Getting a job in the Electrical Engineering Industry

Not every engineering degree is the same. This has been the case for many decades. Note that the IET only accredits qualifications, it doesn't decide which ones to run and what the scope of those qualifications are. That is a decision the educational establishments take themselves. The IET only has control of its own qualifications.

Your HND is at NVQ 5. Those electricians courses are at NVQ 2/3, so any company taking apprentices (which I agree are few) would be looking at someone who has GCSEs. I've known people who have retained in electrical installation later in their engineering careers, but they often had the financial reserves to pay for the retraining.

Having come from a BTEC background myself (admittedly a good while ago), I can confirm that the mathematical and physics is often at a lower standard than someone who has done A-levels. Although, many universities will allow HNC/HND students to skip the first year of the degree. But those degrees are generally aimed at people who seek to work in engineering design and development, not installation and maintenance. Those can be very different skill sets.

100%. The design of university degrees are based on two things:

• What individual lecturers, and particularly the head of department, want to deliver (which may be based on their own research interests),
• What the marketing department thinks will "sell".

Some universities do engage with industry representatives in the design of the courses, however in my experience the industry representatives they engage with (been one of those myself) are those they are already engaged with through research collaborations, so in practice it can tend to reinforce the first of these bullets rather than giving a wider perspective. 

Mark Tickner said:

The IET only has control of its own qualifications.

And actually as far as I'm aware the IET doesn't offer any qualifications, only accreditations (i.e. professional registration)?

Neil Bussey said:

was not acredited in any way like most Beng and Meng courses. This makes the degree not equal to the degree for full time students.

Don't worry about it, employers don't (well none that I have aver been involved in have!). Neither does the IET. What employers want to know is what confidence you have developed in your degree (notice I do not say skills or knowledge). And do not let anyone tell you that you need an accredited degree to get IEng / CEng. You do not. As you say Neil, what is more important in ta degree that you choose meets this:

Neil Bussey said:

wanting students to be standing on their own two feet straight out of the box

Yep, that's what we want. But that doesn't mean we don't expect you to ask questions. And it doesn't mean we don't expect you to go and do further research to work out how to solve problems. But what we don't want to see in a graduate is "I haven't been trained to do that so I can't do it". Remember a degree is completely different to an HNC / HND, it doesn't train you in how to do anything technical, what it hopefully does is give you is the ability and confidence to approach problems that you haven't seen before and work out how to solve them. Where I work the graduates who we interview who know lots of facts are not the ones we recruit (in fact we've had our fingers' burnt by doing that). The ones who are interested in solving problems are the ones we recruit.

Personally I'm probably more likely to recruit a graduate who's done a part time unaccredited degree than a full time accredited degree with no other experience. Not because of any bias against full time, or accredited, degrees, but just because of the "standing on their own two feet" thing, work experience is hugely important for that.

However, Neil, your main point I agree is hugely important: I absolutely agree that we have a major problem in developing vocationally trained staff, and we have had for decades. Back in the 1970s (when I trained) there were huge employers - Marconi was an excellent example, or Thorn EMI as my local one in North London - who could afford to churn through huge numbers of apprentices even though many / most left and populated the rest of the industry. Most engineering firms now are not of a size where they can afford to do that, however much they want to.

Now that is something I hope the IET are campaigning for - it has to have government intervention. 40 plus years experience has shown that private industry isn't going to, FE colleges are all pretty broke and can't do much, and it's not in the Universities' scope.

As a postscript, I was discussing this "stand on your own two feet" point this week with my daughter who's a University lecturer in the sciences. She was, like many lecturers do, expressing frustration with undergraduates who had not grasped that that is what a degree is all about. About coping when you're not being told what to do. It started from her saying about the problems she found in getting her students to choose dissertation topics, where they could choose any topic they like (because they point is to show that you know how to research and write a dissertation, the topic doesn't matter). Which totally chimed with my experience in recruitment, the good graduates we recruit are those who would have no problem with that, and in fact would enjoy the chance to choose and write about something they are interested in. We both also agreed that the other litmus test is whether the student asks that old question "will this be in the exam?" If they do, they're going to be less employable...in industry you never know in advance what's going to be in the "exam" i.e. the real world problems!

School is interesting these days. The national curriculum is pretty heavy, and what I have seen is that teachers struggle just to deliver the curriculum in the time they have, let alone anything else. The need to get good grades in order to boost the schools statistics means that there is a lot of focus on passing the exams. My child's school does three sets of mocks before they get to the actual exams.

Because of the costs of such schemes (administration), there are quite a few schools that don't seem to offer children work experience - and for those that do, there doesn't seem to be anything to prepare for and the reflect afterwards from the experience. Some of the children did a week of packing peoples shopping at the local supermarket. They consider that they gained nothing from it.

Teaching is definitely a vocation that you need to want to do. Engineers may complain that they are underpaid and nor respected like some other professions, but go look at teaching (and many of the medical profession as well).

When I do careers events, I often say to the students that companies look for skills in communication, team working and the ability to get on with a task. However, school doesn't really develop those skills at all. Those skills are predominately boosted by getting involved with teams and groups. But in most cases, getting involved has a cost implications, where that is the cost of subs, uniforms/kits, travel costs and other sundries. There is also a postcode lottery element, because not every town and village will have suitable activities.

School is interesting these days. The national curriculum is pretty heavy, and what I have seen is that teachers struggle just to deliver the curriculum in the time they have, let alone anything else. The need to get good grades in order to boost the schools statistics means that there is a lot of focus on passing the exams. My child's school does three sets of mocks before they get to the actual exams.

Because of the costs of such schemes (administration), there are quite a few schools that don't seem to offer children work experience - and for those that do, there doesn't seem to be anything to prepare for and the reflect afterwards from the experience. Some of the children did a week of packing peoples shopping at the local supermarket. They consider that they gained nothing from it.

Teaching is definitely a vocation that you need to want to do. Engineers may complain that they are underpaid and nor respected like some other professions, but go look at teaching (and many of the medical profession as well).

When I do careers events, I often say to the students that companies look for skills in communication, team working and the ability to get on with a task. However, school doesn't really develop those skills at all. Those skills are predominately boosted by getting involved with teams and groups. But in most cases, getting involved has a cost implications, where that is the cost of subs, uniforms/kits, travel costs and other sundries. There is also a postcode lottery element, because not every town and village will have suitable activities.