FUTURE OF ENGINEERS

50-60% Engineers, Technologists and Technicians are unemployed: How can we prepare engineers for the jobs of tomorrow?

Pakistan is facing a massive skill gap problem with hundreds of engineers graduating every year but only a few possessing the skills required in the industry now. How can our engineers be trained for future jobs?

As per the recent statistics of different survey reports, 50-60% of Pakistani Engineering graduates do not get hired and most of them get hired well below their TECHNICAL QUALIFICATION or irrelevant jobs  

Let’s understand the ground realities once again. A study by one of analytics firm Aspiring Minds found that only 3.9% of candidates could write efficient & productive CV without “copy paste” method and less than 15-20 % are able to get right job in their field.

We need to remember that these are students who have already been in a classroom kind of learning environment for their entire life till date. However, the certificates that they currently have from their engineering and other online courses does not guarantee them a job. We need to understand its competition world so degree and certification not enough, we have to compete and we should ready for compete after degree or diploma. In an internal study (Career360) conducted with more than 1000 fresh engineers, we found that the most significant reason for not being able to find a technical job they don’t have basic skills and don’t know about market.

According to my personal experience and research eleven very important reasons for this are but it doesn’t mean that all reasons also reason of your failure, there is no doubt that these are the responsibilities of the government and there are flaws in our education system. In any case we are more responsible for our own success or failure, people then just make their career and achieve their goals keeping only their hard work, struggle and their passion in mind.

 1- OVER CONFIDENCE:

Most Pakistani engineers relying on their degree, but actually degree is just piece of paper, degree is doesn’t matter if you don’t have skills, that is most important than degree and education.

2- ENGINEERS BY DEGREE, NOT BY HEART:

It is a common misconception that only an engineering degree will fetch you a good job and a promising career, hence parents force their child to take engineering without actually understanding if their child has the interest or attitude to be an engineer.

3- LACK OF EXPOSURE:

Most Pakistani engineering colleges and universities provide no or very bad internship opportunities. Most engineers have no clue what the industry actually is like.

4- PATHETIC ENGINEERING COLLEGES & UNIVERSITIES:

Engineering is seen more as a business by the college management in private institutes.

5- THEORY VS PRACTICAL:

Most of the engineering colleges/ universities and their Boards never think of providing a quality time on PRACTICAL approach for students. Hands On experience & Real time applications is something not seen in most of the engineering colleges.

6- RIGIDITY:

Most of Pakistani engineering students are incapable of working without strict guidelines.

7- ENGINEERING TRAININGS & CAREERS COUNSELING:

Most of Pakistani engineering colleges and universities did not providing career counseling and market research based trainings which is most important for good career.

8- LACK OF DISCIPLINE:

No employer has the patience to ensure there is always a carrot on the stick to keep you focused.

9- LACK OF QUALITY TEACHERS:

In Pakistan peoples are joining teaching profession by chance not by choice, a lot of people don’t get a good job, so start teaching as they have “zero” exposure & knowledge about industry and corporate sector. There are lot of colleges and universities in Pakistan granting engineering degrees and diplomas. There are not enough quality teachers for all of these educational institutes.

10- LACK OF SKILLS:

Skills are most important and backbone of your career if you continue to acquire skills, you will grow day by day, get grip to following skills

Commercial awareness, communication, teamwork, negotiation and persuasion, problem solving, self-confidence, leadership, self-awareness, self-regulation, active listening, growth mindset, adaptability, time management, etc.    

11- ATTITUDE ISSUES:

Pakistani engineering students are for the most part incapable of acknowledging that they screwed up.

Conclusion is there are a lot of things we can't change, such as university standards, teacher’s quality or pathetic education standards, but there are few things we can fix and build our careers.

In an internal study conducted with more than 1000 fresh engineers, we found that the most significant reason for not being able to find a Tech job they don’t have basic skills.

Getting a job is also a technical method nowadays. Not only will I get a degree and get a job or if I don't get it, is it because of experience? Not at all. You can get a job without experience, but you have to use technical methods and you may learn that method in any counseling sessions or any career expert organization, but instead of we know about how to get or how to hunt a job we just blame in luck or blame to market “they don’t have jobs” obviously they don’t have jobs but for you.

We learn that in order to develop a truly professional and deep impact technical talent, he/she has to be skilled using the following elements:

Set your goals with (date stamp)

Deep experiential learning on live or live simulated environments

Hands-on and Do-it-Yourself approach

Stop blaming fate

Industry experts as mentors

Invest double time on your personal development

Guidance from technical & corporate trainers

Learn and Improve new skills.

Mubashar Ali

Strategic Energy Planner

Electrical Engineer

Certified Technical Trainer, Career Coach

Certified Career Counselor

EE, MBA,CSSGB, CSSBB, PE, PMP

AMIE, IAENG, CCC, MCCP, CEM