Successfully transitioning from university to a professional engineering career is a critical moment for any graduate, and the application process requires strategic preparation beyond just academic competence. 

Many students struggle to understand what employers truly seek in a new engineer and how to showcase their potential effectively.

This episode unlocks the secrets to a standout graduate application, sharing direct insights on core soft skills like communication and teamwork, the role of mentorship, and the career growth trajectory within leading firms. Learn about the value of different-sized companies, from large-scale multi-office execution to a hands-on, personal approach, and the importance of professional development and diversity initiatives. Host Dusty Rhodes is joined by two exceptional industry leaders: Michelle O'Hagan, Group Graduate Recruitment Manager at PM Group, and Bill Bates, Director at DBFL

THINGS WE SPOKE ABOUT
●    Why graduate programs are essential
●    Big vs small company advantages
●    Soft skills employers demand now
●    Successful career progression examples
●    How to make your application stand out

GUEST DETAILS
Michelle O’Hagan is the Group Graduate Recruitment Manager at PM Group, a leading global project management and engineering company known for delivering complex capital projects worldwide. She manages the full graduate recruitment lifecycle across PM Group’s international offices, ensuring the company attracts top emerging talent. Michelle's extensive experience, including prior roles at Deloitte UK and Citi Bank, makes her an expert in understanding what drives success in early engineering careers.

Bill Bates is a Director at DBFL Consulting Engineers, one of Ireland's leading civil, structural, and transportation consultancies. Bill is responsible for overseeing the Civil Engineering team and has extensive experience in the design and delivery of major infrastructure and development projects across the country. As a Director, Bill is deeply involved in DBFL's Graduate Development Programme and the career progression of their staff, making him a key resource for understanding the pathways to Chartered Engineer status and professional success within the Irish engineering sector.

 

QUOTES
●    "Confidence, talking about themselves, talking about their other aspects, their engineering career is only at the start, so they have very little to talk about in that. But I want to know what they've done to date. Tell me about themselves." - Bill Bates
●    "The actual programme itself is a two year programme, but it runs in parallel with your job. So you're permanent from day one, you don't have to re-interview for a role on completion of the programme, which a lot of graduate programmes in our industry does." - Michelle O'Hagan 
●    "Be confident in your own ability, but be able to show humility and be able to listen to all others perspectives." - Bill Bates

TRANSCRIPTION
For your convenience here is an AI transcription.
 
Dusty Rhodes  0:01  
Right now on AMPLIFIED

Bill Bates  0:03  
Confidence, talking about themselves, talking about their other aspects, their engineering career is only at the start, so they have very little to talk about in that. But I want to know what they've done to date. Tell me about themselves. Tell me about their their hobbies that would interest me.

Dusty Rhodes  0:21  
Hi there. My name is Dusty Rhodes, and you're welcome to AMPLIFIED the Engineers Journal Podcast and the third and final episode in our special mini series an engineer like me last time we spoke to students about maximising their time in University. Today, we're taking the next critical step and hearing directly from graduate employers. They'll be sharing how you can best prepare for that all important graduate application, what it takes to stand out as a new engineer and the clear paths to building a long and successful career within the industry. We're joined by two exceptional industry leaders, Group Graduate Recruitment Manager at PM Group, Michelle O'Hagan, and Director at  DBFL Bill, Bates, Michelle and Bill, you're both very welcome. Thanks for having us. Dusty, thank you. So listen. The first question I have to ask is, why do you have a graduate programme in the first place, Bill?

Bill Bates  1:12  
Well, the, the first thing we seen does day from early doors was we were getting these traditional academics, let's say, with college degrees, but they offered very little to the industry and usefulness to clients directly. So we seen that we needed to get them more in a structured fashion, to get them from that academic world that they learned all of this great mathematics, physical sciences and whatever, and try and use their skills to develop them into the future engineers, to be able to solve problems, meet our clients objectives. We established our Graduate Development Programme, which, I suppose, from Michelle's perspective, we were, we were in a in a smaller organisation at the time, maybe 100 or so at that time, we felt we needed to put some more structure onto our graduates and get them in a more efficient way from graduate to professional status with Engineers Ireland.

Dusty Rhodes  2:13  
And Michelle, can you tell us briefly about the Graduate Programme at PM Group?

Michelle O’Hagan  2:16  
Yeah, of course. Our Graduate Programme, has been our formal Graduate Programme has been established since 2006  to date, we've had 1500 students come through the training. The actual programme itself is a two year programme, but it runs in parallel with your job. So you're permanent from day one, you don't have to re interview for a role on completion of the programme, which a lot of graduate programmes in our industry does. So that's, I guess, a benefit to the students, but the training itself is a blended learning approach, and by blended, what I mean is 80% of it is on the job training, because engineers face unique challenges daily, and we can't replicate that in a classroom. And 20% then is formal training, and that's where we would cover the engineering disciplinaries, the sectors we operate in the clients we work with, and also those soft skills, communication, time management, teamwork, problem solving, and again, it's bringing it to industry standard. So when the students go out, they're comfortable in doing so we also assign students a dedicated mentor. So we have a mentorship programme within pm group, and the students are assigned a mentor that is in the company anything from five to 10 years, and they're there to give them advice around career progression, any challenges they encounter, and even just to have a conversation, somebody to talk to if they have if they need advice. So yeah, that's just a bit about the Graduate Programme.

Dusty Rhodes  3:35  
Grand, but listen, just so for anybody listening to get an idea of because we're looking at two really different kind of situations, which is great, because we're getting experience from two different angles. PM, Group is a much larger group. Just in a sentence. How big is it?

Michelle O’Hagan  3:49  
We have 4,000 people working for us now, that milestone we hit about two weeks ago. So that's hot off the press. I actually don't think we put that externally, so you've heard it here first. I think the announcement is going out in January. So yeah, you've heard it here first, but yeah, we're delighted to have 4,000 poeple.

Dusty Rhodes  4:05  
And you've offices all over the country.

Michelle O’Hagan  4:08  
Yeah, Ireland, UK. Asia, Europe and the USA, multiple offices in those locations.

Dusty Rhodes  4:14  
Whereas Bill DBFL is kind of it's a smaller organisation, and there's a huge amount of advantage to that as well. Tell me about that?

Bill Bates  4:21  
Yeah, in the say we are a mere 2,00 employees, but we're strategically positioned across the country to be able to serve our clients in a more efficient manner. That small, personal, handheld approach, let's say, for our clients, is one of our benefits and one of our strengths, and our clients keep returning to us. We have many return clients that the prefer that level of service. Want to take them from the start of the project right through to the end,

Dusty Rhodes  4:50  
and from a graduates point of view, then it's also nicer working in a smaller company, because it's easier to kind of get to know people, whereas in a larger company, you can get lost.

Bill Bates  5:00  
Can't speak for Michelle, obviously, in PM group, but I have worked in larger organisations. I'm very familiar. You do tend to get a little bit pigeonholed a little bit in the larger organisations. With the smaller we we can offer that variety. We have the flexibility to move young graduates around. I mean, as an example, even though we've 200 people working for dbfl at this point in excess. Just over we have 50 graduates on our programme at the minute. Okay, at various levels, yeah, moving towards some, moving towards chartership, some, just recently, starting there in September.

Dusty Rhodes  5:36  
Listen, tell me your 50 graduates in there. What kind of projects are they typically working on?

Bill Bates  5:40  
They work on everything across the board. Obviously, the housing crisis is always the biggest one on the agenda, but we do work for many of the larger housing developers across the country. We'd be working in heavy civil engineering projects. We'll be, I mean, we do a lot of work at Dublin port. We do a lot of we've even done work at Dublin Airport. We've recently come off the back of Ross lair Europort as part of a design build project to open up and expand that area. We also work in transportation and building structures. We we're heavily involved in active travel public realm, and you know, the highly focused schemes like the new velodrome out in Blanchardstown. We've just recently got away.

