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You could check out FindAJob.com ( http://www.findajob.com ) for
university mechanical engineering jobs or academic jobs in general.
They have 4 or 5 times as many faculty jobs as the Chronicle.

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But you know that the number of applicants per position is not a useful
statistic -- it is fueled by the laser printer and the relative
similarity of academic job openings. It takes no more effort to send
out 100 applications than to send out 10.

In that market, do you really want a job where your purpose in life is
to crank out even more PhD's?

On a positive note, there seem to be jobs out there for Solid Works
designers.

Wayne O. Miller FFR wrote:
> There have been lots of postings about the tough academic job
> market for C.S. Ph.D.s. I would just like to add that, from
> personal experience, the Mechanical Engineering academic job
> market is just as tight. I applied for several positions
> in spring. The most disturbing single data point was over
> 400 applicants for a single position at U. Va. From talking
> to friends who are on the inside, there are usually over 200
> applicants per position. Perhaps 10% get a second look, and
> perhaps 5 will be offered a visit.
>
> As for me, I'm still waiting to buy that tweed blazer and pipe.

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elephantcelebes@yahoo.com wrote:
> But you know that the number of applicants per position is not a useful
> statistic -- it is fueled by the laser printer and the relative
> similarity of academic job openings. It takes no more effort to send
> out 100 applications than to send out 10.
>
> In that market, do you really want a job where your purpose in life is
> to crank out even more PhD's?

I used to teach at a technical institute. I often raised similar
questions. Nowadays, it all has to do with how much $$$$ a department or
program brings in, regardless of what happens to the graduates.

>
> On a positive note, there seem to be jobs out there for Solid Works
> designers.

Most of the engineering jobs I've seen advertised are for "managers"
(whatever that's supposed to mean) with the usual list of mandatory
buzzwords ("team player", "people skills", "problem-solving skills",
blah blah blah). Many of the outfits I applied with gave me the
impression that they really didn't know what they wanted for the
positions in question.


>
> Wayne O. Miller FFR wrote:
>
>>There have been lots of postings about the tough academic job
>>market for C.S. Ph.D.s. I would just like to add that, from
>>personal experience, the Mechanical Engineering academic job
>>market is just as tight. I applied for several positions
>>in spring. The most disturbing single data point was over
>>400 applicants for a single position at U. Va. From talking
>>to friends who are on the inside, there are usually over 200
>>applicants per position. Perhaps 10% get a second look, and
>>perhaps 5 will be offered a visit.
>>
>>As for me, I'm still waiting to buy that tweed blazer and pipe.
>
>

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It's your job as a salesman to help them figure this out ;-)

BMJ wrote:
> Many of the outfits I applied with gave me the
> impression that they really didn't know what they wanted for the
> positions in question.

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elephantcelebes@yahoo.com wrote:
> It's your job as a salesman to help them figure this out ;-)
>

Two things worked against me, though: too old and, in their minds, too
expensive. In dealing them, I was often reminded of what Oscar Wilde
said: "A cynic is a man who knows the price of everything and the value
of nothing."

> BMJ wrote:
>
>>Many of the outfits I applied with gave me the
>>impression that they really didn't know what they wanted for the
>>positions in question.
>
>

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This might be a case for defining customer expectations in the other
direction, i.e., drop hints that you are not looking for a
stratospheric salary. If someone asks you during the interview about
your salary expectations, then you can respond that you are more
interested in a rewarding career than in chasing the dollar.

BMJ wrote:
> elephantcelebes@yahoo.com wrote:
> > It's your job as a salesman to help them figure this out ;-)
> >
>
> Two things worked against me, though: too old and, in their minds,
too
> expensive. In dealing them, I was often reminded of what Oscar Wilde

> said: "A cynic is a man who knows the price of everything and the
value
> of nothing."

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elephantcelebes@yahoo.com wrote:
> This might be a case for defining customer expectations in the other
> direction, i.e., drop hints that you are not looking for a
> stratospheric salary. If someone asks you during the interview about
> your salary expectations, then you can respond that you are more
> interested in a rewarding career than in chasing the dollar.

