How to find a job in CAE/CAD ?

This morning, I received some message from Nikhil asking me that:

I am fresh mechanical graduate passed out in 2015, i also want to build my career in CAD/CAE domain. let me know which one is better and how to start in this field. what are future advantages of this field.

Here is what I think regarding job search.

I am sharing that as a post so this can be useful to other students who have the same question

1)Understand which job you really want and do some research

If you want to find a job anywhere, you have to do first some research and understand what you really want.

What does “career in CAD/CAE domain” means? Nothing… CAD and CAE are very different.

Do you want to be a CAD Designer? Draw some sketches in 3D of mechanical parts?

Or do you want to become a CAE Simulation Engineer checking design using FEA methods?

They are other possibilities as well like:

• Work in a company which develops FEA Software (Developer/ Technical Support/ Sales Engineer/ Technical Marketing)
• Provide your own FEA Consultancy services (requires experience and network of relations)

My advice is:

• If you are an engineer with some interest to business, sales and marketing, then go in a company developing FEA Software and start as a technical support. You will learn a lot and get the chance to become a Sales Engineer or a Technical Marketer
• If you are interest more in design or pure engineering, then go to a company which uses CAD or FEA to design real products. There is a lot of choice so it requires some understanding of what you like and what you want to become. (If you want to work in automotive, start to work for a big car manufacturer for example)

–> That’s a very simplistic approach, so take some time to think about it seriously. The orientation of your life depends on this decision, so take the time you need to sort it out, that’s it. Remember that no one built Rome in one day. You will not find your future in 4 clicks after doing a google search (or you are just deluding yourself).

2) Ask the right questions to the right people

Sometimes when you are alone in your student room, you may think that it is difficult to find a job. No one wants you. You have no special skills because you are just graduated… STOP HERE

If you start to think about negative things about yourself, JUST STOP

Read this post from my other blog: How to stop negative thoughts and find the greatness inside you

Don’t you think that there are some people who went through the same things as you?

Not everyone has a rich family which can find you a job anywhere you want (or where you don’t want).

Everyone else has to do it by themselves.

So the only 2 things you have to do are:

1. Find people in the same situation than you
2. Contact them and ask them how they did find a job

Easy enough right?

But be careful, because you have also to ask the right questions!

Read this post to understand better what I mean by that: Get everything you want by asking the right questions

If you ask enough people, you will start to see a pattern, then choose what’s the best for you and that’s all!

3) Apply to the company and the job of your dream

Now that you did your research and you know what you want, you just have to apply for the company, right?

What young graduates don’t know is that there are many ways to apply for a job in a company.

The Standard approach which is to go on the website and apply for a job offer has very few chances of success.

Why?

• The application goes to the human resources department of the companies who received thousand and thousand of requests every day
• Your application can be unnoticed just because the person screening the CV was too busy and just looked at the first 2 phrases of your CV and then threw it away. Odious? yes, but that’s the way it works. Don’t try to change the system, change yourself  and your approach is 100% faster and more effective.
• Even if you pass the first screening test, you will get into a long and toiling recruiting process in which you will be selected based on skills that HR department THINK you may have or may not have in function of your motivation letter, Curriculum, interview… can you really understand a human being just with few papers? I don’t think so, but that’s what HR are doing. Because of that you may be rejected on very simple and insignificant things.

So… how to do?

If you are capable for the job and if you really want it, then you have to prove in some way that you are the person this company need and then contact the right person in the company that will listen to you and hire you (directly or indirectly).

That’s what you should do:

• Analyse the real needs of the company (not yours)–> Why do they need a CAD Designer who can use a specific software? Maybe that’s because they plan to release a new product on the market and they lack people. Maybe that’s because they just bought a software that no one knows how to use. The answer to this question is not easy. You have to do some efforts to find the reason of the hire by asking the right questions (see the previous point)
• Analyze what will be your mission in the company and ask yourself: Is it really what I want to do? What unique value can I bring on the table to prove that I am the right person for the job?
• Analyze the company itself in details (History, CEO, products)–> very important. If someone asks you: What do you know about our company and you cannot answer correctly, that’s a direct elimination.

Once you did all that:

Take the answer to all those questions and write some personalized message that you think will persuade the person in charge of the job to hire you.

Find who is this person to contact using tools like Linkedin for example or try to find connections through the network of your university.

So the process is again almost the same that previously:

• Find the right person
• Ask the right question

Ask a question that someone will be willing to answer!

Which means:

• Not centered on yourself, centered on the value you will bring to the company
• Which shows that you did some research and you understand what you are talking about
• Not too direct of aggressive, try a soft approach

4) Never wait to long for an answer, go and be proactive to get the answer

People have a tendency to say: I have to think and I will come back to you.

But in fact… they just forget or move to other things because you are not the center of their interest.

For more details, read this post: Prospects Never Think it Over

To counter this tendency, you have to be proactive.

Read this book to understand what I mean by proactive, that’s the best I read on the subject: the 7 habits of highly effective people by Stephen Covey

If you don’t want to read a book… you can watch this short video…but that really doesn’t replace the reading believe me. This book will transform you.

There are thousand more things I could say, but I will stop here for the moment…

Any questions? You can write to me or write your question in the comments.