Any Metallurgical Engineers around here?

I've got a friend who's daughter has a BSE in Metallurgical Engineering. She did everything right, got a good minor (explosives) got an good internship (with a company that was shrinking) and then got accepted to grad school. The one wrong thing she did was have a personality conflict with her advisor and bailed before finishing her MSE. 

The problem she's having is that she doesn't know how to go about looking for work in the industry short of just blindly sending resumes, and that's not working. She reached out to me wondering if I had any contacts anywhere who might know where people in the industry are hiring and how to find them. I said I don't, but I have you guys, and maybe one of you might have an idea. 

I know a guy.

He's a chief engineer here, and the absolute best that I have ever seen in that field. I am sure he'd be willing to talk to you or your friend's daughter. We are absolutely not hiring, but he would still be a great resource. Send me an E-mail BKB 001 at gmail

What part of the country is she looking at? I know of a few but the location may not be desirable to some.  Also what part of the business is she interested in? Failure analysis, Manufacturing material selection, Mining and Processing? Few ways to go with this.  

In reply to tuna55 :

Just sent you an email.

In reply to bmw88rider :

She's in Houston right now, but after close to a year back at her parents house everywhere is looking better. She did turn down a second interview at a place in F-all Oklahoma before grad school. She's said that if she had to do it over again she would have taken the interview and seen where it landed. 

She's a proper Southern girl and comes across as polite and just a bit meek until she's comfortable. I think she takes no for an answer a little easier than she should. She's working on that. 

She did some casting work and..... I'd have to talk to her to figure out where she wants to go exactly. What sorts of questions should I be asking her? 

I'm just a regular MechE, but I only graduated 6 years ago so hopefully I can offer some insight on the whole "have degree, but how the berkeley do I find a job" deal.  I have worked at three places since getting my degree, one of which hired me after a headhunter submitted me, and the other two after I "blindly sent a resume."

The big thing that I think many people overlook is how automated the process tends to be- in many cases your resume needs to make it through a filter, or get picked up using a search term.  On top of that, the person who set those terms probably doesn't know a great deal about the position, since they work in HR and not engineering- so in all likelihood, your resume needs to have the same words in that that appear in the job description in it somewhere.  Outright lying would be bad of course, but don't have "proficient in all major CAD software" if the job description says "must be proficient Catia and NX."  Even putting things elsewhere to get your foot in the door, like, for example, if the job requires motorsports industry experience and you have that as a hobby, just get the keyword in there somehow and chances are it will never be questioned when they actually read your resume.

It's worth noting that things got a lot easier once I had some work experience- I sent at least a hundred resumes/applications to find that first job coming out of school.  It took me a while to figure out that the real goal was just to pass the filter/search algorithm and get human eyes on it somehow, and responses seemed to improve immensely once I figured that out.

In reply to ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ :

Thanks, I'll pass that on. It's been a long time since I was in the resume game.

I have a chemical engineering degree but worked as a metallurgist (extractive metallurgy) for 3 years before transitioning into process automation. It might be worth taking a look at mining companies if she doesn’t mind living in smaller towns - feel free to send me a PM. 

Does her school have an independent 'monster.com'?

The engineering school I graduated from had its own little website for job seekers and companies hiring; alumni like to hire alumni. That is how I got my first job right away with no experience in 2009. Certainly shrinks the pool of applicants (a benefit to job seeker and company), and alerts the applicant to all kinds of companies that she may not currently know of.

In reply to Brokeback :

Sent you a message, thanks man.

In reply to Robbie :

My understanding is that she's in  a funny spot. A company looking for new hires wants to test drive people with internships, but since she's out she's not in that pool any more. I know she's sending out resumes, so she can locate some jobs, but getting an interview is tough. Sounds like   fairly common issue with kids in her position regardless of degree.

I was a Materials Technician, worked in a lab doing failure analysis for about 5 years, then field work.  Poke around here, you never know.  I shy away from Linkedin as I get a lot of come ons and spam. 

Dan

Is she looking at steel.producers?  I worked in the industry for about a decade.

It was very difficult to find any mettalurgists, let alone decent ones that could communicate.

Carpenter technologies has about 100 mettalurgists.

My wife is a metalurgist....  

In reply to mazdeuce - Seth :

The school website I worked with was useless for internships (very few were posted and the competition was high). But they had real job postings there for anything from entry-level to exec. You could filter job postings by major and degree and experience level, etc. Not all companies are looking to hire people with no experience, but some are, and they indicated so on the school's website. The website is aimed at alumni, not current students.

It is a common complaint that people don't know where to look for good jobs and companies don't know where to look for good employees. I guess in my case the small school job website was a good place to connect the two.

(Colorado School of Mines for anyone interested).

Also, consulting firms will happily test drive low-experience people, because they always need 'cheap' workers who can bring the project costs down. I'm sure there are metalurgical engineering consulting firms or even general consulting firms with engineering 'verticals'. Consulting is not an easy game, but if you do it well for a few years you're set for your career. Just another thought.

speaking of which (dunno why it took me this long to think of this), my father-in-law runs a company in the lime/concrete/steel business, and he is always looking for smart people. Might require re-location (toronto, vancouver or pittsburgh) but if you send me a resume I'll forward it to him. if a pm through the board doesn't work let me know.

