How hard is it to get into an entry-level chemical engineering position?
First, you need to land some interviews. You do not say where you live. When I conducted interviews, I noticed that most graduates are woefully unprepared for the interviewing process.
The interview is the mother of all final exams. You should prepare for them like they are. Would you go into a year-end final exam unprepared?
The interview is the mother of all final exams. You should prepare for them like they are. Would you go into a year-end final exam unprepared?
For Chemical Engineering Job entry-Level, Study the company, study the people you may be interviewing with, the decision-makers, see if they are on Linked in or Facebook. Google them to see if they have published or given any addresses to see what their interests are. Know what the company is doing and where they are active and in what kind of plays, as that will determine what kind of engineering specialties they will be requiring.
On your resume play up the skills that you have that would be applicable to those needs.
Your resume should be customized for each company you apply for. You should have an objective statement, stating what it is you want to do, and THAT should be modified to match the job posting. If you are an engineer who took classes heavy in one area, you want to down play that if it does not match the position you are applying for. Look at it this way, if you sell yourself as a pickup truck, you won't have much luck selling yourself to a company looking for a sports car. And do not fool yourself, you are SELLING yourself. All you have to offer are problem solving skills. That is what the employer is looking for, so you better be prepared to sell you abilities to them, because the job will go to the person who does the best job.
The first step in that is the resume. Make a cover letter with bullets that are prefaced with no more that a couple of sentences, introducing your self and naming the position you are applying for. Then go right to the heart of the matter by saying that you are a new graduate and in your academic career, you: Then list the bullets with key standout achievements or activities such a group projects, or other things that demonstrate you have the skills and leadership potential they might be looking for. I was the University Geology Club President. Since you as yet do not have any work achievements play up any academic work that applies to the job. This is where you will need to create an new or modified cover letter for each job you apply for, to make sure you emphasize the right skills.
Now look at your resume. It is probably pathetic, as most of them I get are.
You first need an objective or goal statement. Something like I want a job as a petroleum engineer is pretty lame. State you want a career as a petroleum engineer and then state what specialties you would like to work in. The first one should match the position you are applying for, then the second part of the sentence says, utilizing skills in...and list a number of key words describing the skills your possess, and they should be in order of those that apply to the position.
What you should know is that Human Resource people are gate keepers and they are there for one reason and one reason only, to be a filter. They are there to weed out people they think do not fit the stated job description. So all the applicants who do not take the time to target their resumes, get their shit-canned. HR types are inherently lazy, they rely on web crawlers, or search engines to find resumes, and they plug in certain key words from the job descriptions they are given and if a resume possesses a lot of them it gets selected. Now charitably, some HR people know a little bit about the jobs they are trying to fill but most know absolutely nothing. They do not know what a mud engineer does, from what a janitor does. They do not know what a well test engineer does, or a drilling engineer. So how can they reasonably look at a resume and decide which candidate resumes are the best to send on to the decision maker, the hiring manager? They use trivial things, matching keywords, the resumes with he fewest typos, or the nicest paper. The last one used to work before the computer age not so much now, but you get my drift.
So yours must be perfect, concise and to the point.
Do not clutter your resume with a bunch of verbage. Keep your sentences short and put all the information up front.
I have received long detailed resumes that contained way to much information is a big muddled pile reading it and finding the relevant information was like trying to find the wedding ring your wife let your great Dane swallow. It is a stinky nasty disagreeable task. That is why when I get resumes like that, I read half way down the page. If they have not sold me or I have not found something that makes me want to keep reading...in the shit-can it goes. Why? Because if I hire them, their reports are going to be the same way. They might be a genius but they possess the writing skills of someone in the 8th grade.
Communication is key. Both writing and verbal. I ask candidates coming to an interview to bring an example of their writing. Something technical that THEY wrote.
Back to the resume.
Divide your resume in to logical headings, do not use flowery script or try to be clever and use some crazy formatting. I center my name and contact information at the top, followed by the objective.
Since you have no work experience. Make a academic heading left justified, and list your key classes, projects etc. Remember you may need to customize this for each job by reordering the classes. YOU WANT the most relevant ones listed first. On a listing for selling a sports car you don't put the luggage carrying potential of the trunk first, you put the engine size and road handling stats, the zero to 60 time etc. So why would you not list your most relevant skills up front. If you have experience with Petrel or any other reservoir modeling software be sure to list that either under a separate heading of Computer Skills along with everything you know, any programming languages, Microsoft products etc.
You need to quantify your achievements. I do not mean GPA or anything like that. Hopefully you did some group projects or some kind of applied research in one or more of your classes. You need to play that aspect up.
If you did well work overs, state how many and the nature of the work.
Play up the team work aspects of anything you did. For instance as a geologist I may have done detailed mapping of an existing field. What sounds more impressive, that or: conducted detailed mapping of a 3 square mile reservoir where detailed correlation of 85 wells was carried out and 4 areas for infill drilling were identified.
So play up your strengths.
