Graduate engineers finding their way in life

Tertiary education aims to equip you with the understanding of how to use the tools utilised within the workforce. However, it only prepares you so well for the multitude of working environments and tasks that graduate engineers face when entering their field. As a graduate engineer, I have only recently made this transition from student to a fully-fledged member of the workforce.

In applying for graduate positions, a commonly asked question during the interview process is: “Why did you choose to apply for this position?” The open secret is that while applicants will have prepared an answer specific to each company, most graduates likely applied simply because it was a job on a list.

I was lucky that the program I applied for — and was later offered a position in — was a structured graduate program that would provide me the opportunity to rotate through and spend time with various teams throughout the business. As such, when asked the above question during an interview, I could answer genuinely that I did so as I believed that it would provide me the opportunity to find where I could work best.

In just my first year of being exposed to the engineering industry I have been involved with projects, onsite commissioning, proposals and sales teams.

In the time that I spent working onsite I interacted with people with a diverse range of job descriptions, and an even more diverse set of working backgrounds. From technicians with intimate knowledge of the installation and maintenance of field devices, to the control room operators capable of reciting complex procedures at will.

During my time working with the projects team I have also had the opportunity to work with the engineers responsible for the coding of automation processes for projects of various sizes and functions.

Most recently, my time spent with proposal and sales engineers has given me a better understanding of how each of these teams collaborate to form a cohesive solution to any given engineering problem.

These rotations through each different team have provided me with a more holistic understanding of the business and a better understanding of the career path that I want to pursue. However, graduate programs that provide these opportunities are disturbingly scarce despite being highly sought after.

All this is to state the obvious: that engineering is a vast discipline that can cover numerous roles within a business. However, remembering this in the context of a newly graduated 20-something-year-old engineer is important. Completing tertiary education alone is not enough to navigate where their path in industry will take them. It is important that graduate engineers are provided the opportunities and support to find where their skill set is best applied, for their own individual success and the success of their employers. And it is my personal hope that the rotational style graduate program that I have been fortunate to be involved in becomes the norm to enable this.

Kyle Gibson is a graduate engineer at Emerson Automation Solutions, having recently completed tertiary studies in chemical engineering. Entering the second year of Emerson’s Graduate Program, Kyle is nearing completion of the program and is looking forward to what future work entails.

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