, interacting with co-workers, being responsible for a certain amount and quality of workload, being responsible for following the company policies, etc. If your program contained these kinds of elements, I might describe it as an "internship" at most. If it did not, then it was a school project. It will come off as an impressive school project, but an employer will not consider it experience. | |
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