Dusty Rhodes  6:24  
Michelle, I imagine you are very simply and you're working across a huge, wide brief of projects. Tell me graduates that are working with you, what kind of work are they typically doing?

Michelle O’Hagan  6:35  
So again, similar to Bill, our graduates are getting a variety of work as well, something that's quite unique to ourselves. We specialise in pharmaceutical mission critical. Mission Critical is basically data centres, okay, and food and beverages and advanced manufacturing. So when the students come in as a graduate over the course of the two years, they could be working on multiple projects, depending on what part of the project to join. So we could have a graduate sitting in Dublin, but they're doing multi office execution, supporting projects in Boston, supporting projects in Poland. So they're getting an introduction to working with multicultural employees and the departments as well. They also will get exposure to not only one of those projects over the course of the two so on completion of the programme, they're able to decide which project or which area of interest they want to focus their attention on. And so be it pharma, and then they can start specialising as well.

Dusty Rhodes  7:32  
Okay, cool. And what kind of hands on, kind of decision making Do you allow?

Michelle O’Hagan  7:37  
Yeah, so our graduates are given responsibility from day one, we feel that's the best way to learn, not necessarily thrown in at the deep end. There is support networks in place, of course, and they have their line manager, direct manager, and then the team that surrounds them, but we do give them challenge and work. They're assigned to a project team, and that could be with any one of our tier one clients on site, and some of them get the opportunity to go out and be based directly on the client site as well. So as part of our programme, there's a mandatory six month site placement, and we feel that that's where they're able to put the theory that they've learned in university into practice and the skills that they've developed on our programme into real life situations and projects that we're working on.

Dusty Rhodes  8:18  
And Bill, can I ask the same with yourself, with the graduates who are working with you, when you take them in, what kind of hands on autonomy do you give them with their projects?

Bill Bates  8:25  
They're largely very similar to Michelle. The unfortunate thing is, with young graduates, they they have that limited knowledge, that limited ability, but what we expect from is to show that level of enthusiasm, yeah, for the work, they will share the workload. They will be working alongside their line manager. They will not be given complete autonomy. They will be allowed to make engineering choices. What we tend to focus on early in their career is the technical element, ensuring that they have the necessary skills to increase their experience, and also to increase their confidence. When they get that confidence, we let them run with it.

Dusty Rhodes  9:07  
That's the key to it. Okay, grant so there's a certain element of kind of proving yourself.

Exactly, It's not even a question. I mean, as we always say, the diamonds will always shine. They will always come to the top. Those guys that show their confidence show their ability. I've take that knowledge from the college experience, their days, their communication, being able to communicate openly, and naturally, those guys will will be the ones that will take on those challenges early. Some may not. Some may just have to bring those skills up a little bit further as they progress. And our Graduate Development Programme has been established to help with those sort of things. They will be able to shadow the senior engineers, senior management positions, listen to, let's say, our bad voices on the phones and on meetings they can overhear. They can learn by just rubbing shoulders with,oh yeah, just to just begin the office. 

Bill Bates  10:05  
Yeah, the challenges from your peers actually assist you.

Dusty Rhodes  10:12  
That's it. Now, you said that the diamonds always shine, right? But rarely is it that all just technical competence with somebody. There are other qualities outside of you know, it's kind of the technical side of things. What kind of soft skills are you looking for? Have you found that winning graduates have?

Bill Bates  10:31  
Be confident in your own ability, but be able to show humility and be able to listen to all others perspectives? That is key, if you don't take on other people or listen to other other industry professionals, other forms of engineering, other quantity surveyors, project managers, the best time to see is either you're the leader or someone else is leading. There can't be two leaders. That's sort of a contradiction in the industry. But learn to listen to learn to open your mouth when you can.

Dusty Rhodes  11:05  
What about silly questions? Bill? Because quite often you'd be sitting there and you're a newbie, and you kind of go, I don't want to look like an idiot. I feel like that all the time in interviews.

Bill Bates  11:14  
Look, I am the sort of person to always ask stupid questions. All right, okay, no problem with asking them, yeah. The trouble is, there's a time and a place for them. I can get away with asking the stupid question now, yeah, best thing is to be, you know, quiet until you feel you have something to say. Grand, okay. And but by all means, if you do not understand something, and as Michelle alluded to earlier, she works in or the organisation, works in data centre, work at pharmaceutical that tends to be led by, you know, American centric companies or European centric companies. They tend to use briefs and three letter acronyms for everything, yeah. And sometimes you just have to put your hand up and say, Well, does that stand for Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's things like that. But as I say it, from my perspective, young engineers, as long as they show confidence in their own ability, that's the main thing, and that's key.

Dusty Rhodes  12:09  
That's Michelle, with yourself, outside of the kind of the technical side of things, what are the important soft skills with you?

Michelle O’Hagan  12:17  
Yeah, for us, and I touched on them earlier communication going into project management, being a strong and effective communicator is essential. Being clear, concise and well structured. It just helps managing expectations and resolving issues quickly, which is essentially what we need to be doing when we're working on projects. Time management, again, is really important, because students, they may have experience in this with juggling assignments. But when it comes into the world of work, they could be juggling plenty of deadlines for various projects, and when you're working for a client, we need to be meeting those deadlines. There's costs involved if you don't, so that can be quite stressful, and being able to manage those deadlines is really important as well. And then teamwork is crucial. Everything we do is based within a team. You will rarely work solo, so being able to collaborate, well, being able to work with diverse groups, a team, and then finally, problem solving and critical thinking. I don't think there's an engineer that isn't probably a problem solver. It goes without saying, but they would be the core skills that we would look for, and we would assess during interview stages. 

Dusty Rhodes  13:16  
Do either of you have an example of someone who has joined the organisation as a graduate and then has moved up to nice, high, lofty positions?

Bill Bates  13:26  
Essentially, we don't have one single individual. What we have is there is no one that has and I can state this categorically. There is no one that has come on to our programme that has not achieved a senior role in the organisation, whether senior engineering or, you know, a titled professional, yeah, and we aim to get everyone to that role as efficiently as possible, if they're willing to take the step. Okay, we have established, and I'm sure Michelle's the same, we've established a series of traits for our senior professionals that they must have not just the basic competencies that engineers Ireland present to you, it's these traits that they have to be able to show to us, but we guide them through the process. Some will want push on. Some may not, but we will get them to that senior engineer role, which we see as the baseline in the organisation. And there is no one that we will leave by the side. They will come through the organisation through our Graduate Development Programme. It is established as a minimum four years, but you can take seven, if you like. We will always have that mentor there for you. We will ensure that we assist you with your application. We will assist you to get chartered as a profession, excellent.

Dusty Rhodes  14:47  
And then Michelle with the PM group, then people who start off as graduates, how do they tend to move up in the organisation?

Michelle O’Hagan  14:53  
Yeah, we've had some really strong success stories, probably not as many as Bill, just with obviously, the size of the organisation. But. But we've had like one person in particular, Brendan O'Connell, comes to mind. Brendan joined the programme in 2013 and is now our operations general manager for our Philadelphia office, and is growing that office at a substantial rate. So in the space of I know in the space of eight years, Brendan had moved into that role. So that was a really fast tracked career progression story similar to Brendan Kieran Lee, and he is now our operations director for our Belgium office. And we also have Tara Murphy, who joined, and I guess Tara joined, I'm actually not too sure what year it was, but now she is our head of BIM in Ireland. And it's fantastic to have females in leadership positions, and we have loads more that I could talk about. And PAO Donahue, and he's head of process in Cork, we have, yeah, there's so many, just for the content of time, but yeah, some few, some very good success stories there.

