President's Column
(September 2002)

Helping the Unemployed Member

Are you unemployed? Afraid you might be in the near future? Trying to encourage and assist those who are? If so, you might think that IEEE-USA and the rest of the IEEE have really not shown much activity toward assisting our members. No matter how much we've done, we can never do enough. Enough would include forecasts of engineering employment downturns and the industries affected, forecasts of skills that will remain in demand during expected downturns, and effective policy actions that will smooth the ups and downs of engineering employment, and not inflate the engineering workforce to the point of employment risks for those in the profession. 

Doing enough would also mean that IEEE-USA, other engineering organizations, employers, and educators would work as a team to identify available cost-effective training programs on subjects that the employers will accept as meeting their present and near-term needs for engineers and computer scientists. If we were doing enough, we would also have an abundance of materials and section-level activities that would assist members in understanding how to become pro-active in developing your long-term career viability plan and the resources for helping to carry through with successful plans.

If you wonder why you haven’t been deluged with communications from IEEE-USA on how to get your next employment opportunity, it’s simply because I didn’t feel that we had accomplished enough that you would consider of value. The good news is that IEEE-USA volunteers have developed a multitude of resources over the years that are still available for the benefit of our members. Our first challenge is to review and update these materials and make sure that they are easily accessible at our Web site. Our second challenge is to add resources.

IEEE-USA now has a user-friendly Web site for accessing our employment assistance resources and selected resources that may assist you in planning your longer-term career: http://www.ieeeusa.org/careers/help/. Other career resources include:

IEEE Job Site — employment listings: http://jobs.ieee.org/recruiter.html

Engineer's Guide to Lifelong Employability — ordering information; free unemployed members: http://www.ieeeusa.org/catalog/lifelong.html

Alliance of IEEE-USA Consultants’ Networks (AICN) — attend local CN meetings for ideas on how to network, market yourself, find employment opportunities and role models, and learn about contracting and consulting: http://www.ieeeusa.org/business/aicn.menu.html

IEEE-USA Consultants Database — This premier service matches prospective clients with the world’s finest electrotechnology and information-technology professionals-for-hire: http://www.ieeeusa.org/business/consultants

Careers and Education — http://www.ieeeusa.org/careers/

USAJOBS — This is the U.S. Federal Government’s official one-stop source for Federal jobs and employment information: http://www.usajobs.opm.gov/

Professional Career Time Line — http://www.ieeeusa.org/newspubs/features/careertimeline.htm

10 Reasons to Become a Professional Engineer — lists advantages for becoming a registered engineer http://www.ieeeusa.org/careers/ieeepep1.ppt.

SHORT-TERM EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITIES

Are there any real areas to focus on in the short term for available jobs? As far as I can tell, present employment opportunities are defense contracting, security contracting, government agencies — primarily related to defense and security — and precollege education. I also understand there is a need for government patent examiners, but you must be willing to relocate to the Washington, D.C., area.

At this time, I must admit that the best resources and encouragement for the unemployed and underemployed are those closest to home. Thus, I challenge you to take the time to communicate with and encourage those you know who are unemployed. The hand of friendship, understanding and sharing of yourself are the most important gifts you can give to those searching for jobs. The second category of important gifts includes job leads and networking leads. In addition, you can extend these gifts by volunteering in these capacities for your section.

Even though I am late with this communication, I believe that IEEE-USA now has a team in place that is achieving a level of synergism that should provide some guidance for developing winning strategies and attitudes while job searching, and pointers to employment opportunity resources.

EMPLOYMENT ASSISTANCE TEAM

IEEE-USA’s informal employment assistance team is directed by Bob Adams, vice president for member activities, and Lee Stogner, vice president for member services, with work performed by members and staff representatives of the Employment and Career Services Committee, our Communications Committee, and our Professional Activities Committee for Engineers (PACE) coordinating Committee.

