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What job can I do as a chemical engineering student and where can I apply?
I am a final year student studying towards my National Diploma in Chemical Engineering. I am looking to enter the industry but am struggling to make an impression on the major, blue-chip companies. Help and advice required on how to lay-out my CV and how best to approach these companies.
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James Constantine Frangos
Consultant Dietitian & Software Developer since 1972 => Nutrition Education => Health & Longevity => Self-Actualization.
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James Constantine’s Answer
Dear Kimisha,
As a student pursuing chemical engineering, a myriad of job prospects await you across diverse sectors. Here are some typical roles you might consider:
1. Process Engineer: This role involves designing, developing, and refining industrial processes for chemical or pharmaceutical manufacturing. You might work towards enhancing efficiency, cutting costs, or improving product quality. Sectors like chemical manufacturing, pharmaceuticals, and oil refining often recruit process engineers.
2. Research and Development (R&D) Engineer: In this capacity, you'll engage in research to innovate new products or upgrade existing ones. This could involve creating new chemical formulations or devising novel manufacturing processes. Companies in chemicals, pharmaceuticals, biotechnology, and materials science often have R&D roles.
3. Quality Control Engineer: These engineers ensure products adhere to specifications and regulations. They often test raw materials and finished goods to verify quality standards. This role is crucial in industries like food processing, pharmaceuticals, and electronics manufacturing.
4. Safety Engineer: Safety engineers aim to reduce risks in industrial environments by creating safety systems and enforcing safety protocols. They often conduct process safety analysis or risk assessments for new projects. Industries with hazardous processes, such as oil refining and chemical manufacturing, typically employ safety engineers.
5. Environmental Engineer: These engineers devise systems to decrease waste production and lessen the environmental footprint of industrial processes. They might work on air pollution control systems or water treatment plants. Companies in the chemical industry or other heavy manufacturing sectors often require environmental engineers.
6. Operations Manager: Operations managers supervise daily activities within a plant or facility, ensuring smooth and efficient production while upholding safety standards and regulatory compliance. This role necessitates robust leadership skills and a grasp of process engineering principles.
7. Consultant: As a consultant, you could offer advice to companies aiming to enhance their processes or design new facilities. Consulting firms frequently recruit chemical engineering graduates for their technical and problem-solving abilities.
To apply for these roles, begin by researching companies that align with your career aspirations in your preferred industry sector(s). Customize your CV for each application, emphasizing relevant coursework, projects, internships, or work experience:
- Identify key skills: Scrutinize job descriptions to understand the qualifications needed for each role (process engineering knowledge, project management experience, etc.). Highlight these skills in your CV.
- Personalize your cover letter: Mention the company name and job title in your cover letter. Explain why you're keen to work for that organization and how your background aligns with their needs. Incorporate relevant keywords from the job posting.
- Network: Connect with professionals in your target industry via LinkedIn or professional chemical engineering organizations. Attend industry events when possible to stay abreast of trends and expand your professional network.
May God bless you, Kimisha!
JC.
As a student pursuing chemical engineering, a myriad of job prospects await you across diverse sectors. Here are some typical roles you might consider:
1. Process Engineer: This role involves designing, developing, and refining industrial processes for chemical or pharmaceutical manufacturing. You might work towards enhancing efficiency, cutting costs, or improving product quality. Sectors like chemical manufacturing, pharmaceuticals, and oil refining often recruit process engineers.
2. Research and Development (R&D) Engineer: In this capacity, you'll engage in research to innovate new products or upgrade existing ones. This could involve creating new chemical formulations or devising novel manufacturing processes. Companies in chemicals, pharmaceuticals, biotechnology, and materials science often have R&D roles.
3. Quality Control Engineer: These engineers ensure products adhere to specifications and regulations. They often test raw materials and finished goods to verify quality standards. This role is crucial in industries like food processing, pharmaceuticals, and electronics manufacturing.
4. Safety Engineer: Safety engineers aim to reduce risks in industrial environments by creating safety systems and enforcing safety protocols. They often conduct process safety analysis or risk assessments for new projects. Industries with hazardous processes, such as oil refining and chemical manufacturing, typically employ safety engineers.
5. Environmental Engineer: These engineers devise systems to decrease waste production and lessen the environmental footprint of industrial processes. They might work on air pollution control systems or water treatment plants. Companies in the chemical industry or other heavy manufacturing sectors often require environmental engineers.
6. Operations Manager: Operations managers supervise daily activities within a plant or facility, ensuring smooth and efficient production while upholding safety standards and regulatory compliance. This role necessitates robust leadership skills and a grasp of process engineering principles.
7. Consultant: As a consultant, you could offer advice to companies aiming to enhance their processes or design new facilities. Consulting firms frequently recruit chemical engineering graduates for their technical and problem-solving abilities.
To apply for these roles, begin by researching companies that align with your career aspirations in your preferred industry sector(s). Customize your CV for each application, emphasizing relevant coursework, projects, internships, or work experience:
- Identify key skills: Scrutinize job descriptions to understand the qualifications needed for each role (process engineering knowledge, project management experience, etc.). Highlight these skills in your CV.
- Personalize your cover letter: Mention the company name and job title in your cover letter. Explain why you're keen to work for that organization and how your background aligns with their needs. Incorporate relevant keywords from the job posting.
- Network: Connect with professionals in your target industry via LinkedIn or professional chemical engineering organizations. Attend industry events when possible to stay abreast of trends and expand your professional network.