Dusty Rhodes  15:53  
It's very strong from both of you, the people who are in, coming in through the Graduate Programme into the firm. There's huge career future for them, with both of you, which is fantastic. Bill, the dbfl is, I think, is particularly known for continuous development. Can you tell me a little bit more about the apprenticeship schemes that you have and how you can help somebody go all the way to chartership? 

Bill Bates  16:14  
This is one thing we were looking at a number of years back. And we, we thought we had these young engineers who were getting, you know, level seven degrees, and they were struggling to get their dropping out early. So we decided to look back at the college days, at the school days, and see where we can assess these young engineers, make them more the dbfl engineer earlier in the career. So we've looked at, at you in the West, which is offered the first, I think, one of the first apprenticeship programmes in the country. And we've, we've two to three, I think, apprentices currently on that programme at the moment. And what we're aiming to do is, is test that process to see how well we can bring those young individuals and young engineers up through the apprenticeship programme. Now it's five, six years to get to level seven degree, but as part of our overall programme that can link into our Graduate Development Programme so they can get a level eight degree through our sponsorship to get them beyond that process and start the stream as an engineer on the Graduate Development Programme. So it's a start, it's a start, and it's, let's say, a cheaper start. There's no There's no cost to education, there's no college cost, there's no debt. It offers a freer opportunity at the earliest possible stage, and it we can hone those young engineers into more more all rounded professionals earlier on, without having the three to four year college degree. And we see that as an advantage to the industry as a whole, rather than just dbfl.

Dusty Rhodes  17:56  
Michelle on a kind of another tack. I believe that PM group has a very strong percentage of female graduates, which is fantastic. Tell me, what kind of efforts do you put into encouraging women to build engineering careers?

Michelle O’Hagan  18:07  
Yeah, we have put a huge amount of effort over the last number of years to try and increase female intake within the organisation, collectively, not just at the graduate level, but we have been very successful. As you know, historically, it has been very much a male dominated area. So in order for us to change the wheel, graduate level is the easiest group of people that we can target to educate them to come into the to the world of work. And we've we're seeing great momentum in this area. I know even recently, Trinity College announced that their first year graduates within engineering, 37% of those are female this year, which is absolutely fantastic. And we have other universities that are sitting in between the 20 25% but it is having a tangible effect on the industry. We ourselves, we set a target of 40% each year to try and hit, and we've exceeded that target over the last three years. We've hit 45% over the last three years, which we're very proud of. In our placement intake, we had 78 placements join us in 2025 and that was a 5050, split, direct. But again, it doesn't come overnight. We have went and looked at how we go out on campus, and we've been very strategic with our campus strategy. Over the last few years, we've heavily invested in women in STEM societies. We've done female led webinars, heavily supported in the TY programme and the Junior Achievement programme, and that's about educating females at a younger age to show that they can possibly be an engineer. And the ethos and pm group is very much, if you can see it, you can be it. And that's the narrative that we take on campus with us. And we have a strong Women's Network in the company as well, and we do a lot of advertising around that. We have fantastic events throughout the year hosting emails that have progressed in the company. And I think a lot of students are seeing that through our social media channels and nearly thinking, okay, that could be potentially me and. So it's definitely, it's definitely we're seeing great results.

Dusty Rhodes  20:03  
Being completely selfish about it. Okay, what is in it for the company by doing this? What's the advantage?

Michelle O’Hagan  20:11  
The advantage is you're getting females into the company that are bringing a completely new perspective and skill set to the organisation. We hire based on the right person for the job. It's not just because they're female. They have to have the technical ability, they have to be the cultural fit, but we do feel that females bring a different a different skill to the table, especially when it comes to negotiation, even listening. And if situations get a wee bit, if there's conflict, we've seen that they're able to come in and delegate and calm things down, which is quite good. But again, coming in very highly skilled and highly educated. And again, as I said, it's the best person that gets the job in pm group. They're all assessed in the exact same process,

Dusty Rhodes  20:51  
Same thing with yourself. Bill, how are things over at DBFL

Bill Bates  20:54  
From the female perspective, absolutely brilliant. I mean, some of some of the young graduates were saying, and the numbers, as Michelle has alluded to, it's increased significantly in the last 20 years. I'm sure Tracy Kearney won't mind me mentioning her. She was probably one of very few engineers that progressed in the early days alongside myself. But today we on our graduate programme alone, we have 25% all, all women and this. These are strong engineers. And as Michelle said, very well educated, very enthusiastic, looking to drive on and in all sectors. Not I mean civil engineering is notoriously the, let's say the dirty industry. Let's say the mucky industry. But there's more and more progressing into that area. Lot more progressing into the structural engineering, the transport, the transport planning side of things, all the modelling, all the role with the academic side of things are necessary. And I think that's it's definitely some of the some of the success that's moved it's changed perspectives. As Michelle said, are, the industry was argumentative, constantly in conflict. Contracts were established to do it. It is. It's a breath of fresh air to have someone slightly different at the table, to come and take that heat out of the situation. 

Dusty Rhodes  22:19  
Excellent. Always advantages, always advantages from what you are both saying. For a graduate who's considering what they're going to do with their career after college, there's an awful lot of variety that both of you are offering, and a lot of support and growth for a career which you are both offering. Can I ask for people who are listening now and are interested in applying, you must get hundreds of applications bill. I'll ask you first, what makes an application really stand out?

Bill Bates  22:46  
That is a difficult one. It is. I mean, I'd say, from my point of view, make sure you get your best degree, okay, the best you can get, okay, but also show that you're you're not just a one trip pony, you know. Yes, we are engineers, but yes, we have things outside of engineering. Show me, show me what you can do and show you, show me you can bring that into the engineering sphere, you know, and make sure it's professional and stands out. Well, what we tend to find, I know, the days of the three piece suit turning up to, you know, a formal interview with a shirt and tie have all but gone and disappeared. However, we still want you to be smart engineers. Are engineers. Our clients expect us to be number crunchers. So we're expected to be sharp. You know, we can't be lying down on a on a puffy pillow with her shirt high, half open. Yeah, that's not what an engineer is. We're we're we come at it from an artistic element, and we do solve the problems that way, but we are ultimately number crunchers, so we need to be shown that. So show me your professional side. But as I say, show me what you have as an all rounder. That's what I like to see.

Dusty Rhodes  24:02  
Michelle, what do you like to see in an application to help us stand out?

Michelle O’Hagan  24:05  
Yeah, for me, obviously, we're receiving 1,000s of applications, but for me personally, what makes an application stand out is when I can see the student's personality within their CV. You know, we get 1000s of applications. We're getting strong academics and industry experience, which is all relevant and needed, of course, but we are a people organisation, and we do assess on being the right cultural fit. So when we get a CV and someone's able to convey who they are outside of their qualifications, that's what stands out. So like showing us what motivates you, how you collaborate, the initiatives you're involved in, and when they show their individuality, it gives us a more personal feel and makes it more memorable and compelling. So they would be the CVS that would really stick in my mind, rather than just your mundane CV. And one thing I will say is we do receive a lot of chat GBT CVS, so that is a massive thing. Bill, I'm not sure if you're similar. In your organisation, but chat, GPT is fantastic tool to use, but students need to be mindful of we are looking for the superstars. You need to add that personal touch. So you need to take a moment to reanalyze the CV and put yourself in it as well. So that's just a nugget of information there.

Dusty Rhodes  25:17  
I find when people are applying to my company that a lot of people are not including relevant information, and they are not reading the actual job description, and they're telling me, you know, kind of well, I've done this, this and this, when I'm lucky, looking for that that drives me nuts. You're getting so many applications. I mean, we're only a small company making podcasts. We get 200 applications for a job. You have to very quickly just go, right, no, gone, bin, bin, bin, bin, bin. Do you have to do the same thing?

