‘Graduated’, we sometimes love to share it in our social networking site or celebrate the moment with friends & family. This word comes along with goal, responsibilities, career, future etc. In the applied engineering section, Industrial Engineering and Textile Engineering are two preferred departments not only for a career but also for wide acceptance. After completing graduation from Industrial & Production Engineering or Textile Engineering, fresher sometimes fall in confusion, frustration or sometimes they are trying to move any other career field which is not relevant to their academic qualification. By reading this content, hopefully, you will get some ideas of how How to Start Your Career as a Fresh Graduate of Industrial Engineer and Textile Engineer.
Initiatives from University Life
- From second year undergraduate students start their relevant courses. It is necessary to know full course curriculum. It’s good practice to make open discussion with seniors who are in third year or final year, to know about how to be prepared for upcoming courses or how should be inclined with study. For textile engineering undergraduates, a soft advice to know the depth & importance of choosing major at third year, as this choice mostly define their career.
- A final year student should focus on the importance of academic courses in his/her career. If he/she obtained an outstanding result, then can focus on continuing that with a vision to make footsteps in teaching profession or may be for BCS, government job or private job as per choices. On contrary, if anyone unable to achieve good results then they should not crave for this anymore and concentrate of what to learn. You are not getting a good score that doesn’t mean you know less. May be your choices & preferences are different. Try to think that level, don’t be frustrated. That is the golden time of your life to be prepare for future, make yourself prepared for the result of being ‘graduated’.
- When you pass half of the time of final year, it’s the time to find your strength, weakness, opportunities and threats (do a SWOT analysis of yourself). For example, you have good result (may be CGPA 3.75 or up) focus on that & u can easily prepared yourself for teaching profession; you have middle range CGPA and want to work for a bank or multinational company in future, focus on that; you are in low range CGPA, don’t get upset, look at your strength & opportunities. May be you are good at AutoCAD, may be you completed a course on lean manufacturing, may be you know a lot about practical implementation of courses, then why this fear! Don’t waste your time & focus on thesis/ internship/ project which will work as a ladder to reach your desired interest area.
- You just finished your final exam, continuing your thesis/ project/ internship, now it is your time to select your career!
Career Path Selection
- You were so busy with your courses that didn’t get time to make a curriculum vitae or resume! If not, don’t be sad, you can make it now! Take help from google, get templates and make you own CV, may be you can get advice from your teachers or seniors. You are not competing to be a CEO, so no need to write your CV from professional CV writer. By writing your CV may be way to know yourself well & it is the first time a fresher can understand his/her strength well.
- You know your seniors; you are a member of your university career hunt team, try to interact with them often. You will get so many job information suited for your career. You start to open profile in several job portals. Some of favorite job portals are Bdjobs.com, Chakri.com, Jagojobs.com, CVlinked.com, Chakrir Khobor, Job Tips, Protom Alo jobs etc. Don’t forget to take a suitable photograph for your CV. Make template cover letter for yourself, it is necessary for applying some category jobs. Get yourself fully prepared.
- Consult yourself, your family, your seniors, your teachers or you can take help from google which type of job or career path matches your qualification. Once you set, then go for it. Apply job portal, take job circulation from seniors & apply. Oh yes, you didn’t complete your graduation yet! So what, you are ready to apply for jobs from now. If you are planning to do earlier two steps after graduation your goals are intangible yet!
- You can complete some small timeline professional courses, get Microsoft (Excel, Power point, Word) lessons and make yourself an attractive package that anybody would like to grab. By this time, you complete your thesis/ project/ internship. Forget your fear, remove your shyness, erase your tag whether you are from private university or public university. you know yourself, you already made your CV, did SWOT of yours, set up career goals, applied for jobs, most importantly you are graduated now. Hurrah!
Get Into Career
- For textile engineer or industrial engineer (who want to choose textile or garments sector) it is necessary to fix if you want to work in garments or textile or spinning. Then decide whether it is woven, knit, denim, lingerie or sweater section you want to establish your career. Then divide your thoughts into several subsections like, whether you want to work in knitting, weaving, dyeing, washing, cutting, printing, sewing, finishing, quality, logistics etc. Then draw a decision tree of several departments like Quality Management, Industrial Engineering, Planning & Co-ordination, Marketing & Merchandising, Supply Chain, Production, Operation, Procurement etc. Do analysis from job portal JD (Job description), google & take information from seniors. Match which fields suits your potential most & which you have interest. Oh yes, by this time you got interview calls, Congratulations!
- You know your preference area. So you are going to be ready for this competitive world. Make a self-analysis before interview, google on company which is interested in you, take a print of your CV, read JD properly, know basic question which may be interrogated or asked, have a fresh look, be on time & yes after 5 minutes it will be your call to attend the interview!
- Sometimes it may be 2 or 3 steps of interview for fresher. Logical analysis, departmental questionaries’ & verbal interview. Complete first two steps confidently with proper time management. When you are on verbal interview board, be confident again, be honest, be straight forward, be proper goal oriented, try to focus them towards you by your answers, hey, it’s you, an Engineer!
- May be you will fail; may be you will get a job offer! In first case, focus on your goal & ready to repeat the same cycle. You are experienced & more confident than before, Congratulations! In second case, you got the job offer, Congratulations! You are on the first step of unbound steps of your stair. Learn, learn & learn how to reach the tangible goals! Good luck!
Graduation will be a blessing, if you follow mentioned three steps & twelve sub-steps. In developed countries so many colleges & universities have counseling department where they help students to choose their career path. As in our country this system is not available yet, we have to make our initiatives by own. Choosing the best career can change your whole life. So, it is necessary to work for this from the early stage of university life. Anyone can continue his/her higher education such as M.Sc., MBA, PGD etc. as per choice which will add value in career. Hope Bangladesh will get her sun-child by soon who will be confident, educated, honest, leader & can compete with the people of other developed countries.
Written by
Sharmin Akther Diba
Industrial & Production Engineer
Rajshahi University of Engineering & Technology
Email: [email protected]
LinkedIn: Sharmin Akther Diba
