By Candace Stuart
Small Times Senior Writer
Jeff Wang is one year short of completing his Ph. D program and already has three solid job offers, several e-mail queries and an assortment of business cards from companies interested in his small tech expertise. He plans to turn them all down.
“At this moment I think I can start up my own company right after graduation,” he said. He’s confident he and the DNA sensor he developed in
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| Source: Georgia Tech |
Graduate students specializing in MEMS, microsystems and nanotechnology are almost guaranteed employment when they leave school. A tight job market and a limited pool of qualified candidates have forced companies to recruit early and aggressively. With the most highly skilled grads fetching six-digit starting salaries, pay becomes secondary to opportunity and compatibility. Few students see the wobbly economy and shakeup in the tech sector as a threat. For some recruiters, it’s a godsend.
“Demand is tremendous,” said Leyla Conrad, associate director for education at the Packaging Research Center at Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta. With support from the National Science Foundation and industry, the center concentrates on microsystem packaging, a critical component for getting small tech devices from the lab into the marketplace.
Conrad, who tracks job and salary offers to each of the center’s graduates, says that although the market has cooled slightly this year, grads still get anywhere between five to 15 interview requests.
“Some leave the door open,” she said. “Although they receive offers, they don’t make promises. As far as I can see, the companies go along with that.”
According to her survey, a candidate who completes the Ph.D. program this year will get between $90,000 and $120,000 — not including signing bonuses that can add $10,000, and other incentives. With an M.S., a graduate draws $70,000 to $80,000; and with a B.S. and research experience, low to mid $50,000.
Engineers in general continue to lead national job market and salary surveys, none of which break out specialties like MEMS and microsystems. Engineers will be the most sought-after graduates this year, according to Michigan State University’s annual recruiting trends survey.
And they will command top pay. The National Association of Colleges and Employers’ 2001 salary report shows an electrical engineer with a master’s degree will earn on average $66,896 — less than Georgia Tech’s packaging grad — and an undergraduate will get $52,230.
To get the best talent, recruiters say they must start early and take initiative. Often they try to establish relationships well before a candidate finishes school, offering internships and get-acquainted opportunities. Recruitment isn’t left to just the personnel departments; established companies and startups alike rely on their top brass to help. They know they need to sell candidates on not just the job, but also the institution and its mission.
“Everyone is kind of a recruiter here,” said Doug Greenfield, technical recruiter for the Rockwell Science Center in Thousand Oaks, Calif. Darek Cheung, RSC’s director and vice president for research, takes the time to present two seminars a year at key institutions to interact with promising researchers like Wang. RSC executives and technical managers attend job fairs. Greenfield remains ever vigilant.
“We treat recruitment as a year-round process,” he said. The center uses its 18 MEMS specialists and 20 support staff to handle contracts for the $7 billion automation, avionics and electronics giant Rockwell as well as the government. They work in three areas: RF (radio frequency), microwave and millimeter wave devices; sensors, and optical devices.
It’s a difficult environment to play catch-up, as the Torrance, Calif.-based startup MEMGen is doing after securing more than $11 million in venture capital funding in March. President and CEO Adam Cohen takes an active role in recruitment, personnel manager Melanie Sergejeff says, using affiliations with the University of Southern California and the University of California, Berkeley to find candidates.
The MEMS manufacturer filled 12 research positions and had 20 more open by the end of April, Sergejeff says, and hopes to have a staff of 50 within a year. She plans to continue a campaign of Internet and print advertising, and sees a windfall in the semiconductor industry’s recent downslide.
“I’m keeping an ear out for when semiconductor (companies) are folding,” she said, to recruit skilled workers. “MEMS experience would be better, but semiconductors is the next best thing.”
Rockwell Science Center MEMS manager Jeff DeNatale said his ideal candidate is a multi-skilled worker who is innovative, creative and willing to handle a variety of contracts. “My needs can change in seven days,” he said, so a versatile MEMS engineer is always welcome.
RSC is competing with a myriad of employers for those few stars, though. A recent search under “MEMS” on the Internet job site Monster.com turned up 186 entries; Internet competitor hotjobs.com offered 135. Few sites include the opposite — MEMS specialists seeking employment.
In this market, students look beyond the paycheck for more enriching opportunities, Conrad says. They’re in a position to demand intellectual challenges and career growth. Some prefer the excitement and newness of a MEMGen, others favor the reputation and maturity of a Rockwell Science Center.
A few, like Wang, see even more possibilities. He wants to combine his professional experience as a manager for a semiconductor company in his native land, Taiwan, with his skills as a researcher. He has decided to remain in the United States, but at 31 he’d rather be his own boss.
His biggest impediment to starting a business, he said, is working in a language he is still learning. But his fears abated when several of his friends at UCLA, who like him speak English as a second language, forged ahead as entrepreneurs. Not only did they inspire him, they also are providing guidance about governmental procedures, funding and other crucial topics.
“We have some colleagues who have a similar background,” Wang said “They are very good examples for me.”