Michelle O’Hagan  25:52  
Yeah, we do, and they come through the application tracking system. We do have criteria when it comes to grades and qualifications and entering the engineering industry, they have to be qualified in it. We can't, if we can't hire them, if they're not fully qualified to go out on client side. But yeah, it is manual checking, and to make sure.

Dusty Rhodes  26:13  
Thats it, Bill, same with yourself?

Bill Bates  26:15  
We've a little bit different approach, and I'd say Michelle probably has this as well. Anyway, we're using AI to our advantage at the moment. Yeah, we're using a software you call hire hive, and it filters out key points initially. Then we have our and I'm sure the same HR department that will then filter them again before they come in front of us as engineers. So they're having to get through, I mean, like Michelle and pm group, we are out of the colleges. We have our graduates picked long before there's applications. Essentially through the process, those guys that meet, we formally interview them, make sure they're the right fit for the company, and then offer them the role. It's a buyer's market, as they say at the moment, young engineers, there's plenty of roles out there. There's opportunities there, in both our organisations of scale, depending on what you prefer and what way what you want for your career. And the best thing to do is, you know, establish what you want. First of all, I mean, some of the better things, I suppose, of the smaller organisation from my perspective, is that social. It's the social aspect now I appreciate it. He and we'll have smaller pockets as well. But we just, we're of a scale that we can manage a lot of people. We know, everyone in the group. You know, we just,

Dusty Rhodes  27:36  
that's a very real world realisation, I would say to any graduates that are listening, is you need to tick the boxes, and it has to be obvious that you're ticking the boxes. And if you don't, you're done all right. And chances are that for that first check through all of the applications, it's a computer who has no feelings, doesn't care. It just goes, is the box ticked? Yes, no. Don't put it in the bin or move it on, you know. Just to know that, I think, hopefully will help listeners. Today, I was going to ask you about the actual interview process. So, Bill, you were saying that, you know, kind of, it's important to, you know, you don't have to go in in a three piece suit, but, you know, to kind of look your best. Have you had people show up in shabby jeans?

Bill Bates  28:18  
Some of them haven't even had a shower. 

Dusty Rhodes  28:20  
Oh, no, you're kidding. 

Bill Bates  28:23  
We've had a few surprises, at times, a little bit dishevelled, let's say, turning up. I don't expect you to be at your best. You're a young person. You're probably without funds and assets. You don't have that sort of but make an effort.

Dusty Rhodes  28:40  
Make an effort.

Bill Bates  28:43  
Turn up smart when, when you're talking on time and promptly.

Dusty Rhodes  28:48  
When you're talking to somebody, what are the kind of key things that you look out for that will make a candidate memorable for you?

Bill Bates  28:57  
Confidence, talking about themselves, talking about their other aspects. Their engineering career is only at the start, so they have very little to talk about in that area. They may have a little bit, and it's great. I I'm appreciative of what they have, but I want to know what they've done to date. Tell me about themselves. Tell me about you know, whether they play for the GAA team, local rugby team. Tell me about their their hobbies. Do they do? They do what I do? Fiddle around with motorcycles and cars. You know that that would interest me, and it could be anything, absolutely, any subject, as long as you're interested in enthusiastic about it. I still go back. I remember long, long time ago, when I was presenting at Cambridge college a number of years ago, watching this chap talk about radon gas, one of the most boring subjects ever, but he was so enthusiastic about it I still remember it to this date.

Dusty Rhodes  29:54  
Yeah. Did you hire him 30 years later? Yeah. Did you take him on? 

Bill Bates  29:58  
No, he was. He was a he was ahead of me. I was only a PhD.

Dusty Rhodes  30:06  
Michelle, how about yourself, when you're interviewing, what are the kind of things you're looking for that will make a candidate memorable?

Michelle O’Hagan  30:12  
Yeah, somebody that, I guess, have a can do attitude that's willing to put their hand up and take opportunities. I think that's really important, especially for for graduate starting out in their career and showing that they're really motivated as well. Like we have some fantastic examples. One girl comes to mind me of Bergen, who joined us as an intern, networked really well throughout her internship, got invited to be a brand ambassador. So we have a brand ambassador programme where students that intern or place with us go back to campus and represent us on campus for the remainder of the academic year, basically flying the flag for pm group on campus. And just through her networking, she didn't have to re interview for her graduate position. She converted straight on to the Graduate Programme. She's in year two. Now. She's done a year in building services, and now she's transferred into project management, but only recently, she has been appointed as the co chair of our Women's Network, and with that will come, you know, she's just put her hand up for everything and said she's taken the yes, said yes to the opportunities that have presented her way, and her personal brand has grown substantially from doing so. And if future opportunities come up, her name's always probably going to be in the mix as well, because she is a person that's willing to get involved. So that's kind of the type of characteristics that we would look for listen.

Dusty Rhodes  31:29  
Let me wrap up by asking for students who are still studying at the moment and listening to the podcast, what is one thing that they can do right now to make their future application as strong as possible, Michelle?

Michelle O’Hagan  31:42  
Yeah, I think students need to focus on their academics. Try and maintain a strong grade. Focus on your coursework. Be able to talk about your coursework in detail when you get to the interview stage, your role, your responsibilities, your learnings, any challenges you've encountered and how you've overcame them, because that's really good. When you get to an interview and you're able to talk confidently. About that, focus on your CV and interview prep. Every university has a career team. I don't think they're utilised enough. They are a wealth of knowledge. They're speaking to industry daily so they know exactly what each company is looking for. Spend time with them. They'll support you on your CV, they'll give you advice and take it on board, as well as that, for students that have experience from their internship and placement, again, focus on how you want to demonstrate your responsibilities throughout that time. And for students that haven't secured an internship or placement and feel maybe that they're at a disadvantage entering the application market, they shouldn't focus on potentially looking at what software is the company, use the technical side of the company and maybe do foundation certificates or courses in that the likes of MATLAB, primavera, AutoCAD, rivet, depending on what department they're mostly interested in. And when you've got that on your CV, straight away, that's a conversation starter. And managers look for those things as well. So that can be an advantage and can block out that gap in your CV of not secure in the internship. Okay?

Dusty Rhodes  33:05  
And Bill with yourself. What is one piece of advice you give to somebody who's studying now in college? What can they do now to help their future application?

Bill Bates  33:15  
As Michelle said, Get the best degree you can. We are not dropping standards in the Civil and Structural and transportation engineering industry. When I started out, there was a minimum class two, one or second class, upper degree to get into consultancy, and we have set that bar. So get the best degree you can. But as Michelle said, as well, there are, make sure you highlight to us the skills that you're learning. Focus on areas that are open to the industry. Go to engineers Ireland events, go to ice events, learn from them, learn speak to people. Get good connections. You can get a better opportunity by just knowing someone than having any of the necessary skills. That's a softer way. And it's just it gets you in front of the right person sooner. I can only say that if you want to meet with me anytime you like. I mean, I'm open. I'm on LinkedIn, connect with me. I'm on engineers Ireland events, connect with me, get out there and make yourself the best engineer you can.

Dusty Rhodes  34:25  
Bill and Michelle, it's been really eye opening speaking to both of you, because you've both been very honest about what employers are looking for. And I hope it's going to give an edge to any graduates, or soon to be graduates, who are listening to the podcast today, if you'd like to learn more about the opportunities that are available at PM Group or DBFL, you can find information but and links to their Graduate Programmes in the description area of this podcast. But for now, Michelle O'Hagan and Bill Bates, thank you so much for sharing your invaluable experience with us today

Michelle O’Hagan  34:55  
Thank you. 

Bill Bates  34:56  
Thank you. Thank you. 

