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Employer Quotes
The quotes below are from employers in this industry: Engineering
They are talking about this topic: Workforce Trends & Challenges
The quotes below are about this issue:
Several employers are pleased with entry-level candidates and feel they are well-prepared.
| "I think the people we get are technically strong. When you talk about engineering, can you teach imagination? But, technically, we don't really run into major issues. You're doing a good job from the technical training side." | Central |
| "At least for entry-level civil engineers, we have had a large candidate pool. We'll get a hundred to two hundred resumes for an entry-level general civil position. Part of that is our affiliation with the university, I think. And it has to do a lot with our college recruiting. But we do enjoy a pretty good candidate pool. For environmental engineersEmployer 2: Yeah, I'd agree. That's why we've been hiring more [MnSCU] graduates.—I think we've got a pretty good reputation in the industry—so while we might not get a hundred resumes, we'll get a pretty good pool of candidates to choose from. Most recently, we've been getting more resumes around the two-year degrees, the design technicians. For a while, we really struggled to get those resumes in, but recently we're seeing more resumes and really good quality resumes I would say." | Metro |
| "Something that is different from when I went to school is that we had a little bit of writing, a lot of project-oriented work, and a lot of classroom work. With the students coming out now, I see a lot more writing, problem-solving, and team projects. They have a capstone project. That is a really good trend." | Metro |
| "We generally have a pretty good pool of chemical engineers. I think it's because of the affiliations that we have." | Metro |
| "We are seeing some stellar students with great writing skills, great communication skills, strong interpersonal skills, learning agility, and flexibility. We ask questions like, 'Tell us about a time when something changed—when you got down a path and you suddenly had to make a real direct sharp turn? Tell us about a conflict, how was it resolved?' We ask those kinds of questions. We do screen out, don't get me wrong. Not everybody has all of those skills. But we are very impressed at some of these entry-level candidates." | Metro |
| "My experience, and some of this is anecdotal, but I think the new hires and those coming out of the system, are generally pretty good. And if they're in demand, the challenge is keeping those people. Even though these companies are going out of their way to perhaps pay above average in terms of wages and benefits, the demand is high, and a lot of times they don't stay long. They get hired away by other companies. So, that tells me that the experience or that the educational level is good. They are coming out with the skills they need in most cases." | Metro |
| "I think the core training and what they're educated on—I think it's all right." | Northwest |
| "We're finding a lot of good young engineers right out of college, and they have good basic engineering skills. But we're in the automating packaging equipment industry where some of those skills transfer over, but some don't. And some skills just have to be learned on the job. But we're seeing some good people. When we look at our candidates, we look not only at their skills, but their attitudes, their values, and things of that nature, too." | Northwest |
| "I was talking about looking for experience, but when we talk about hiring someone out of college, they have been very well-prepared in general. And then we can kind of mold them." | Northwest |
| "I think we've hired one civil engineer out of [MnSCU college] every year, the past few years. So, it's been a good source for us." | Southwest |
| "There certainly have been a lot more candidates out there, and it's been good pickings for us." | Southwest |
| "Employer 1: I'm involved in a number of professional organizations, and maybe one compliment for the [MnSCU] program is that, for the last number of years, the organizations have definitely favored the graduates coming out of [MnSCU] program. It's because their training is more on the practical side. Employer 2: Yeah, I'd agree. That's why we've been hiring more [MnSCU] graduates." |
Southwest |