Now preparing for an interview, go read a book. There are some good ones out there. Be sure they contain example questions you might have to answer and work through them by formulating answers for them. After reading the book practice interviewing with a friend. Take it seriously. Pay attention to your posture, your body language. Dress in a suit so you can get comfortable in it and so you look relaxed, not like someone dressed up for their execution.
Practice makes perfect. Pay attention to how you speak.
As I said earlier communication is the key. If you cannot speak well and convey your ideas to your boss or coworkers in a coherent manner, you are essentially worthless. You will be an impediment to a team, the same goes for writing skills. I have eliminated candidates solely on the basis of the number of typos I have found on their resume. That tells me that they are lazy and just plain stupid. How hard is it to turn on the Word grammar and spell checker for Christ's sake?? Do I want to be paying someone like that to work for me, when their work product is going to be a direct reflection on me as the person that hired them? I don't think so.
An interview is like a chess game or being on the witness stand. If you can find a copy of it, there was a free doc on the web on preparing to be an expert witness. Find it and read it. It will help. Do not volunteer too much information. Do not be too long winded. Remember you are being judged on EVERYTHING you do and say. The way you are sitting, your attitude, how quickly you answer. Everything.
Think before you speak. Think about the question and what it is really asking. It might not be asking what you think it is. Interview questions are made to reveal more than the simple answer. They are made to reveal more about you based on how you have behaved or what you have done in the past. Did you work and play well with people in a team environment? If you cannot think of one team you worked on, or were successful with, that says a lot about you. Questions will ask you about prior personality problems you might have had with others. Be prepared to talk about how you solved them. If you never did, you better have a good explanation why. In a job setting that is the kiss of death. No manager wants to knowingly hire a new employee who is likely to bring a lot of baggage with them.
Be thoughtful, do not just blurt out answers because their is a silent pause after the question. Demonstrate to the interviewer that you can think things through, then give a thoughtful response.
An early trick I learned is look at the office of the interviewer, get them to talk about something demonstrated as important to them by memorabilia, pictures, trophies, etc displayed in their office. Even their last name can be a subject to get them talking. It helps break down barriers of resistance and lets them see you in a more personable light. Its the same thing they tell you to do in hostage situations, it lets the other person see you as a person and not just an object under scrutiny. Its an old sales technique.
Be prepared to ask questions when given the opportunity. It demonstrates that you have done your homework. If they ask you do you know what our company does, have memorized a short summary based on your prior research on the company. That demonstrates you really want the job and have gone the extra mile.
Another key thing is trying to get past the gate keepers, the HR folks. Attend local or national meetings where you know key decision makers might be attending. Local luncheon for societies are good, where you might be able to introduce yourself to the decision makers. A good pretense is to discuss something you read that they might have written on a subject, a paper or something relevant. Once they have met you, they can put a face to the name. Then you can tell them that you recently applied for a position with their company. If you did it right you flattered their ego a little, don't come off as a transparent ass-kisser. That is worse than being unknown to them. Now they will probably ask HR for your resume and then you can go sell your self as the best man or woman for the job.
On your resume play up the skills that you have that would be applicable to those needs.
Your resume should be customized for each company you apply for. You should have an objective statement, stating what it is you want to do, and THAT should be modified to match the job posting. If you are an engineer who took classes heavy in one area, you want to down play that if it does not match the position you are applying for. Look at it this way, if you sell yourself as a pickup truck, you won't have much luck selling yourself to a company looking for a sports car. And do not fool yourself, you are SELLING yourself. All you have to offer are problem solving skills. That is what the employer is looking for, so you better be prepared to sell you abilities to them, because the job will go to the person who does the best job.
The first step in that is the resume. Make a cover letter with bullets that are prefaced with no more that a couple of sentences, introducing your self and naming the position you are applying for. Then go right to the heart of the matter by saying that you are a new graduate and in your academic career, you: Then list the bullets with key standout achievements or activities such a group projects, or other things that demonstrate you have the skills and leadership potential they might be looking for. I was the University Geology Club President. Since you as yet do not have any work achievements play up any academic work that applies to the job. This is where you will need to create an new or modified cover letter for each job you apply for, to make sure you emphasize the right skills.
Now look at your resume. It is probably pathetic, as most of them I get are.
You first need an objective or goal statement. Something like I want a job as a petroleum engineer is pretty lame. State you want a career as a petroleum engineer and then state what specialties you would like to work in. The first one should match the position you are applying for, then the second part of the sentence says, utilizing skills in...and list a number of key words describing the skills your possess, and they should be in order of those that apply to the position.
What you should know is that Human Resource people are gate keepers and they are there for one reason and one reason only, to be a filter. They are there to weed out people they think do not fit the stated job description. So all the applicants who do not take the time to target their resumes, get their shit-canned. HR types are inherently lazy, they rely on web crawlers, or search engines to find resumes, and they plug in certain key words from the job descriptions they are given and if a resume possesses a lot of them it gets selected. Now charitably, some HR people know a little bit about the jobs they are trying to fill but most know absolutely nothing. They do not know what a mud engineer does, from what a janitor does. They do not know what a well test engineer does, or a drilling engineer. So how can they reasonably look at a resume and decide which candidate resumes are the best to send on to the decision maker, the hiring manager? They use trivial things, matching keywords, the resumes with he fewest typos, or the nicest paper. The last one used to work before the computer age not so much now, but you get my drift.