Dusty Rhodes  34:57  
If you know a student who would appreciate these insights. Please do share this podcast episode with them. They can find it simply by searching for Engineers Ireland, wherever they get their podcast. This episode is produced by dustpod.io for Engineers Ireland, for more information on engineering or career development advice, you'll find a wealth of resources on the website at engineersireland.ie. Until next time for myself. Dusty Rhodes, thank you for listening.

Leaving Certificate students have an exciting opportunity to explore the diverse realities of an engineering career and discover practical strategies for success as they fill out their upcoming CAO forms. 

Ena O'Driscoll, Mechanical Engineering student at MTU Cork and Student Ambassador at PM Group, alongside Sean Ryan, Automation Engineering student at SETU and Student Engineer at Jabil, share their university experiences with host Dusty Rhodes. 

They explain how early STEM encouragement through school programmes and family connections shaped career choices, why paid internships provide invaluable CV building opportunities developing real world problem solving skills, and practical advice for creating standout applications emphasising leadership roles, volunteering experience, and project work whilst balancing academic demands with society involvement through Engineers Ireland Young Engineers Society networking events and mentorship programmes.

THINGS WE SPOKE ABOUT
●    Engineering career choice STEM encouragement
●    Paid internships practical experience benefits
●    CV building leadership & volunteering standout
●    Time management balancing studies & activities
●    CAO strategy Level 7 & Level 8 options

GUEST DETAILS
Ena O'Driscoll is a Mechanical Engineering Student at Munster Technological University (MTU) Cork. Ena is an excellent example of maximising university studies by actively engaging with industry. She gained valuable professional experience through an internship and placement with PM Group, a leading international project delivery firm. Following her successful placement, Ena has continued her association with the company and the wider engineering community by serving as a Student Ambassador at PM Group, demonstrating a strong commitment to promoting engineering and bridging the gap between academia and professional life.

Sean Ryan is an Automation Engineering Student at South East Technological University (SETU) Waterford. Sean is currently applying his technical expertise as a Student Engineer at Jabil, a global manufacturing services company. He possesses a strong academic background complemented by valuable practical experience, including previous work as a controls engineer at Integer. Sean is highly engaged within his university community, having served as a peer-to-peer mentor and senior mentor to support first-year engineering students. Hailing from a farming background, Sean brings a unique perspective to problem-solving and engineering challenges. Outside of his studies and work, Sean is an active rugby player for both his college team and a local club.

QUOTES
"My secondary school was actually really good in terms of promoting STEM. Every couple of weeks we'd have different people come in and talk about different areas" - Ena O'Driscoll

"I'm on currently working as a controls and automation engineer student for Jabil healthcare, which is ideal because it's only two minutes walk from my college and I'm able to go in there part time and the hours are flexible which is amazing" - Sean Ryan

"We were given real work to work on from day one.  It started with helping other engineers, carried out a study. We were able to find that quadrant that was the problem and implement that change" - Sean Ryan

"I've always enjoyed Maths, Physics, anything problem solving wise. I've always wanted to be an engineer since probably around 14. I interviewed one of my dad's best friends who's a civil engineer. I got into the mechanical side because of my godfather"  - Ena O'Driscoll

TRANSCRIPTION
For your convenience here is an AI transcription 

Dusty Rhodes  0:02  
Right now on AMPLIFIED.

Ena O'Driscoll  0:03  
My secondary school was actually really good in terms of being encouraged to go and do STEM and go and do engineering. Out of maybe 128. I think there was around maybe 12 to 15 who went into some sort of engineering out of us all, so a high number.

Dusty Rhodes  0:21  
Hi there. My name is Dusty Rhodes, and you're welcome to AMPLIFIED the Engineers Journal podcast and the second in our special mini series An Engineer Like Me today, we're talking about making an impact during your studies, looking at how current students can maximise their time in uni, how to build a compelling CV and gain valuable industry experience before you graduate. To guide us. We're joined by two exceptional student engineers, Ena O'Driscoll, a Mechanical Engineering student at MTU, Cork and Student Ambassador at PM Group, and Sean Ryan, an Automation Engineering Student at SETU and a Student Engineer at Jabil as well. Ena and Sean, you both very welcome. 

Ena O'Driscoll  0:57  
Thanks, Dusty.

Sean Ryan  0:58  
Thanks for having us. 

Dusty Rhodes  0:59  
Just why did you choose engineering? Sean, do you want to give that a shot? 

Sean Ryan  1:04  
I think I've always been, I worked on a farm growing up around machinery and stuff. I've always been interested in machinery and stuff like that. So I think I was always going to choose engineering, even when I was in my doing, my leaving, third say. But I did when I did come to offers which was close to home, so made the commuting all easy, I done a common entry engineering course, so I was able to do flavours of all different types of engineering. So I've done electrical, electronic, civil standard, energy and automation. And then in after end of that, we split again, where I picked the major in automation engineering, which kind of attracted me, because I like the whole idea of like in where the world going. I like the idea of software and like hardware coming together and working on machines that way, because I think that's the way things are going. Automation and stuff is really the future high volume production.

Dusty Rhodes  2:01  
Absolutely. How about yourself Ena? 

Ena O'Driscoll  2:03  
I suppose from an early age, I've always enjoyed, like, Maths, Physics, anything. I suppose problem solving wise. And I suppose I've always wanted to be an engineer since, like, probably around 14. And I did a an interview. I interviewed one of my dad's best friends, and he's a civil engineer. And I just started thinking engineering engineering. This was then I got into the mechanical side of it because of my godfather. I guess he kind of inspired me. And I discussed th at being able to go into such a diverse range of different areas and the possibilities with, I suppose mechanical engineering is just, I suppose the world is at my feet, I suppose, and know it's great as well too. I suppose, guess more females as well in engineering, and I suppose I'm glad to be one of them. 

Dusty Rhodes  2:49  
Listen. Can I ask you about that? Because this comes up all the time on the podcast. Like, you know, in the engineering business, around 11% of the workforce in engineering is females, and they're kind of going, Yeah, we need more in there. Now, you met people in your life who were engineers, and I suppose that would have an influence on you, kind of like the sound of that was there anything in school that kind of, the you know, kind of equally sparked your brain to kind of go, Yeah, this looks interesting.

Ena O'Driscoll  3:15  
During my, I suppose, like Leaving Cert cycle, my secondary school was actually really good in terms of promoting stem like, I went to an all girls school and secondary, and we had this kind of group called female lead. And every couple of weeks, whatever, there was a team of us. We were with our vice principals, we'd have these different people come in and talk about, like, just different areas. And I remember my aunt, who's also an engineer, and I got, I swear to my engineers. Anyway, I asked her to give a talk to us, and just being encouraged to, you know, do the STEM subjects. And unfortunately, there's no engineering subject, but definitely being, I suppose, encouraged to go and do STEM and go and do kind of engineering as your career was definitely, definitely encouraged. And I'd say, out of maybe 128 I think there was around maybe 12 to 15 who went into some sort of engineering. 

Dusty Rhodes  4:13  
So when you're talking to other females, just to look at on a gender basis, I mean, what do you say to them when you're kind of saying, Well, have you thought about engineering? 

Ena O'Driscoll  4:32  
I will definitely 100% say that. And I remember going in my first day, there was only four of us starting off as straight mechanical engineers out of 45 and definitely the ratio was like, Oh, wow. And I knew it, to be fair, you know, I knew I knew that going in. And I suppose where I really found the encouragement was through the different lectures that I had, and I definitely speaking to many girls. I went into my secondary school during the year, and I gave a talk on engineering, and I just said that there is the support within the colleges, whether that's through societies, getting mentorship, I suppose, through like all the people you know do.

