Engineering/science jobs

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Sorry, kid; I'm just telling it like it is.

Welcome to the real world!

Ech, I have a science background and look golden on paper. However, I had a Skype interview recently and was able to see just how uncomfortable I was in the entire process. The bloody interviews have always been my biggest hurdle. However, a phone interview might remove that aspect of it if you can surmount the 'awkward silences' that come along with them.

Well, of course you have to eventually handle a face-to-face interview - that's part of the hiring process. Remember, they're hiring the person, not his or her resume.

Interviews can sometimes feel like a cross examination on the witness stand in court... Is it normal not to interview (at least from interviewers point of view) well?? I got feedback from an interview I thought went well that "I didn't communicate my background well" this was for a temp job

We get training in the interview process from professionals - psychologists, lawyers, and such. How can it not feel like a cross-examination? It's a simple process, we ask questions, you answer them. How else are we going to learn more about you?

One of my colleagues prefers the open, free-flow format, rather than standardized questions. Most of the people we hired solely under his insistence turned out to socialize very well, but perform poorly as technicians. This is why we now give my colleague a dumpload of assignments the week before a string of important interviews, and only bring him in when we're down to the final three candidates - the ones who have the most technical expertise. By that time, we're looking for any legitimate reason to choose just one, and the best communicator usually gets the first offer.

A big part of the value of a degree is that is shows you're capable of committing to something for an extended time. That's why so many places only care that you have a degree, not what field it's in. For the person hiring, they're not looking for the most brilliant genius engineer, they're looking for someone who can go problem -> solution; problem -> solution day in, day out, unsupervised and without incident. No matter how good you are, they're always going to take low risk over high potential.

Also, if they teach you, you're never going to be able to contribute something new. A lot of the time, employing new people isn't about getting another set of hands, it's about broadening the skill base of a team.

Sorry if that's not what you wanted to hear.

That's also why a military background is a plus - commitment is as important as skill, because one is worthless without the other.

This interests me too. I'm looking for a job I can do to put myself through school (I want to go into physics, probably as a researcher but considering teaching - ideally both, which professors can do at college, but I'm open to industry positions). I've dropped out of college a couple of times mainly because I taught myself calc-based physics before high school and then more advanced math and physics, and since I never skipped grades or anything and cared much more about learning than jumping through hoops and cared much more about immediate gratification than long-term gains, I developed a really lousy work ethic, and my automatic response to hearing basic stuff in a lecture is to tune it out and do stuff in my head, which works all right for courses where you just have to do the homework and take the exams (though I have a terrible habit of doing the minimum work to get a passing grade until I get to something actually challenging or new), but most courses involve group interactive tasks, so I have a lot of difficulty keeping up with in-class activities since transitioning into another activity from my mind, I have trouble understanding what the instructions are (it's like that state when waking up from dreams).

So I was wondering about this question: I'm not looking for a career yet, but anything that would use my more mathematical/technical/analytical skills, or just any job that is open to hiring people who learn very quickly and doesn't involve crowds, lots of talking, frequent phone use, using facial expressions much beyond what is required for casual niceties (I couldn't do a job where you had to use a nice voice or smile big on a regular basis, like a salesperson or restaurant greeter), bright lights, or lots of other people talking, and where auditory processing problems wouldn't be much of an issue (I have significant delays between when someone speaks and when I begin to understand what they say, and they often interrupt before I've figured out what they said before which makes everything take longer).

I have experience taking apart, fixing, and putting back together some basic electronics hardware, but that was back when I was a kid and we had VCRs and computers with 3 1/2 " floppy drives but no CD place; I have no formal training, just what I learned from books and from watching engineers at my mom's work the day she took me there and practicing soldering after hours.

I have high ability, little skill, and an extremely scattered track record (very high test scores and scores in the bottom third, straight A's to C's and F's within a year, coasting on AP classes to get B's and C's then blowing off the exam after it's paid for then getting a 3.9 GPA in 30 credits of college classes concurrent to high school classes with a B+ average).

I've done many stupid things in my time, and probably the stupidest was starting college at 18 like my classmates when I clearly wasn't ready, having no clear career goal and a strong dislike of structured academics that move too slowly over material I already know in a shallower depth.

I also have a very low tolerance for willful ignorance, but can keep the urge to shout down someone's irrationality at bay long enough to prevent myself from questioning an authority figure (unless they're talking about something incredibly heinous).

I'm 22, and I wish I had either started college back when I was 12 back when I still had the organization skills and motivation like I wanted to, or just never attempted college until I was ready to remediate the damage of my grade 1-8 schooling.

From what they tell me not only do you need butt loads of education but they want you to have experience even if it would be your first real job. You can only really get that by getting unpaid shity internships that suck up your time you could be working a mcjob or studying something.