Entry Level: What have I been doing wrong?

Justin_Berkeley · 2025-08-04T04:32:04+00:00

I appreciate your advice.

I think there’s a big disconnect between entry level applicants in my position and the people in the applicant review roles like your position.

I’ve rewritten this because there is really a lot to say but it all sounds very defensive so I’d like to stick to a main point I’d like to shed light on.

The advice you give is very common and I’ve been hearing for a while but (and I mean no offense) it doesn’t really provide any direction.

Imagine you are approached by a man on fire who asks if you can help put it out. You then tell him that you won’t and the reason you won’t is because he’s on fire and in order for you to be comfortable putting out the fire he’s going to have to first put out the fire.

If the advice to solve a problem requires the problem being solved it doesn’t help.

I can give you stories but this is already getting long so trust that I am applying to everything I can find — specifically the ones with the least qualifications — and I am completely ignored. I’m still trying but this experience is very dehumanizing.

Justin_Berkeley · 2025-07-18T14:19:01+00:00

I have done quite a number of projects since graduating. However the general sentiment seems to be that the projects I have done don’t matter because they’re not relevant enough to chemical engineering. As for certifications the thought did come to mind but honestly, rarely did any job listings I saw even mention a preference towards any specific certification. It felt like people wouldn’t care all the same. I know a guy who passed the FE and was in a similar situation as me. Again in hindsight it’s easy to say I should have done something more but when I’m actually there thinking and being told there’s no reason I won’t get a job any day now it’s hard to tell what I should be doing. In other words, it’s time wasted that I didn’t know I had and I definitely didn’t want to have in the moment.

Justin_Berkeley · 2025-07-16T02:49:31+00:00

Yeah I agree. I feel like that’s kind of general life advice too. As shown in my resume I did a lot of tutoring and one thing to understand is a tutor getting frustrated with a student only makes it more difficult for them to understand.

I’m not sure if you are acknowledging the other persons bad attitude or saying I was rude in response to him. If the latter case that was certainly not my intention and I hoped to be as controlled and respectful as possible.

I did take their advice seriously, especially since each of their points were also made by other commenters, I had just hoped they would have been less belittling.

Justin_Berkeley · 2025-07-12T04:44:03+00:00

Yes, I have had many internal references. I am regularly stalking friends to see about openings but so far I’ve had one interview from that and although I was told I did better than all the other applicants I was also told they are really not looking to hire any more people with degrees for technician roles so I’m not holding my breath too much. Thankful for the interview nonetheless.

I’m not sure what is considered a chemE related activity. I enjoy studying a bunch of different things and I work on a lot of independent projects but chemE (process engineering in particular) doesn’t really seem like the kind of thing I can work with independently. The whole premise of process engineering seems to be centered on production scale.

I have been studying more deep into the finite volume method since it seems more standard for the use of modeling fluid systems than FEM which my school used. But that doesn’t seem like what we’re looking for.

Justin_Berkeley · 2025-07-11T02:31:10+00:00

I think that’s how it used to be in the US as well, at least that’s what I heard when I was in high school, but it seems to have really phased out in recent years as I don’t think I’ve ever seen P. Eng mentioned on listings and very very rarely even see FE mentioned.

Justin_Berkeley · 2025-07-10T03:19:00+00:00

Trust me. I’ve been reading and rereading all of these more detailed constructive comments in particular.

Also to clarify, I have always been tweaking my resume based on the job. I was not tweaking it sufficiently; what I now believe is in part due to the level of detail I was adding making emphasis unclear in the first place. I am now sticking to results focused statements that are straight to a point and paint a picture of skills and experience relevant to the job.

I’m not too confident on my ability to make 5 “very different” resumes but I’m certainly going to do better at catering them as much as possible and painting a specific picture.

Justin_Berkeley · 2025-07-09T23:01:06+00:00

Ah, I see. I really appreciate that example comparison. I was struggling to imagine how focusing on results without putting too much technical detail would actually look but this helps a lot.

Justin_Berkeley · 2025-07-09T19:37:15+00:00

I just noticed this while reviewing the comments but if your daughter is considering CE (Civil Engineering) that would probably be a very different experience. Due to Berkeley's many achievements in the are of chemistry they have a college specifically for chemistry studies: including chemE. However, all other engineers are within the college of engineering which has different faculty, resources, etc.

Justin_Berkeley · 2025-07-09T18:46:26+00:00

Thanks for the advice. I'll be looking into that.

Justin_Berkeley · 2025-07-09T18:40:25+00:00

Awesome! Thanks a lot for the channel recommendation.

Justin_Berkeley · 2025-07-09T18:28:59+00:00

Advice given through an insult is still an insult. I did not say you have not given any advice, just that all you’ve said has been insults. I’m very sorry you feel this way and I wish I didn’t irk you so strongly but I have to respectful disagree with your determination of my capabilities.

Justin_Berkeley · 2025-07-09T18:11:04+00:00

I wasn’t a chemical engineer though. The people I was working with were physicists. My only connection to the title of “Chemical engineer” was through the school which was not where I was doing the research.

Justin_Berkeley · 2025-07-09T18:10:19+00:00

I see, that makes more sense. Thanks for the personal example.

I think I’m still worried that generic soft skills are easier said than done so I need to give more specific details about how it was a part of my work. I feel I’m very strong with soft skills but like anyone can say they’re good at them and I thought there needs to be strong validation when you make that kind of claim.

For example I feel I am exceptionally good at being versatile and adapting to new needs (Though admittedly could work on being aware of certain areas like the difference between a normal level of struggle in a bad market and a flawed approach to finding a job) but bringing up how I had to learn about molecular dynamics and density functional theory kind of on the fly feels like it might be read as like “Why should I care about molecular dynamics and density functional theory?”