Like in the years ahead of you, there'll always be someone that you can go to to kind of get that reassurance, get that guidance. Even within my own college, they're really supportive in terms of, um, getting females and progressing, I suppose, as an engineering student and that potentially or after then I suppose your career as an engineer, like I went during the year, I had the opportunity of going to the Society of Women Engineers over in Prague. So it was a big opportunity, myself and one of my classmates, we were asked to, I suppose, apply to it, and we to it was based on a huge like group project. And we did a design of a poster, and we ended up getting it. We were delighted about. And then just to be in a room, just everyone was female, and there was, you know, not a good few 100. There would have been, like, four or 500 at this and, um, just to have that encouragement. And, you know, there's kind of, like a, I guess there's a lot of dopamine coming out from it, you know, you're like, wow, I can, I'm actually surrounded by heaps needs of females, and I'm, yeah, you know, it's really encouraging, I suppose.

Dusty Rhodes  6:00  
And that's human nature, isn't it? 

Ena O'Driscoll  6:01  
Like, yeah, definitely. So, yeah, no, it's really good. 

Dusty Rhodes  6:05  
So bring me up to speed where you guys are today. So you've decided to do engineering. You're you're now coming to the end of your respective courses. Sean, tell me what you're doing and what's next for you. 

Sean Ryan  6:19  
So I'm in my final year of automation engineeing, so hopefully I'll be graduating by next May, and I'll be able to continue on. At the moment, I'm currently working as a controls and automation engineer student for um Jabil healthcare, which is ideal, because it's, it's only really two minutes walk from my college, and I'm able to go in there part time, and the hours are flexible, which is amazing. So I think hopefully, I would like to get into a more of a controls and programmer sort of a role, rather than a more the manufacturing side of automation, where you're kind of working and all continuously improving the line. I'd rather be at the starting point of a machine builder, type of a role, design, build, a programmer, and give it to other companies, like the big pharma and medical device companies around here in Waterford and because I am a farmer as well. I'll be trying to stay local to the South East as I can. And once I graduate a level eight, I'll be able to do my green search, which I will require as a farmer for one only one year online, where if I chose it straight away, I'd have to do over two years. So that's helped me that way. So it sounds like kind of you went into engineering and there's like, a huge range of opportunities in engineering, like almost unlimited, but you have gotten you've whittled it down to automation, yeah. But even within automation, you still got a whole load of choices. There are still loads of choice. And even before I even started in Jabil healthcare. I done two years in integer, another medical device company, right? But near me and my local town in New Ross, where they make guide wires for stints and stuff. So even there, I was able to, I worked closely with the machine building department in there, and that really brought me my interest. And when I came to my college placement for the nine months last semester in territory. I was thinking, Oh, maybe I'll go back there. But I made a decision that I want to broaden my horizon and go to a different company and experience other things as well. And that really led to great opportunities. I was able to go on training courses for robotics and stuff, one specific dominico robotic ABB training, which is amazing. And I was able to even travel to Switzerland and stuff to a machine builders from my company on placement. So I really it was a great decision I made lots of got great benefits from it, and I'm still there part time my final year.

Dusty Rhodes  8:54  
Ena. Where are you now and what's next for you? 

Ena O'Driscoll  8:57  
I suppose this year is just mainly, I suppose that normal study, but I am on the side, I suppose, a brand ambassador with the PM Group. PM Group as a project delivery specialist, so they have loads of major clients, and I suppose I did a sort of internship with them when I was in second year, and I finished my eight month placement with them at the end of August. So I always say I liked it too much. How you said I'd be a brand ambassador and promote Kim group. So it's a great company again, really, I suppose, really supportive in developing ones. I suppose career has a great female to male ratio. I think there's around 45% are females that are employed, which is great considering there's only 11 or 12, I think you had said percent working who are females? No, it's it's great now, to be fair, and I really, really enjoy the kind of work I'd be doing. I set up different small events and kind of bring PM Group into whatever. Kind of events we're doing within our mechanical Biomedical Engineering Society. So, for instance, we had a master's talk there about two or three weeks ago just to talk about, I suppose, the benefits and the, maybe the reasons why you wouldn't choose to do masters. I guess I brought in, like, two representatives from pm group, a hiring manager, and then someone in early talent acquisition. So just to talk about the different benefits, and I suppose it's a way of getting pm groups name out there again as well, so I'd delight to be able to do that for them. So listen, tell me, both of you have mentioned that you're working with actual firms as interns. You're getting kind of real life experience. Tell me more about that. Ina, about your experience with pm group? Well, in my first stint, I suppose, of being on internship, I was mainly on the off in the office and working, I suppose, remotely, and trying to gain up experience, I suppose in more of a mechanical engineering role. My previous jobs were in different engineering firms, but I was more so kind of doing, you know, bits here and there. And it wasn't necessarily in my field of expertise or like field of like learning, I suppose, but I was kind of working on, like equipment packages and get it talking to the vendors, discussing what types of, I suppose, equipment they prefer, and what vendors they'd like to look at. And then I suppose, during placement, I was based on on a site, and I got way a load more experience. I suppose they always say, or they always would have said, like, you know, you gain your experience on site. And during my, like, summer placement, I I wasn't on site at all. I visited one site one day, and, you know, it's like, oh, that's grand, whatever. But, um, I always kind of took it like, great. You learn more. But I'm, I'm in the office, so, you know, then when I was on site, then I was like, Whoa, I can really see, like, you know, you talk about valves, let's say, or pipes, and you can actually see it out in the open. And you're like, Whoa, okay, this is different. And, you know, you're taking and things like that. So I suppose it's been great. And I suppose as well. I really enjoy the, I suppose, the culture, the different, diverse projects you get to go on. And I worked with around three or four different clients. And, no, it was a great, great experience. 

Dusty Rhodes  12:11  
Sean, tell me, how did you get involved with your engineering firm? And what practical experience are you getting there? 

Sean Ryan  12:16  
Well, I think just on college, workplace, someday, we just had to go place. And we in the South East, near our college, there's just so much companies around us that there was more choice than there was students of us to go on place. And so we all, some of us got called for interviews. And Jay was one of the first called for an interview and interviewed, and like got fairly soon after went to and then I would have started work there in January. So it was great to actually something that was really beneficial to me was that when I joined I was an automation controlled engineering type of student, and I was also another student that came on placing from my college was a mechanical engineering and manufacturing student. So together, the two of us kind of worked as a kind of a team, where in our place, there's every line, there's kind of two engineers to a production line. So the two of us worked as team together, and Natalia and two of us, being from different backgrounds, we were able to attack problems together with both of our skill sets knowledge, which was really great, and we were able to achieve great things together. 

Dusty Rhodes  13:25  
Can I ask you, with the internship, are you given, like, real world, real life, things to work on, or is it kind of, you know, bit of theoretical work in the background? 

Sean Ryan  13:36  
Oh, no, for us, we were definitely given some work to work on, like we're working from day one. So initially it would have started off with some dunes, helping other engineers on the in the facility, and helping them. So one first things we done was a carried out a study. There was parts that weren't welding together properly. There was specific sections that were the biggest, I think, made up, like 80% of the problem. And we were through our study of that process, we were able to find that quadrant that was the problem and implement that change. And then after that, we got various projects to work on. And I myself, from my background, I worked on various robots on site in there, probably more so than even some of the more qualified engineers there, like, I'd be quite young, but I'm heads in programming. I'm working on troubleshooting robots and stuff. Also, just to my background, I've written some like programming scripts to automate some of the processes and work on the database side. So it's great to almost have digital twins over production lines, through like Power BI and stuff, so you can analyse how the days go and find those problem areas. So allowing even the technicians to troubleshoot and do prevent maintenance before it becomes an issue. 

Dusty Rhodes  14:55  
It's fantastic having that real world skill, and you're actually given a real problem to work on. 

Ena, have you had that experience with PM Group? 

