Why do a lot of companies want engineers (even in unrelated fields) ?

[OinkBoink]

A lot of companies that recruit engineers give them positions and work that hardly have anything to do with what they learnt in their engg. course.

Many times, most of the stuff that they need to use at work, they learn during the training programmes in their respective companies.

Hell, some of the work at some of these companies, a fairly intelligent 12th class pass could do with some training.

Are we pointlessly neglecting science degrees (B.Sc, M.Sc etc.) and other degrees to some extent ?

Of course, one could argue that getting through the rigour of an engg. course itself says something about a person.

Also, of course, some of them may not necessarily want engineers, but they take them anyway.

 

[bhaskarvyas001]

What I feel is that it is easier to train a person with some context in the subject than a person with no context at all.
This is where a person with engg background has upper hand than one from other fields.

 

[OinkBoink]

Yes, in some cases, I can agree with that. But simply doing engineering doesn't make one all that good. There are other factors like the native/inherent intelligence of a person, his/her overall knowledge in general, his/her ability to grasp new information and concepts etc.
(some of these are tested in engineering itself of course.)

BTW, I know a lot of B.Tech/BEs who've been recruited into finance as their first jobs. What context do they have here (apart from maybe maths, which even a B.Sc is trained at) ?

 

[dexBG]

I think OP is speaking specifically of the IT Industry recruiting Engineers from all specializations ..
I don't suppose any other field would hire so sporadically.

For Service Industries .. the biggest requirement is analytical thinking and good communication skills. Rest all can be taught and leaned via hands on exp.

Teams are made of mixed resources .. some with strong IT background and some without so the overall quotient of the team is positive.

 

[Vagabond]

off course its #OinkBoink , who created the thread... another interesting topic !!

 

[OinkBoink]

off course its #OinkBoink , who created the thread... another interesting topic !!

Hello. Thanks for your support. But don't appreciate me too much or the haters will be back again.

 

[blkrb0t]

Hello. Thanks for your support. But don't appreciate me too much or the haters will be back again.

@OinkBoink

 

[sunny27]

^^ parents in India usually encourage children to study engg and follow it up with MBA or go the other way and do MBBS. Anything other than that is seen as a strict no no. A lot of kids are forced against their wishes to study engg - as was my case.

 

[OinkBoink]

^^ parents in India usually encourage children to study engg and follow it up with MBA or go the other way and do MBBS. Anything other than that is seen as a strict no no. A lot of kids are forced against their wishes to study engg - as was my case.

Damn dude. Being forced to study something that you're not interested in just sucks. I feel angry at parents who do that even though their intentions might, in their own eyes, be good.

Good intentions aren't always enough. As they say, "The path to hell is paved with good intentions."

 

[cricfan]

I have got few friends who have BSc is CS...but still waiting for a big career break with recruiters not picking them because its a 3 yr course...and have got few BE (Mech) friends working in pretty good jobs in IT..I am ok if u r selecting an eng graduate over BSc graduate if both are from IT streams...but i dont get the Eng (civil/Mech) > Bsc (cs) part...

 

[geek ashish]

See it's a very simple thing, exactly the only reason why girls want to marry engineers

The FOUR years strip us off our self esteem, courage and ability to demand an explanation.

So with that piece of paper, I'm announcing, tell me to do anything and I'll learn to do it, I'll do it for years, w/o complaining, regardless my liking towards it and
best of all I'll complain about it only on online forums and at the bars. So No troubles for you.

 

[OinkBoink]

^^ lol.

 

[whatsinaname]

An engineering degree supposedly signals various things about a prospective employee. Enough discipline to complete a 4 year degree, a basic education in scientific methodologies, proficiency in use of relatively modern technologies and an aptitude towards using logic to solve problems. With how quickly job requirements and technologies change, there is no way a 3-4 year curriculum can stay ahead of the curve. Therefore, you have companies looking for a blank "resource" that can be trained and moulded to their respective needs.

