The Work “Experience”- for the naive engineering grad

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Questions I wish i had answers to as a confused 22 year old fresh out of college -

1) To work or not to work ?

If you’re looking to do your MBA, work. If you’re looking to do your MS, dont.

WHY? If you’re looking to get into management, there are a ton of things you learn that are impossible to understand unless you’re on a payroll. Chief among these-

You will hate your boss. Your subordinates will hate you.You have to like them.

Every employee works for his own self-interests. A good manager matches these with the interests of the company.

You are ALWAYS smarter than the boss. The best way to get work done from a subordinate is to make him think he’s smarter than you. You are ALWAYS smarter than the boss. Repeat.

The AC breaking down in 40 deg heat on-site are ideal conditions for maximum learning- you’ll see.

I believe now that learning to manage yourself, people and work is hands-on. There is no substitute for experience.

If you’re looking to do an MS, then work after your MS. Any job that the vast majority of fresh engineering graduates in India will get will be repetitive and tiresome and will add little to your engineering knowledge. An example- as a chemical engineer, you will learn reaction engineering & equipment design. Yet the conceptualization of a  process, the R &D to prove its validity, the narrowing down to an economically viable production pattern, the basic design of all equipments will be done by Shell’s laboratories abroad. You as a designer will do the detailed designing- the supporting strucuture, the foundations, the piping. If you’re in IT, you’ll be on the bench or doing mindless coding- with a kickass party per month and a worldclass gym thrown in.

Why waste 2 years now doing this when you can spend 2 years after MS working for Shell itself ? Notable exceptions to these gross generalizations are 1 % of graduates who’ll get placed in the elite companies, the financially challenged and the stupid.

Q) Which company ?

If you’re one of the stupid mentioned above, please do try and get the elite companies. A good factor to judge an elite company is it won’t come to recruit half your college, it’ll probably not recruit you. The recruitment personnel sent are very indicative- HR personnel just 2 years older than you as against high level executive working in the same department looking to recruit.

If you’ve decided management is your calling, it gets trickier. On one hand, you need the stamp of a “big shit” company to impress your to be MBA college ( not that everyone in management needs an MBA as Shyam says ) On the other hand, smaller the company, more the management functions that will be loaded onto you- recruitment, cash flows, marketing, proposals, sales, making the coffee. This is because bigger companies are fine tuned for optimum performance. Its like an assembly line- you have a specialist for each of the previously mentioned functions. This leads to maximum efficiency, minimum value addition to employee. The tricky part is balancing the two. I’d say go for a medium sized company with big aspirations. Or work 5 years and do both.

3) How long?

As long as required to get your dream college. As long as it takes to make you a hardcore cynic.

The minute you stop learning, stop working.

4) Stop this crap, give me names

I’m  sure there are a lot of satisfied employees out there. But from people i know who have had a good experience,

Manufacturing- Sandwik ( seems to be a great mix of great stamp, great exposure )

Electronics- IBM ( Strong technical exposure, work culture, global interactions, not for MBA aspirants )

IT- Google ( great chicks,great money )

As I wrap up this post, I hope the non-AC onsite conditions improved the quality of my writing.

Hope this helps atleast one person make a slightly less misinformed decision!

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Filed under Where-What-Why-sis

Tags: career, companies, experience, jobs, MBA, MS, work