I tried that and all I got were blank looks. Nowadays it's assumed that
when one has a great deal of education, plus several years experience,
that one automatically wants a high salary.

I would have been perfectly justified in asking for a high salary. I
invested a great deal of *my* time and *my* money in acquiring both my
education and experience and I want a proper return on my investment.
Whether the party on the other side of the desk sees it that way is
another matter.

Most companies expect that "rewarding career" to be equivalent to a
near-religious experience and that going home is bordering on blasphemy.
A lot of the ones I've worked for promised that, delivering far less.
As a result, I've come to view a job as being simply a business
transaction: I render my services and I expect to be paid for them.
If I wanted a pseudo-spiritual experience, I could always join a cult.

>
> BMJ wrote:
>
>>elephantcelebes@yahoo.com wrote:
>>
>>>It's your job as a salesman to help them figure this out ;-)
>>>
>>
>>Two things worked against me, though: too old and, in their minds,
>
> too
>
>>expensive. In dealing them, I was often reminded of what Oscar Wilde
>
>
>>said: "A cynic is a man who knows the price of everything and the
>
> value
>
>>of nothing."
>
>

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BMJ wrote:

> Most of the engineering jobs I've seen advertised are for "managers"
> (whatever that's supposed to mean)

Another IEEE Spectrum article says:
"Mashey points out that for a system on a chip, or SOC, designers don't
even lay out blocks of circuitry. Instead they stitch together CPU
blocks, network and video interfaces, cache memory, and other pieces of
intellectual property from multiple vendors-each with software
instructions that handle the detailed interconnections-to create a
custom chip for a set-top box, a toy, or a smart refrigerator.
Designers may put together complex systems containing billions of
transistors without ever seeing a physical circuit; to the designer,
the chip or populated circuit board is merely a collection of files
stored on a desktop computer.

"Although such an abstract, project management-style view of
engineering may be what the future holds, it could well leave current
generations of engineers behind."

Full article titled "Electrical engineering's identity crisis: When
does a vast and vital profession become unrecognizably diffuse? " is
available from:
http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/WEBONL...v04/1104ee.html
\|/.

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afia boy wrote:
> BMJ wrote:
>
>
>>Most of the engineering jobs I've seen advertised are for "managers"
>>(whatever that's supposed to mean)
>
>
> Another IEEE Spectrum article says:
> "Mashey points out that for a system on a chip, or SOC, designers don't
> even lay out blocks of circuitry. Instead they stitch together CPU
> blocks, network and video interfaces, cache memory, and other pieces of
> intellectual property from multiple vendors-each with software
> instructions that handle the detailed interconnections-to create a
> custom chip for a set-top box, a toy, or a smart refrigerator.
> Designers may put together complex systems containing billions of
> transistors without ever seeing a physical circuit; to the designer,
> the chip or populated circuit board is merely a collection of files
> stored on a desktop computer.
>
> "Although such an abstract, project management-style view of
> engineering may be what the future holds, it could well leave current
> generations of engineers behind."
>
> Full article titled "Electrical engineering's identity crisis: When
> does a vast and vital profession become unrecognizably diffuse? " is
> available from:
> http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/WEBONL...v04/1104ee.html
> \|/.
>

I already noticed that shortly after I started my residency a few years
ago. I took an advanced digital logic course while I was finishing my
second master's degree.

For the final project, we designed the circuit from scratch and then
built and debugged the board--chips and wires all over the place! It
was frustrating and infuriating, but a valuable experience. For
example, I remember my lab partner and I chased a circuit bug for
several hours. It turned out to be a miswired pin on an IC.

Right after I started my residency, I was a TA for that very same
course, but that was several years after I took it. The entire focus of
the course was on circuit simulations using VHDL. None of the students
were ever required to cut and strip wire or, for that matter, even
handle an actual IC.

When I took the course, I was left with a sense of what it was like to
actually do the design and build and test the hardware. As a TA, I
wondered just what the students got out of the course.

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