A 4 year B.Tech degree is now so generalised in scope that a further M.Tech/Phd is a definite requirement to find work in the field.

 

[OinkBoink]

An engineering degree supposedly signals various things about a prospective employee. Enough discipline to complete a 4 year degree, a basic education in scientific methodologies, proficiency in use of relatively modern technologies and an aptitude towards using logic to solve problems. With how quickly job requirements and technologies change, there is no way a 3-4 year curriculum can stay ahead of the curve. Therefore, you have companies looking for a blank "resource" that can be trained and moulded to their respective needs.

A 4 year B.Tech degree is now so generalised in scope that a further M.Tech/Ph.D is a definite requirement to find work in the field.

What about B.Scs and B.As in subjects like Physics, Computers, Electronics, Mathematics etc. ?

 

[whatsinaname]

What about B.Scs and B.As in subjects like Physics, Computers, Electronics, Mathematics etc. ?

With 90% of the education system in India geared toward training people for jobs/earning money (and the corporations looking for the same), a certain hierarchy is created based on academic abilities of the students. (Notice I said academic abilities, not knowledge/intelligence/wisdom). The current group-think is that B.Tech+MBA>B.Tech>B.Sc/BA. There are further tiers based on the colleges. (IITs/Pilani, NITs, etc.). The demand for engineers is not an indication that the B.Tech program is more rigorous than the B.Sc/BA program. It is just a symptom of the fact that the students themselves believe so and it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy because the admission to these colleges is based on academic abilities.

TL;DR: For various reasons, in the current market, the kind of employees the corporations want tend to be found in B.Tech programs.

 

[dexBG]

They want "workers" .. plain n simple

 

[avi]

^^ parents in India usually encourage children to study engg and follow it up with MBA or go the other way and do MBBS. Anything other than that is seen as a strict no no. A lot of kids are forced against their wishes to study engg - as was my case.

 

[Sei]

Only one word - Population.

With lakhs of engineers passing out each year, why should the employers not get to pick and choose to their fancy while paying them meagre salaries for work (or even to "bench" them, for future use if any)? Like whatsinaname mentioned, B.Tech is definitely harder and requires more discipline than a B.Com/B.Sc/BBA. It's not reflective on the aptitude or the skills of the person in question, just the fact that a person has cleared a more difficult degree.

There's an oversupply of engineers (again, quantity is not equal to quality) ready to do whatever is required. When they can start their careers (sometimes, even without even a technical interview :O; yes I'm talking about a company that begins with In) and get paid to do work (heard conflicting reports on the quality, also the fact that quite a significant % of engineers are benched) there are going to be even more of these "engineers".

Had read a recent statistic from someone that only 25% of the engineers in the country are employable. I think that even that number is bloated, going by the people I had seen in my college.

 

[sunny27]

See it's a very simple thing, exactly the only reason why girls want to marry engineers

The FOUR years strip us off our self esteem, courage and ability to demand an explanation.

So with that piece of paper, I'm announcing, tell me to do anything and I'll learn to do it, I'll do it for years, w/o complaining, regardless my liking towards it and
best of all I'll complain about it only on online forums and at the bars. So No troubles for you.

This would apply if you're looking for the arranged marriage route not the love marriage route. I find this weird because in India you have arranged marriage and love marriage which is a stupid way to describe the institution and love marriage is still looked down upon. Anyways this is a topic for another thread.

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I worked with Directi in Mumbai post my grad. My dad and other people I met said why are you working for 2 bit stupid companies why didn't you go for campus selections for tata/infy/wipro. India is a nation full of judgemental idiots.

 

[whatsinaname]

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I worked with Directi in Mumbai post my grad. My dad and other people I met said why are you working for 2 bit stupid companies why didn't you go for campus selections for tata/infy/wipro. India is a nation full of judgemental idiots.

Heh. I can see where you are coming from. Imagine working for a less than 10 people company that had just started the India branch 1 year before I graduated. Didn't go down very well with my extended family. Many gossiped that maybe it was because I didn't pass my courses.