May God bless you, Kimisha!
JC.
Updated
Rachel’s Answer
Hi Kimisha! Congratulations on being in your final year for your diploma! To start, if you have an exact idea of what you want to do as a Chemical Engineer, that's great! If not, I would recommend expanding your search to areas relevant to skills you've gained rather than just the specific subject matter with in these companies you are looking at. From my experience, I have seen Chemical Engineering students get hired into jobs related to Environmental Compliance roles or Reliability and Regulatory roles and etc. If you're finding it hard to get noticed in a more specific role, try expanding your search to some what relative positions. You might be surprised what you find.
In terms of your CV, try tailoring it as much as possible to the role you are applying for by using key words/verbiage that are found in the job descriptions. When recruiters are reviewing CVs, they typically will run a key word search to find candidates that match what is in the description. I don't recommend lying or including anything that you aren't experienced in or familiar with, but you can utilize similar words and language used to explain your experience.
Recruiters are typically reviewing loads of resumes so you want to keep things to one page as much as possible, well formatted and easy to read. Include your degree and when you are graduating, experience (if you had any internships or related work), projects you've worked on in school or outside of school (provide more detail here if you do not have any relevant internship experience) and then add a skills section and/or extra curriculars.
I hope some of this helps!
Look up various companies and their career sites to see what type of roles they are posting.
Make sure to check your school's job boards if there are any roles posted there.
Look at companies on LinkedIn and see if you can find any recruiters from that company.
In terms of your CV, try tailoring it as much as possible to the role you are applying for by using key words/verbiage that are found in the job descriptions. When recruiters are reviewing CVs, they typically will run a key word search to find candidates that match what is in the description. I don't recommend lying or including anything that you aren't experienced in or familiar with, but you can utilize similar words and language used to explain your experience.
Recruiters are typically reviewing loads of resumes so you want to keep things to one page as much as possible, well formatted and easy to read. Include your degree and when you are graduating, experience (if you had any internships or related work), projects you've worked on in school or outside of school (provide more detail here if you do not have any relevant internship experience) and then add a skills section and/or extra curriculars.
I hope some of this helps!
Rachel recommends the following next steps:
Thank you so much! Will definitely follow your guidelines :)
Kimisha
Updated
Marija’s Answer
Hi Kimisha
You've got some great tips from Rachel , answering directly your question on how to lay out your CV to increase your chances of getting hired. You should definitely follow those, as they are clearly coming from a professional recruiter with great experience. It will most definitely help achieve your goal.
Now, I'd like to give you a totally different perspective, as a manager in a large IT company.
When reviewing graduate CVs and interviewing , what I'm personally looking for is:
- Ethics
It's super important to me that I hire someone I can trust, someone the team and the company can trust and rely on.
- Ability to learn and scale
Your diploma can help you in your specific field/ industry but don't think you can't land a job in an entirely different industry - only if you want to. With digitalization , workforce is also evolving, studies showing that more than 50% of the jobs that exist today won't be there in 5-10 years from now anyway therefore it's so much more important to hire a candidate who can and will want to learn and grow rather than someone who already has a certain experience but limited growth potential. Finally, when I turn around and look at my coworkers, some of them have graduated in IT, some have studied languages or geography etc and are very successful in IT industry so don't think you can only work in the filed where you graduated - not at all. If you read few articles about Workforce of the future- you'll see most top performing companies are hiring for skills. Experience helps and is important especially in some specific roles - but focus on skills and potential is higher than ever.
- Diversity
Having team members with diverse personalities, different personal interests and life experiences always instigates a good discussion as they are approaching a business problem from a completely different angle and that helps us find unique, out of the box business solutions which ultimately helps us win in the market place.
Hope to have encouraged you to expand your horizons, all the best
Marija
You've got some great tips from Rachel , answering directly your question on how to lay out your CV to increase your chances of getting hired. You should definitely follow those, as they are clearly coming from a professional recruiter with great experience. It will most definitely help achieve your goal.
Now, I'd like to give you a totally different perspective, as a manager in a large IT company.
When reviewing graduate CVs and interviewing , what I'm personally looking for is:
- Ethics
It's super important to me that I hire someone I can trust, someone the team and the company can trust and rely on.
- Ability to learn and scale
Your diploma can help you in your specific field/ industry but don't think you can't land a job in an entirely different industry - only if you want to. With digitalization , workforce is also evolving, studies showing that more than 50% of the jobs that exist today won't be there in 5-10 years from now anyway therefore it's so much more important to hire a candidate who can and will want to learn and grow rather than someone who already has a certain experience but limited growth potential. Finally, when I turn around and look at my coworkers, some of them have graduated in IT, some have studied languages or geography etc and are very successful in IT industry so don't think you can only work in the filed where you graduated - not at all. If you read few articles about Workforce of the future- you'll see most top performing companies are hiring for skills. Experience helps and is important especially in some specific roles - but focus on skills and potential is higher than ever.
- Diversity
Having team members with diverse personalities, different personal interests and life experiences always instigates a good discussion as they are approaching a business problem from a completely different angle and that helps us find unique, out of the box business solutions which ultimately helps us win in the market place.
Hope to have encouraged you to expand your horizons, all the best
Marija
Thank you Marija, really appreciate your advice. I am definitely looking to work in industries other than engineering. I find that I quite enjoy research as well as the banking sector and "finding the money". Will do my best to incorporate this into my CV :)
Kimisha