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Increasing weight of engineers on the farm

The explosive growth of automation, robotics, digitization, big data, artificial intelligence, cloud solutions, renewable energy developments, innovative infrastructures and data processing in the next five years, the direction of economic development in Hungary as well – points out the latest research of the Together for the Engineers of the Future Association (EJMSZ) and the labor recruitment company Tech People, which has a 20-year history. The survey involved senior executives from 75 manufacturing and production companies employing more than a hundred technicians. Respondents agree that in the future, engineers and IT experts will play a more prominent role in the development of the economy and industry.

industrial, process, electromechanical, development and test engineers, quality management or automation engineers, possibly energy / environmental and IoT engineers

There is still little practice in engineering training

The research also shows that the managers of large companies are not satisfied with the current supply of engineers, either in quantity or quality. About 70 percent of respondents mentioned that there are fundamentally few newly graduated, high-quality engineers, and as a result of demographic trends and the migration of talent abroad, that number will become smaller. The situation is further threatened by the under-representation of women in engineering
. what areas of engineers are also needed. In almost all of the answers, it can be found that university courses are too theory-oriented (although they are mostly of a high standard), so more industry experience, practice (manuality) would be needed for new graduates to create real value – even at the time of entry

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Shortage of professions – traditional and new

– One of the main aims of our joint research with the EMCDDA is to assess the needs of the engineering market. The result is clear: the pure engineering professions have lost their marketability, and the proportion of “chemically pure” engineers is declining within the total number. However, there is a huge demand in the market for mechatronic engineers, for example, who also have knowledge in mechanical and electronic fields. There is a terrible shortage of robotics engineers, but there has been an unprecedented vacuum in quality management engineers, mainly due to compliance with automotive standards and increasing quality expectations in the industry. There could be many more IT engineers, industry 4.0 engineers, in the market, but there is also a huge shortage of MES engineers (Manufacturing Execution System). It is noteworthy, however, that it is not only in these new areas that there is a shortage of engineers. There are traditional engineering professions that have been in short supply for decades. These include, for example, engineers in the welding, oil or injection molding industries. Of course, people moving in traditional disciplines now also need IT skills. An engineer, be it an expert in any field, finds it very difficult to get a job without basic IT knowledge – points out Bence Berkó , Tech People expert.

The survey specifically looked at how business leaders see the development of engineers’ IT knowledge in general. The majority of respondents have seen a positive change in recent years for career starters. – In the research, we did not ask how engineers with 25-35 years of experience stand with IT skills. So we don’t have up-to-date information on this right now. However, it is clear that the direction is good. In the case of recent graduates, the change in both IT and foreign language skills is positive – emphasizes Bence Berkó

institutions. EJMSZ has already started negotiations with several universities. The aim of the strategic cooperation agreements is to provide attention and opportunities for introduction to technical and engineering professions and career opportunities offered by companies in hundreds of primary and secondary schools across the country. The first agreement with the University of Miskolc has already been reached. EJMSZ is also expected to sign a cooperation agreement with a university in the capital and in eastern Hungary in 2021.

Some where paper is important, some where not

Although the survey did not return an interesting question related to the topic is whether the market also selects according to where and at what level the candidate obtained the qualification. This issue is mainly raised in the field of informatics. Based on 16 years of experience as a bounty hunter, Bence Berkó sees that one extreme is represented by organizations that do not employ BSc graduates at all, but do not even admit those who have already started their MSc but have not yet obtained their degree. . This group typically includes organizations engaged in research and development activities. It is important for them that even their novice engineers have a scientific background, possibly a PhD. These organizations also prefer to employ programming mathematicians. Here (also) there is a clear return to the earlier finding that “clean” engineers do not live up to expectations. company or an electronics factory with thousands of employees. For them, knowledge and experience typically matter, not the level of the degree. – I see that in most cases, when looking for a staff member to program in some specific language, no one cares where the candidate graduated, whether they have any paper at all. If you have only trained yourself in a self-taught way and have a few years of work experience, you will still be able to enter the job market in a matter of seconds, says the Tech People expert.

Knowledge is a huge asset

A topical question is also whether newcomers or engineers with many years of experience are more in demand in the labor market. Although this has not been covered in the research, bounty hunters have information to this effect. Take, for example, a professional with 30 years of experience in the oil industry. I am convinced that, unless he wants to, he does not have to spend a single day without work. Knowledge is invaluable in the current market environment. Of course, it is decisive what kind of expertise a company needs. Clearly, both senior engineers and juniors have their own advantages, and these advantages typically don’t go anywhere. They run in parallel. Juniors are easy to shape, they have no stiffened schemes, no mental barriers. We can also say that, in a good sense, they are more unscrupulous than their older colleagues. In addition, they are much better prepared for the international environment, they speak foreign languages ​​better, and they are at home in the world of informatics. At the same time, the 25-30 years of specialized experience of a senior engineer is invaluable to the company. There is no substitute for this. But: members of the older generation speak less languages, are less familiar with IT systems, and perhaps less responsive to cultural change than their younger colleagues, points out Bence Berkó.

In the case of seniors, there are usually two scenarios. it usually happens at companies. One is when a company simply doesn’t employ an engineer who can’t use the IT tools essential to his or her job. The other is that the IT systems in question are made user-friendly by various means and methods. This, of course, requires a kind of corporate culture, as well as sales and margins that allow for the necessary changes. In the experience of the bounty hunter, these will be the companies that can keep both senior and junior employees at the same time, thus becoming the winners of the market competition at the end of the day.

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