How do you get an electronics job when you're "not popular"?

[rsjsouza]

Somehow that whole discussion about doing meaningful things on the workplace in *seven* days brings me to Simon Sinek's interview (at 8:30 the job discussion starts)

[pcprogrammer]

Somehow that whole discussion about doing meaningful things on the workplace in *seven* days brings me to Simon Sinek's interview (at 8:30 the job discussion starts)

But is he "RIGHT?". 

Count the number of times he says "right" and call this number xxx-yyyy-zzzzz to win the price. (Dopamine) 

[thm_w]

I think after 43 employers , you have exhausted the apparent match between yourself and SMPS and power electronics design. It seems a mistake to keep attempting the same thing and expecting a different result. Why not try making a break and trying a different career direction, for instance S/W, maybe Java. That sounds like easier money and relatively easy to learn.

Or stocking shelves. Nothing wrong with that.
Maybe keep OP away from a computer and avoid distractions.

[nctnico]

Something doesn't add up here (though quitting without a new job already lined up was a mistake and turning down payment for the time you were there was another).

Every time I've been hired for a new full-time job, there was a reason the company needed another engineer, namely a long list of projects they needed doing. I still recall the 'day one' meeting with one particular new manager... after rattling off a list of about 10 tasks, I asked which he wanted doing first, to which he replied 'all of them'. He wasn't kidding.

It just doesn't make sense to be going through the process of hiring - a process which is costly, frustrating and time consuming - if they don't have a genuine business need for that new engineer.

You probably have dodged a bullet by getting out asap, as there's clearly something more going on. I don't believe people get hired without work already queued up for them to do - at least, not at a level of seniority above a student doing work experience.

You have to ask yourself: is this story for real or another hallucination in Faringdon's brain due to smoking the wrong stuff? I tend to assume the latter.

[armandine2]

I haven't asked myself that question - or believed the previous youtuber's video for a millennial's analysis.

I appreciate Faringdon's post but suspect they're tiring looped.

[coppercone2]

So the company is a big one but the lab is a small one? Heck, you can't even create a credible story...

I think its real, thats totally normal for the same company to have departments with funding differences similar to somalia and saudi arabia, or in the terms of colonies, the indies vs roanoak.. weird tech is like bad weather, they don't survive 6 months on the first winter, while other places never have a winter

If a big company does a horizontal offshoot that uses different technology thats not understood well (and the value is erratic/dubious/esoteric/avant garde), you can expect serious scarcity. When someone knows they have a MAD steady cash flow from something that is huge and old, they see like 500x more weird problems with new tech then you ever will.. so they are always cautious

Some people go after expansion like england, where the imperial might (airbase, port, hospital) is spread through the new area, and other people basically claim abandoned island and put a wooden building and flag on them. Will it survive to a expeditionary force? No. But the single guard might be enough to scare away some settlers on a sail boat. And it makes for a great vacation spot for visitors and stuff to take up 10 minutes of minor explanations to spruce up the place. but he might starve to death

the reason for the expansion is often just to be able to say 'we have claims there.' Usually its a big bluff but its low risk if you don't invest in employees and capital equipment, and it looks good on power points, graphs, etc.

Not every explorer is going to have the grace of the armada to help them... and usually in any capacity it helps the company understand things better since they can locally see 'related' technology and interact with it. Cuts down on consulting, but if you hire idiots that bullshit too much and totally give them no resources, it leaves a bad taste in the mouth of people, despite the fact that the idea was solid.

[josuah]

What I would be tempted to do in such a case is:

* Take some time to observe the workflow: email communication? a phone line per team/person/none? some software to organise the day-to-day tasks?
  Maybe someone simply forgot to point the big board with all tasks to pick-up to you...

* Start doing something related to the company. Regardless what. Your own personal hobby project is fine.
  This will help with knowing where to find things, and the first real project you would get onto your hands, you would be ready to start right away.

* For each day of "non work" at work, write a report of what you did through the day, and mail it to your manager with always the same title (so that they can gloss over it).
  Eventually only once a week after the first week.

That way, if they forget about you, then you just got hired for working on your hobbies, which could eventually provide value to them some day.
They can never accuse you of avoiding work if you send a daily mail saying "in the meantime that I get anything to do, I tried to be productive doing [...]. Looking forward to get assigned to anything.".
If the colleagues ask questions, also ask them whether this is normal to keep waiting that much. Maybe that is how things start in here.

