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What You Need to Know: The High-tech Job Market
January 27, 2020 | Andy Shaughnessy, Design007 MagazineEstimated reading time: 1 minute
I met with Taylor Rousse, an engineering recruiter for Aerotek, a high-tech staffing company, at PCB Carolina to discuss the demands she sees in different industry segments and how it varies region to region. Taylor also offers advice for designers or electrical engineers in the job market, including tips on writing that perfect résumé and the return of the counter-offer.
Andy Shaughnessy: Tell us a little bit about the company and why you’re here.
Taylor Rousse: I’m an engineering recruiter, and I specialize in hardware, software, electrical, and test. Aerotek is the largest privately-held staffing company in the U.S. and in the world. There are a lot of different divisions, including customer service on the non-technical side; on the technical side, we also have engineering, clinical, and sciences. I specialize in the engineering division, so I only recruit people with engineering skill sets.
Shaughnessy: What are some of the trends you see in the industry right now?
Rousse: From an aerospace and defense standpoint, that is where I see the most business and recruits coming out of nationally. There aren’t enough people to fill the jobs that they have within the aerospace and defense space. People who have security clearance are in extremely high demand, and not even from a compensation standpoint, but from a benefits standpoint too; they can demand what they want in a role. From an embedded system perspective, a lot of students coming out of school with a computer science degree are interested in the cloud and application software, and there is more demand than ever for embedded, C, and C++. FPGAs are absolutely off the chart.
I’m looking for an entry-level FPGA designer right now, and the company is very flexible with what they’d offer for the right person. Embedded, C, and C++ are a necessary skill set that’s going to be around, especially when it comes to people who are coming out of school, because the company gets a chance to bring them up with training in the ways they would like them to work. With FPGA design, you can get into the aerospace and defense space 100% and go for it. If a company gives you the chance to come on without a clearance, take that job.
To read this entire interview, which appeared in the December 2019 issue of Design007 Magazine, click here.
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