So yours must be perfect, concise and to the point.
Do not clutter your resume with a bunch of verbage. Keep your sentences short and put all the information up front.
I have received long detailed resumes that contained way to much information is a big muddled pile reading it and finding the relevant information was like trying to find the wedding ring your wife let your great Dane swallow. It is a stinky nasty disagreeable task. That is why when I get resumes like that, I read half way down the page. If they have not sold me or I have not found something that makes me want to keep reading...in the shit-can it goes. Why? Because if I hire them, their reports are going to be the same way. They might be a genius but they possess the writing skills of someone in the 8th grade.
Communication is key. Both writing and verbal. I ask candidates coming to an interview to bring an example of their writing. Something technical that THEY wrote.
Back to the resume.
Divide your resume in to logical headings, do not use flowery script or try to be clever and use some crazy formatting. I center my name and contact information at the top, followed by the objective.
Since you have no work experience. Make a academic heading left justified, and list your key classes, projects etc. Remember you may need to customize this for each job by reordering the classes. YOU WANT the most relevant ones listed first. On a listing for selling a sports car you don't put the luggage carrying potential of the trunk first, you put the engine size and road handling stats, the zero to 60 time etc. So why would you not list your most relevant skills up front. If you have experience with Petrel or any other reservoir modeling software be sure to list that either under a separate heading of Computer Skills along with everything you know, any programming languages, Microsoft products etc.
You need to quantify your achievements. I do not mean GPA or anything like that. Hopefully you did some group projects or some kind of applied research in one or more of your classes. You need to play that aspect up.
If you did well work overs, state how many and the nature of the work.
Play up the team work aspects of anything you did. For instance as a geologist I may have done detailed mapping of an existing field. What sounds more impressive, that or: conducted detailed mapping of a 3 square mile reservoir where detailed correlation of 85 wells was carried out and 4 areas for infill drilling were identified.
So play up your strengths.
Now preparing for an interview, go read a book. There are some good ones out there. Be sure they contain example questions you might have to answer and work through them by formulating answers for them. After reading the book practice interviewing with a friend. Take it seriously. Pay attention to your posture, your body language. Dress in a suit so you can get comfortable in it and so you look relaxed, not like someone dressed up for their execution.
Practice makes perfect. Pay attention to how you speak.
As I said earlier communication is the key. If you cannot speak well and convey your ideas to your boss or coworkers in a coherent manner, you are essentially worthless. You will be an impediment to a team, the same goes for writing skills. I have eliminated candidates solely on the basis of the number of typos I have found on their resume. That tells me that they are lazy and just plain stupid. How hard is it to turn on the Word grammar and spell checker for Christ's sake?? Do I want to be paying someone like that to work for me, when their work product is going to be a direct reflection on me as the person that hired them? I don't think so.
An interview is like a chess game or being on the witness stand. If you can find a copy of it, there was a free doc on the web on preparing to be an expert witness. Find it and read it. It will help. Do not volunteer too much information. Do not be too long winded. Remember you are being judged on EVERYTHING you do and say. The way you are sitting, your attitude, how quickly you answer. Everything.
Think before you speak. Think about the question and what it is really asking. It might not be asking what you think it is. Interview questions are made to reveal more than the simple answer. They are made to reveal more about you based on how you have behaved or what you have done in the past. Did you work and play well with people in a team environment? If you cannot think of one team you worked on, or were successful with, that says a lot about you. Questions will ask you about prior personality problems you might have had with others. Be prepared to talk about how you solved them. If you never did, you better have a good explanation why. In a job setting that is the kiss of death. No manager wants to knowingly hire a new employee who is likely to bring a lot of baggage with them.
Be thoughtful, do not just blurt out answers because their is a silent pause after the question. Demonstrate to the interviewer that you can think things through, then give a thoughtful response.
An early trick I learned is look at the office of the interviewer, get them to talk about something demonstrated as important to them by memorabilia, pictures, trophies, etc displayed in their office. Even their last name can be a subject to get them talking. It helps break down barriers of resistance and lets them see you in a more personable light. Its the same thing they tell you to do in hostage situations, it lets the other person see you as a person and not just an object under scrutiny. Its an old sales technique.
Be prepared to ask questions when given the opportunity. It demonstrates that you have done your homework. If they ask you do you know what our company does, have memorized a short summary based on your prior research on the company. That demonstrates you really want the job and have gone the extra mile.
Another key thing is trying to get past the gate keepers, the HR folks. Attend local or national meetings where you know key decision makers might be attending. Local luncheon for societies are good, where you might be able to introduce yourself to the decision makers. A good pretense is to discuss something you read that they might have written on a subject, a paper or something relevant. Once they have met you, they can put a face to the name. Then you can tell them that you recently applied for a position with their company. If you did it right you flattered their ego a little, don't come off as a transparent ass-kisser. That is worse than being unknown to them. Now they will probably ask HR for your resume and then you can go sell your self as the best man or woman for the job.
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