In case you cannot simply ask "is it normal that I stay here doing not much for a while? Is it going to change?" to your new boss,
getting blindly productive doing "something" in the honest hope they can make use of it would drain out some of the guilt.

[BillyO]

43 jobs??!!

Wow!  If I take out the part-time jobs I had going to school and university I've had 7 jobs in a career spanning 42 years, the longest lasting 12 years, and I thought I was a rolling stone!!

Something smells like the floor of a barn here.

Bot??

[Warhawk]

Hi,
I recently finished an SMPS design and build project,  so when   that finished I put my CV on the web……the market seemed very very buoyant.
Loads of  companies with SMPS projects and  various Electronics projects were contacting me for interview availability. Then I interviewed at a place who said they wanted multiple SMPS’s designed.
It seemed great, and £55k salary.
At the interview, the boss told me (with a steely grin)…”if you take the job, then you should never leave”.

Anyway, they gave me the job and I started. For the first two days  they had me sat in the office, and told me just to read my company employment manual. Then after two days, they gave me a computer, which had limited access to their projects. (I found some “test” schems, but no specs, and no BOMs, and the “test” schems had no component values or part numbers with them).
Anyway, there was still no talk of work that they needed me to do…just vague murmurings of vague jobs which might need doing at some point. I tried to get the spec off them for a current source which they had which needed production pot tweaking, but they woudln’t give me the spec for it. I also  asked for a schem of an SMPS which they were currently doing EMC testing on, but the manager , grinning, shook his head, and said “you don’t want to see a schem”.

Anyway, after 7 working days of being sat in that office, and not being tasked with any work, I decided, that this was a job that involved just sitting around “just-in-case” any work might turn up. It seemed odd that they had said I should “never leave”, since would they want to pay me forever to do nothing?
Anyway….even though I started mid October, they had actually said they woudlnt pay me till end of November, but would backdate the pay to mid-october. I strongly doubted that they would pay me at all..specially since I wasn’t doing anything.

So after work on the 7th  (non) working day, in the evening, I wrote them an email saying I woudlnt be coming back in, and asked them not to bother paying me, and apologised for any inconvenience.
I decided instead to put my CV back on the web, and see if I could get into one of the great many opportunites that  had been  around before I took the “do-nothing” job.
Anyway, this was a few days ago…and not only have all the opportunites that were previously around dryed up, but even worse, is that the “do-nothing” company are still trying to recruit for their role, and are telling employment agencies not to send my CV, since I “ just  cleared off”.
This is meaning that these employment agencies are not keen to consider my CV for other electronics jobs…also, when I go for a job, they find out, and tell the employer not to employ me because I “just cleared off”, from the previous place.

Also, to make things worse, my previous job was at a start-up, and I wasn’t payed, so was out of the tax system for 6 months…and companies seem to find out about this , and it really puts them off me.

How do you get round this?

You don't mention if this was a small company or a big corporation. I used to hire people for my team. Often, the corporation had new projects upcoming. However, you can't start working on projects without personell. I remember situations when we had hired people and they were doing "nothing" for several months before the project ramped up. We assigned them to different projects or let them work on something they came up with, or we have not had a time to do (cleaning up schematics, finding second source parts for existing projects, cross-checking calculations, simulations...). Naturally, this was boring but people stayed, we had very little fluctuation, and it was a great working environment. I still meet with my ex-colleagues even though I started my 8th year somewhere else (and in a different country).

This may be a cultural thing but the fact you bailed after only one week (over the email ?!)  is hardly acceptable. (It is like breaking up with a girlfriend over the text message).
You could have used time differently. You could browse semi-vendors web for new parts releases, memorize colleagues, draw down the org-chart, finally reading appnotes that you have never time for, etc. Nevertheless, it is not only your fault. I would expect your direct supervisor talking to you. But again, in such cases you need to proactively talk to people. Leaving the job without having the plan B and C is .... not smart.



Oh never mind, I read the rest of the posts (the ESD carpet story, 43 jobs,..). If I were you, I would first stopped smoking that stuff.

[MadScientist]

You leave a good paying job with a low workload !

Ok there’s some logic I suppose,  but I cant see it now future employers see you as a “ runner”