Ena O'Driscoll  15:03  
Oh, definitely, yeah. Especially, I suppose when I was on site with the company, with a client, I suppose they wanted to, they noticed one of the days that pipe header was rotting, and they wanted to replace it. And no, they had different calculations and different specs that they wanted to change, and the seeing that like you're actually making a difference to something that's so close, you know, to the eye that you can see, right? This is where this, I suppose, there's only a difference, and be able to fix the pipeline is great and, and that's definitely a real, a real world kind of problem solving.

Dusty Rhodes  15:37  
That looks amazing when you're putting your CV together, because you're saying, I've done all of this in college, but then I have all of this real world experience, which is hugely beneficial to anybody who's going to employ you after college. 

Sean Ryan  15:47  
Yeah, I even found out when I was interviewing for my actual placement, because I had the previous work done in integer as a controls engineer, that like, you're kind of talking away and Tom bear subject from college, and then you're talking about some project on college, but then they mentioned some projects that I done for the other company. They're like, Oh, okay, that's very interesting. You know, things are actually went live on the line that were and still in existence today. 

Dusty Rhodes  16:13  
So are you saying, Sean, that you find there's a big difference between what you learn in theory and then what is in practice on the on site? 

Sean Ryan  16:18  
Well, I think it's almost more so that, like in big in companies like that, you have the facility to put things into action, like in college. Just use cost and availability and stuff like some of the things we do are more simulations, and we'll work in real world examples, but it's great to actually be able to implement it in real life. Use the actual PLCs, and see the parts move, and see it actually in production. Like 

Dusty Rhodes  16:46  
Another great thing to get ahead with real world experience is to show off skills as a leader. And Ena, you're doing this in PM Group, where your student ambassador, can you tell me about that role and what you do? 

Ena O'Driscoll  16:57  
Yeah, I suppose, definitely, by promoting, I suppose pm group, it is showing, I suppose leadership in the sense of, there's other more, let's say, I suppose they'd be younger, in younger years, one of the other fellow brand ambassadors, so I suppose I'd be taking on a bit of a lead and being more of the point of contact for per pm group I know, With the women in STEM, let's say society. They reached out to me as I suppose the, I suppose the core person. I was able to kind of set up a pm group. Why stem information day? And it only had it last Thursday, and it was a great opportunity, was to get pm group, pm groups name out there, and we were able to discuss the grad programme, and I suppose my experience as well as a mechanical engineering intern and placement student. So I guess it was great opportunity to do that, and as well, in terms of leadership, I've gained experience over the years with leading other projects. With all of that knowledge and skills built up. It definitely helped with pm group and being a brand ambassador. 

Dusty Rhodes  18:02  
I had a boss of mine who gave me some really good advice. Once upon a time, he says, If you want to move up somewhere, you've got to tell the people upstairs that you want to move up, because if they don't know, they're going, Ah, they're happy where they are. Can I ask you though about I want to ask you about this Sean, but ina first time managing your time, because, I mean, you've got a whole load of time that you have to devote to studies, but now you've got kind of you doing the internship like Sean, and then you've got the whole student ambassador thing on top of it. What's your secret from managing your time? 

Ena O'Driscoll  18:36  
I will say first thing it is, it can be so hard being brutally honest here can be so hard to deal with. Really, what I find is, if I have, like, a list of things, either mentally or physically down on a piece of paper, of the things I actually need to get done, I find that just easy and then literally, I don't personally have to physically highlight things off to say, right, this is done. I can forget about it. Really starting some of the work early, whether that's like exam prep or, you know, sending emails off a bit earlier than what, let's say is necessary, or scheduling emails. All those kinds of things they do add up in the long term. And definitely with some of the assessments we've doing in college, it's some of a lot of it is, like project based. So we'd have a group project, and it's, I suppose, a matter of, like, relying on your teammates, and saying, Look, I know, let's say last week I was exceptionally busy. I was just flat out with multiple different things, assignments and projects and other external activities going on. And I just said, Look, I can't do as much here this week, or I can't do as much this like today. I will be doing my own work in the background. I just need a little bit basically, of a support. You know, they were very much so more than willing to help them, you know, saying, like, right? You know, get this off your blade. And, you know, so you under a little bit less pressure. And it's important to have people who are understanding, because it does make a difference in helping how to be able to time manage and being able to have that support and and, you know, if there's some time that they need more support then, and I find a little bit have a little bit less. Do I can take on there? If so, it's just a matter of, kind of finding that balance, I suppose, between the members. Yeah, 

Dusty Rhodes  20:06  
Sean, how about yourself? How do you manage your time? What are your tips and tricks? 

Sean Ryan  20:10  
Yeah. So I think I'm lucky with my internship placements, kind of that I got to stay on there part time, and they're very flexible with my hours and stuff. So I can come and go kind of as I please, and do as minimum of eight hours, but I can do more if I if I feel I have the time. And it's actually in my final year, our Friday is dedicated fully to our final year project. So we've no lectures on Friday. So that's kind of a day where I can need commit to my project, or I could go to work and do that. So I kind of go to work on the Friday and then commit my Saturday and Sunday to do my project work, which is great, and that flexibility. And also, I'm a student ambassador for Engineers Ireland for the second time this year, so I'm trying to organise events of that. And there was an article that went out in the Irish independent this year, and one of the other people that was featured in the article reached out to me about the South East Young Engineering Society, and I actually become the chairperson for that society this year. So I took on more than I this year again, and we're organising events and stuff. But in that it's great to have there's a committee of us with that we can all lean on. So if I kind of take a week off, I've other members there. They're organising. We've organised poke quiz and stuff. More organising a few site visits. And it's a great community to even be in, to have the various types of engineering as well. 

Dusty Rhodes  21:41  
Can I ask you about that? Because it's kind of, you have a huge amount on your plate, and it sounds like you're outgoing, like, seven days a week, 

Sean Ryan  21:50  
Even Saturday, I was up at the rugby match, and when the rugby match, 10,000 vaccines, the car going home, I whipping out my phone, typing up some bullet points of what I was going to put in my literature. Because, like, Oh, I'm taking Saturday off now. I was like, okay, commit on Sunday. Now, lots of work to be done. 

Dusty Rhodes  22:06  
Can I ask you both then? Because you both are, like, highly involved in this on a seven day a week basis. And when you're coming from secondary school and kind of going into university, and it's a whole new world, and it's gonna like, what seven days are you bananas? Do you find that it's just a whole load of work, but it's a means to an end to get a good job? Or is this something that you're just passionate about, and it's not work, it's just something that you enjoy so much you do it every day. 

Sean Ryan  22:33  
I think like enjoying is, is a real big part. Like the assignments we get is are interesting. And even in my college, I think all my modules this semester are 50% project, work, CA, and then an exam. So even that's great, you can break the camels back and get your assignments, and then your two hour exam was kind of almost your bulking build up your grade, but you're trying to almost go in knowing you've passed your module at least, and you can bulk it up then. So that's kind of helpful, like, so just kind of constantly working on the assignments that you're actually interested in, interacting with stuff. It's great see that stuff. 

Dusty Rhodes  23:13  
Brilliant, brilliant. So that's working well for you. And you've mentioned the social side of it. Sean, how's the social side of it for you? 

Ena O'Driscoll  23:19  
Similar to Sean. I'm involved in Engineers Ireland. I'm a student ambassador for the third year in a row with Engineers Ireland. So for my college, I was, I actually joined our equivalent of yes cork. So the young engineers society in in the Cork region. I was an MTM rep, I suppose. And this year, I've actually taken on the role of a pro, so public relations officer. So I've also taken off that job within our own Mechanical Biomedical Engineering Society. It's a great opportunity to be able to get my social media skills up to up to date and that and, and that's always fun. I suppose it's good. Like, I do, I do enjoy the, I suppose the scope of work and getting involved in the social aspects, I think they're really important. Like, personally, I think it's an important aspect to college. And I suppose, as you were saying, like having the different jumps, I suppose, going from secondary school to college, it's not college isn't all about work, work, work. The heads down, you know, it's, it's about, obviously, obviously, the academic aspect is so important. But ultimately, I think, have it finding that balance between getting a chance to obviously, do your academics, but also having a chance to socialise with your peers, because ultimately, in five years, five, six years down the line, you're going to be working with people. And you know, having being able to communicate and being able to socialise is just so important.

