good, cheap or fast: pick two
I think there is some truth to this.
A key point is that some/many new job positions have relatively vague requirements. The requirements are often a mixture of input from several people including the hiring manager, HR, and the President/GM, and possibly other people. So what is posted in the position description is enough of a target to be a consensus but not necessarily the exact or final target. One area where this can matter is in the degree - is it preferred or required? If the position absolutely requires a BSEE or a MSEE that’s going to significantly help candidates with the degree; if it’s preferred then the competition can be much broader and much larger in numbers. The point here is to try to know your target. As a candidate this can be difficult to ascertain but it’s worth trying to determine. Best way to find out is to ask and confirm if possible.
Some companies put a huge requirement on a BSEE. Some companies want BSEEs not just for design engineering but for lots of positions including system integration, manufacturing, QA/QC, product management, product marketing, technical sales support, sales, and more. In some companies they say “we can teach an engineer to sell but we can’t teach a sales person to engineer.” In some companies the CEO will barely pay attention to a candidate for any position if the candidate doesn’t have a BSEE but almost make a new position if a candidate with a BSEE shows up in the right city in the U.S. The point is to know the specs. Same way you would want to know if a customer design spec calls for 5G or 4G or 3G, or will they take microwave, satellite, wifi, bluetooth or anything wireless? Is close enough good enough, or not? Pay attention to the job spec when looking for a new opportunity - some specs, if stringent, including the degree can be a knockout or it can be to your strong advantage.
Sometimes as or more important than the degree is the location. Again the spec can be vague between a requirement and a preference - but on location the requirement can often be very firm, so firm that the company will prefer a local candidate to avoid paying a relocation but if, for example they require a BSEE and can’t find one, then these companies will pay for a relocation rather than relax the spec.
Location can be the single biggest hurdle for a hiring company especially if they are not in a major metropolitan area. BSEEs exist fairly broadly in the aggregate but are relatively shallow in terms of geographic distribution. Even NYC with it’s large population has a very small percentage of all the BSEEs in the U.S. And employers in NYC have their share of competition when hiring. The point here is that location is a huge puzzle piece that makes for a big challenge to both workers and hiring companies. For a company that is willing to open it’s hiring to the U.S. the addressable market goes from less than 2% of the candidates to 100% of the candidates and the same happens for candidates. If you live in NYC you are near 2% of the job opportunities but if you are willing to relocate you are near 100% of the opportunities. For candidates in NYC or Silicon Valley this might not matter but if you live in a city with .001% of the U.S. population it will have a big implication for your career.
So, to summarize thus far, if you confirm that the degree is a firm match and you are willing to relocate to a place that is a firm hiring requirement you are moving closer to the top of the likely to be hired candidate list - especially when the company clearly indicates they will pay for the relocation - it indicates they are serious about the location and they know that they are facing an imbalance of supply and demand.
What’s better? When an external recruiter calls to say that a BSEE is a requirement and the location is a requirement and a relocation package will clearly be part of the offer. Why is this good/better? Because if the BSEE and the location (with relocation reimbursement) are firm parts of the spec, and the company is paying a fee to the external recruiter, the company is signaling they have acknowledged just what villageidiot has said: “good, cheap or fast: pick two”. If the company could have filled the position fast on their own they would have saved money and not used the recruiter. Since they are using the recruiter they are not likely on a shoestring budget (ie, cheap) but they do want good.
Net, net: none of this says finding a new opportunity is easy but it does show that the opportunity is by far largest if you are willing to relocate. Once a new BSEE burrows in at a first job they can get too comfy. “Hey, this isn’t any harder than college or maybe even as hard, and they are paying me 80k per year instead of me paying 20k-40k per year toward the degree.“ Life is good. But if you put down deep roots the opportunities can narrow fast. This is true in many fields. It’s the reason even in normal times that the U.S. can have millions of job openings and millions of people looking. Location imbalance is a huge problem. Zoom, etc is part of a solution sometimes but until teleportation is refined the location imbalance factor will remain both a significant problem and a significant opportunity. So workers and their significant others/families should recognize it for what it is. No one wants to move every year but maybe every 2-5 years is part of the advancement program early in a career. Sometimes, if both you and your company are growing faster than peers you can advance within the company. In general, you should think about how each position will last longer than the previous until you are on 5 year cycles. Too short isn’t good (unless it is a promotion) and too long isn’t good (flat earning and learning). By the time you are on the 5-7 year position cadence maybe you can synchronize any moves with family planning.
It’s another example of what Yogi Berra said: “unless you know where you are going you could wind up somewhere else.” YMMV, almost for sure it will.
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