Our PACE Committee, chaired by Don Hill, is responsible for communicating with and activating members of the IEEE-USA PACE Network. The PACE Network is comprised of members of the IEEE-USA PACE coordinating Committee, Regions 1-6 PACE Committees, and section/chapter PACE representatives. Ideally, the local PACE representatives include local employment coordinators. The latter are local volunteers who have accepted the responsibility of ensuring that IEEE-USA employment assistance resources are communicated locally, and will work to assist those who are unemployed. If your section doesn’t have an employment coordinator, please ask them to find one. As a minimum, your section’s PACE chair should have already received communications on this subject from your regional PACE chair.

Ken Doniger is the recently appointed chair of our Employment and Career Services Committee. The committee, which develops and identifies employment assistance resources, is reviewing the existing resources (listed above) and updating as quickly as possible. The committee has studied the Quick Response Team (QRT) resource that was sponsored by sections experiencing high unemployment. With this local section sponsorship, QRT traveled to the location and presented workshops on how to prepare for and get your next job.

Since most major corporations have services similar to those provided by the QRT, the Employment and Career Services Committee decided to update some of the presentations associated with the QRT workshops and to make them available in Power-Point form for those sections/chapters that need to provide such a workshop for their members. The updated QRT modules cover the job interview, resumes, and cover letters. Your section, chapter or region can obtain copies of these PowerPoint presentations by contacting staff member Scott Grayson at s.grayson@ieee.org.

The Employment and Career Services Committee is also reviewing other employment related resources and updating as appropriate. In addition, the committee is working with the rest of the Employment Assistance Team to identify other activities that may shorten the time required for members to obtain their next job.

The committee sent out the IEEE-USA 2002 Employment Survey over the web on 29 July with notification to approximately 3,800 U.S. IEEE members who signed up for the unemployment dues discount. With the employment climate worsening for technical professionals, IEEE-USA conducted the survey to determine the current causes and characteristics of engineering unemployment and to discover what techniques are proving most effective for regaining employment. All data has been collected and will be available soon. It will be shared with the Workforce Committee and the Career Policy Committee. If the PACE Committee thinks they have a role, it will be made available to it as well.

The last committee with a major role on the Employment Assistance Team is our Communications Committee. These volunteers and staffers have the responsibility of working with other team members to identify available resources and help to carry the messages to our members — you, Regions 1-6, our sections and our PACE Network.

Now, there are other members of the team who are often unknown and remain nameless. They are the backbone of our organization — you. Without you we wouldn’t have a reason for being and wouldn’t have means for fulfilling the responsibilities of a 501-C3, nonprofit technical society. With your assistance we can assist our unemployed members, identify and develop resources, and make a changes for the better of our membership and society by having a strong and viable U.S. workforce of skilled and talented electrical and computer science engineers and associated professionals. If you have ideas that we should be pursuing, you can let us know by contacting me at president@ieeeusa.org.

OTHER RELATED CAREER/PROFESSIONAL ACTIVITIES

This e-mail is focusing on employment resources for our members. Don’t forget that we are also working on policy and related issues that do not specifically address short-term employment needs. The two primary committees in this area are the Workforce Committee, chaired by Sylvia Thomas, and our Career Policy Committee chaired by long-term career activist George McClure. These two committees are conducting a survey on skills identified over the past few months on engineering-placement ads, designing ads for a select number of major newspapers to increases out-reach to members in areas of high unemployment, increasing communications with Congress on issues related to engineering unemployment, and to sponsor a national workshop on the status of the engineering workforce.

Again, if you have ideas on what we should be doing or how we could do it better, please let me know. Also, don’t be afraid to volunteer as one of those who can bring about change. And if you still don’t have a clue of what should be done, study your IEEE election ballot and vote for the members who can take IEEE-USA and our Institute in the direction that you think we should be going.

Note to Editors: Please feel free to adapt this IEEE-USA President's Column for use in your local IEEE print and electronic publications. For more information, please contact Chris McManes at c.mcmanes@ieee.org.