So, 9 months or so after I started work at my first job in electronic design I get to wondering, at what point do young engineers stop being considered as the 'graduate'.

Understand I'm not unhappy with being labelled as a graduate, the company I'm with are offereing excellant support and have allways got people to help me out when I'm stuck (which is often).

Graduate scheme's I assume transition you at the end of them into a full proffesional, but as the only raw graduate in the company there is no 'this is what you have to do to become an engineer', I work on similar jobs to all the other engineers, admittedly simpler ones at the moment.

So the question I suppose is, how long does the transition from graduate to engineer take? Is it something you push through yourself, or is it something achieved via recognition from above?

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Andrew Packwood MEng

You will be a Graduate Engineer up until the point you become a Young Engineer! Depending on which sector you work in there can often be a large demographic gap within the age range, so likely as a recent grad you may far younger than most. It's got nothing to do with knowledge / output. People may mistake you for a Graduate for anything upto the first 10 years of your career (more if you look young). You do have a opportunity to influence this by not using the term to introduce yourself when you do round the table introductions and also by displaying behaviour people might associate with someone with more experience. I would say people are far more generous with their time and more eager to share their knowledge if they assume you are a recent grad, so there are certainly benefits.

Hi

When you get your Bachelor Degree in Engineering or Technology then you have to apply at a professional Institution or Council for Graduate Membership or equivalent. It is your first step. Then that institution or council will guide or mentor you for your further professional career growth and you start your professional life at relevant market i.e. industry etc at a bachelor level position. After gaining at least 3 to 5 years Graduate Level experience, you may get the opportunity to apply for full membership or equivalent and get the professional titles after evaluation and essesment. That is the point where your grad. level is converted to the Engineer level actually.

Cheers

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Nouman Abid Chuhan
HND Engg (UK) B.Tech Hons (Pak) MIET (UK)
+923334451158

In any case, you want to put your best foot forward at all times and make yourself "indispensable" so that you become the valued engineer.

Generally when you are older than your boss
Tim

True as far as Institute recognition is concerned, but within individual companies they can give you any job title they want whenever they want - there is no regulation of titles in engineering.

So, if your title is currently "graduate engineer" someone invented that title for a reason - maybe to pacify the finance director by showing the recruitment was cheap, maybe to pacify the HR director by showing that the company was commited to developing talent. What typically happens now is that you stay at that grade until there is a reason to change it. It may be that your company has a policy on a time period for this; but more commonly the change happens either because there is a reorganisation (so effectively you have a change of role), or they realise they have to give you more money or lose you.

Best thing to do is to ask your manager: asking what you need to do to progress shows commitment and is a perfectly reasonable thing to do. If your company has a performance management programme (e.g. annual appraisals) you should make sure that there is something recorded there about how you achieve Engineer title - again making it clear that this is to increase your value to the company, not "because I'm worth it"!

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Andy Millar CEng MIET MCMI

http://www.linkedin.com/in/millarandy

It varies a lot but most of our graduates are on that grade for about 4 years.