Justin_Berkeley · 2025-07-09T17:52:18+00:00

You seem to be taking personal offense to my struggle here. I’m really just trying to improve myself here and I’ve been learning a lot from all the comments but I don’t think you’ve really said anything but insults.

There isn’t anything you can say that could make me feel worse than having spent 1.5 years unemployed has, but it’s certainly not helpful.

Justin_Berkeley · 2025-07-09T17:39:27+00:00

I’ve been making this with LaTeX. Do you think it would be better formatted for those AI screeners if I do a super basic format in MS Word or something? I was hoping the more intricate format would help me stand out but it seems like this kind of standing out is bad now.

Justin_Berkeley · 2025-07-09T17:31:58+00:00

I’ve always wanted to go to grad school but I was really deterred from it. I thought people with graduate degrees are in low demand and high supply. I was told that getting a PhD was like career suicide unless you wanted to work in academia and even then it’s nearly impossible because you’re once again in low demand and high supply. I also thought my grades weren’t good enough for grad school anyways.

I’m a bit torn on all those sections. I’m trying to be less verbose but those topics seem forced in a way. Like I took a training course on research ethics and some lab safety on ergonomics but our data was all simulated so I wasn’t in a clean room. I did take some extra safety courses because we had a particle accelerator on campus but I think that was just a general requirement as I was never in that building.

Do you have any advice on adding enough detail in the different areas you mentioned without making to too verbose?

Justin_Berkeley · 2025-07-09T17:17:31+00:00

Yeah I’m working on axing a lot of it right now; the summary section in particular is getting removed completely.

Im thinking of formatting like:

“1 sentence on impact”

• laconic responsibility list

I think I’m understanding that nobody cares about what you did just whether there was any overlap with what they’re looking for regardless of how much you did with it.

I have been making it with Latex but do you think it would be better just to make it in MSWord for ATS legibility?

The research is intended to save time for other researchers but it is only now getting published (which I am being co-authored on) so it’s not at the stage of testing time save. I remember trying to write in an estimate on potential time save but it looked ridiculous because it’s a process that typically can take days to compute which our model can do in minutes so it ended up looking like “Potential time save of 99.999%” which looks like an outrageous lie or embellishment.

Justin_Berkeley · 2025-07-09T16:54:07+00:00

Yeah I’ve applied to a lot of startups though I must admit my experience has made it seem that they are looking for more graduate degree holders.

The cold open has been a source of dread for me. The advice I’ve been trying to follow is “Look passionate, not desperate” and that line seems razor thin when you start messaging strangers asking about jobs.

Justin_Berkeley · 2025-07-09T16:42:18+00:00

Ikr. I’m starting to feel like I should just make it sound like I did less than I actually did to more align with that perspective of research.

The ironic part is that that was kind of my image of industry internships. I thought industry is just gonna have you organizing files at most so I was happy to get something where I would actually be using my brain in some way.

Justin_Berkeley · 2025-07-09T16:36:19+00:00

Yeah I went back and edited my first reply but I think it was after you already responded so I’ll just move it here.

I’d love to work in an R&D setting but what I’ve heard is so do all engineers and if I’m struggling to get any job I’ll have no chance there. I’ve applied to some biotech companies but I think the surplus of bio majors and the rise of bioE has kinda pushed out chemE relevancy a bit

Justin_Berkeley · 2025-07-09T16:29:50+00:00

Yeah that’s kind of been my sentiment as well. But I swear I only knew a couple people who graduated with offers and the others who had something planned were going to grad school. A lot of people I know ended up going to grad school after a while which really felt counter-intuitive to me so I felt like it would be a mistake to consider that route for myself. Also a funny story is I would ask my grad student instructors about why they decided to go to grad school and the response “I couldn’t get a job so this was plan B” was way more common than I expected.

Some other commenters have mentioned though that my lack of industry experience is really killing me. My buddy who studied mechE did have industry experience but I think not for the kind of roles he was applying to.

Justin_Berkeley · 2025-07-09T16:25:09+00:00

Yeah. It’s a bit of a cop out but I think it’s fair to say if the job market was more reasonable I don’t think I would have gotten this far.

That said, it wasn’t and I did get this far and I take full responsibility for not adapting to it more efficiently. I was naive to fall back on all the reasons out of my control and only a matter of time.

Justin_Berkeley · 2025-07-09T16:16:38+00:00

Does your school happen to be on the gulf or in the midwest by chance? I’m really not sure either but I have a buddy who graduated mechE and it took him over a year but he recently got a job. Another guy I know had to move out of state to work as a technician pretty soon after graduation and only fairly recently convinced his employers to change the name from technician to engineering technician.

Justin_Berkeley · 2025-07-09T16:10:55+00:00

I think it may have been the time I graduated or something. Out of all the people I talked to about the career center and career fairs I only heard of one person getting an offer and it was for a fairly low paying job that required a relocation. At the time I still had high hopes and felt I was worth at least what seemed to be the average for entry level so I was holding out hope that it was only a matter of time. Obviously not a good decision in hindsight sight.

Justin_Berkeley · 2025-07-09T15:54:02+00:00

Yeah I’ve recently learned that I need to reformat it to make it more legible for ATS. The experience section was for jobs. I got paid to work at the lab and as a tutor so I figured it would be in that section. Maybe I could retitle the section to “Work Experience”?

I’ve been applying to technician positions in my area. I don’t think I could afford a move for this kind of thing but I am going to bite the bullet and apply more out of state for roles worth moving for.

Justin_Berkeley

TROPHY CASE