Has she considered finishing her MSE?

In reply to mazdeuce - Seth :

In reality I think just a simple what part do you like to do within metallurgy  question should work.

I was a Met E Major for 3 of my 5 years in School. I was headed on a path to work at the Union Pacific Metallurgy lab doing failure analysis. Basically detective work to figure out why things failed and provide analysis on potential different metal alloys or production processes that should be used to reduce the failure rate. Good friend of mine from the program when into the mining and processing side. So he did a lot of the QC work on the processed metals to determine if it was "mixed" as it should be. I know a few on my class mates went into the manufacturing side. They did a lot of metal recommendations to help the company to help them put the right allows in their design. Funny thing is I now sell servers and networking equipment for Dell EMC and earn great money doing that. 

Sounds like she would probably take any of those just to get a job. Another good place to look and network is any professional society in the direction she is interested in. Like ASM or SME. 

Got my bachelors in Mat/Sci Engineering, put out approximately 250 resume submissions to job postings and got exactly one interview. ISO/OSHA supervision of union labor for roller maintenance at a steel mill. They wanted a 10 year commitment and a few alarm bells went off and I felt like it was a express ticket to an ulcer and a brick through my windshield (25yo supervising union guys?).  GF at the time said if we were still in Pittsburgh in 10 years she was leaving me and it prompted us to pick up and relocate without jobs to DC where we both had some network.  My network paid off and landed me a job as a engineering contractor that was underpaid, but somewhat stable. That led to being hired by the client and I get to work on stuff that isnt related to the nanotech stuff I was concentrated on and published in in undergrad (yeah, long story). M y hobbies led me full circle and I am involved in the automotive sphere.  Wife worked through a series of jobs and the thing all the good ones had in common was a contact that put a resume in front of someone. 

Two main points.   

1) Dont limit to exactly what you studied, investigate ANYTHING you come across that is of any interest.  

2) NETWORKING NETWORKING NETWORKING. sounds like she is working on it by reaching out to you. 

Question)  any knowledge or experience with anything automotive related? (FSAE would be GOLD)    What relocations would she be open to?

In reply to Robbie :

That is a pretty good school to graduate from. My brother graduated from there in 85 and had job offers out of his ears when he graduated. Working for Western Geophysical at the time, I also realized that if you did not have a Mines degree you were not going anywhere in the company.

In reply to Robbie :

Sending you a PM. At least two of those cities sound lovely. 

In reply to wvumtnbkr :

Sending you a PM too. This place is awesome. 

In reply to Apexcarver :

She's becoming open to more and more relocations the longer she lives back at home. 

I think one of her issues is that her resume is fairly generic outside school. I agree that an outside passion (like FSAE) would help. If only we could go back in time with that one. Maybe it's time to invite her autocrossing? 
I can tell she's a little worried about ending up doing something she doesn't like in a place she doesn't like. We're all like that when we're in our early 20's I suppose. She needs to take a leap. 

In reply to Robbie :

Mines, a good school that thinks it's a great school.  We had a very friendly rivalry with them in the Geological Engineering side of the oil industry. I met some fantastic smart people from there and they are second to none in their networking. 

In reply to Driven5 :

We're raising that question too. It seems like finishing would be a good idea. 

Is CT too far?  I'll poke around the job board at the office tomorrow and see what we have going on in our metallurgy labs.

10 years involved in autocross was an item of note in the interview for my current job as well as a year and a half in FSAE.   Talked through some car projects and built out relevant hobby pursuits in an "Other related experience" section in my resume. I think thats what opened a door, the degree and prior experiences (publishing, research, and 2 years in a lower level contracting gig) showed that I was able to walk through that door.

Seriously, if she has an automotive interest and any knowledge let me know, I might have something. 

Assuming she is willing to relocate, there are still many large companies that use the old fashion process of submitting cover letters and resumes through their websites. I just suggest this not be overlooked as my experience says these are not simply black holes. Submissions may be computer processed but its not that tough to figure out how to make it through the scan.

A couple other suggestions based on my experience interviewing folks:

- If you REALLY DO want to focus your work on a well defined and maybe narrow area of work, then recognize you are REALLY limiting the number of jobs out there for you. Academics or the government may be the best bet.

-The beauty of the engineering degree (don't care which one or where from) is they are broadly applicable - more so than a just graduating student may realize. If one is flexible, there is still a call for unexperienced engineers at good companies.

- Adopt the mindset (a twist on Kennedy's famous phrase) "what can I do for company XYZ - not what are they going to do for me." Work ethic is still attractive among employers.

- Do your research and target employers - the internet is your friend. Put the effort in. Learn about them. Play their game - target your cover letter and resume. 

Sorry if some of this is repetitive. Use the skills that got most of us through engineering school - focus, tenacity and hard work. A few made it because they were smart.