Dusty Rhodes  24:39  
Do you find that it's easier to make friends with like minded people. 

Ena O'Driscoll  24:45  
Definitely.

Sean Ryan  24:47  
Yeah, definitely.

Dusty Rhodes  24:48  
Those of you mentioned as well Engineers Ireland and being part of the Young Engineers Society now, a lot of people kind of listening, especially who are thinking of engineering as a career, we kind of think, What the hell are you doing in a society you're. Still in college. How does this work? And what are the benefits of it? 

Sean Ryan  25:03  
Well, I think it's a kind of a social kind of group where with like minded people, and it's true, like we are the southeast society of the young engineers, like we're trying to organise site visits and stuff, and it great to give people the opportunity to actually see things in action, and get out of college and see what what they're doing in college, and what jobs they can get. And like we've we're planning to go to a stainless steel production place and a power plant, so even, like a wider range, like I'm doing automation engineering, but I've interest in various industries and stuff, and we're even planning on going to a an agricultural machinery building place. So that's really, like, my like, I see loads of stuff I'm interested in there. Like, but it's just grand to have the social side of it as well. I think even it's kind of lucky that with last semester in territory, we had our college work placement, so you're kind of able to build up money, and you don't have to work as much on the weekend because of that. So like in the, say, my previous four years, or three years, I would have been working on the weekends to make money to fund myself in college, where I had the nine months place, and that allowed for me to build up that money. So I don't need to do it the weekends now, and that's right at the time to commit to the college project work and stuff. It's kind of nearly a swap out that way.

Dusty Rhodes  26:27  
Just so I'm clear then the placement that you have, is it a paid placement? 

Sean Ryan  26:31  
Yes, paid placement too. 

Ena O'Driscoll  26:35  
Yes, yeah, it is. 

Dusty Rhodes  26:37  
That changes everything, doesn't it good stuff. 

Sean Ryan  26:40  
Our college, I think were very encouraging some people you could interview for and they might want to pay and our college wouldn't like it to go there, even then they encourage us 

Dusty Rhodes  26:51  
Ena on the social side of things and sticking with the Engineers Ireland, the Young Engineer Society in your part of the country. Are there events local to you? And how do you find them useful? 

Ena O'Driscoll  27:01  
Definitely, there's loads of events every few weeks. So about two weeks, two, three weeks ago, we would have had a pub quiz. So I'm pretty sure, 

Sean Ryan  27:09  
Yeah, the Waterford team won the Water Town. Yeah. So it was Dublin, Waterford Cork and the Thomond region, which is like Limerick.

Ena O'Driscoll  27:23  
So I suppose we all got together, and we were in my life, personally, I suppose Cork, we're in in a it's called Cafe de Peche. So it was a kind of Cafe Bar, kind of a, it's a bit of both. But anyway, it was great turnout. Anyway, that was great. And I suppose, unfortunately, I wasn't able to make it in the city hall nearby, they had a stall. And I suppose just it was a chance for, I suppose, young, young children, young children, students and their parents to kind of wander around and have a look and ask questions about engineering. And you know, what is it like to be involved in engineering, in whether college or engineers Ireland. So it was great opportunity to suppose socialise and being able to promote Engineers Ireland. In that regard, I even found that I was at the BT scientists awards last year. I stand at the steps and which is kind of engineers Ireland's sub committee, I suppose, aiming at primary school children and Ty and I was, I found that there was two other people with us that were working in engineers are full time jobs, but me and another guy were the ones can ask more questions, because I suppose we're younger and we're closer to age to those people, so we're nearly more approachable, and we had experience and stuff as well. So like, they're great to listen to you that way as well.

Dusty Rhodes  28:42  
We seem to be talking a lot about internships and being part of Engineers Ireland, Young Engineers Society and everything, which is fantastic. The internships I didn't realise could be paid positions which kind of puts an almost completely different slant on it. But obviously, if you're going for that, then it kicks up the level of getting the internship in the first place. And I presume you have to go through an application process and then the interview process then as well. So I mean, do either of you have any tips for creating a standout CV? Yeah, as well.

Ena O'Driscoll  29:21  
Actually, yesterday, I was only helping my sister update our own CV. So I've all the tips and tricks.

Definitely, what I found was from, let's say, from pm group side. I can suppose I can kind of talk about what they definitely look for in a ZV. I suppose anything that's like different, and I know it's very generic, but anything that will make you stand out, like any whether that's awards, volunteering experience, anything like, I suppose, anything that sets you apart from the average person. I don't know an average person, but like, I suppose something different, like, Yes, I never look out of it and getting involved in your, let's say, even within your own college, like being involved in different committees and being a student class rep, anything like that. I suppose it shows, even with the student class rep, it shows a bit of leadership volunteering. It shows you're able to go out there. You have to help, you are wanting to help for the benefit of the person, obviously being able to achieve, like scholarships or, I suppose any awards. It shows that, you know you're highly thought of, and I suppose it does set you apart from the average person, and you kind of give a bit of a wow factor. Then I suppose to to the company you're trying to get hired into. 

Dusty Rhodes  30:31  
So don't just go with the the usual facts. Try and get in something different in there. Sean with yourself? 

Sean Ryan  30:37  
Yeah, I kind of be the same approach, like I generally kind of, you know, look up what company you're interviewing for and try, I wouldn't never have the same CV. Even I'd depend on what job I'm playing for. I'd shape it slightly and try highlight the things in my CV that would be like that. So if it's more of a controls engineering role, I'd highlight more projects that I've done programming wise and building or designing per se, and also, like I found in my interview for Jabil for placement, that something that stood out to them was that as part of my college rugby team and rugby team for the club as well, like but even that itself shows like that you have teamwork and you can build together and even go to your training and stuff like your bit time management shows you're not just, you know, you could get great grades in college, but being able to even show that you can apply what you're learning is a big section. So I have, like, probably quarter my CV was a project section. Really, 

Dusty Rhodes  31:37  
I'm learning from both of you. So for example, if during my secondary school, I was working in McDonald's, there's no point in putting that onto the CV, because it's just like, it's not relevant, which is what Sean says. But if I was a team leader, or ended up being the youngest manager ever in a McDonald's thing, that's worth including, because then, as Ena says, that shows that you're a team leader and that you're excelling at something. So is that kind of a difference to think of? 

Ena O'Driscoll  32:02  
No, definitely. 

Sean Ryan  32:03  
Well, I think putting down your workplace and is important, like, I suppose I was kind of lucky that I was able to get into integer over summers and stuff and have the engineering experience. That was definitely a leg up. And I kind of it was close by like, but some people wouldn't have that like, so it's you got to be able to sell what you're gaining from whatever experience you have. So in most workplaces, you're going to be working in a team where it's Tesco or McDonald's or an engineering firm. So even emphasise that kind of stuff they are gaining that can apply in general to companies.

Ena O'Driscoll  32:37  
Definitely, 

Dusty Rhodes  32:38  
Rather than just to say I was there for these three years that kind of a way. Yeah, exactly. Let me ask you about selling yourself, because what comes after a CV and an application is hopefully an interview. Everybody loves interviews, don't they?

What would you say Ena when you were doing interviews? What was your experience of it, and what was what question came up that you went, Oh, God,

Sean Ryan  34:34  
I think my interview that I've had so far, and say, engineering terms have been quite relaxed, like for in terms of Integer, like, I was only really done one year of college, and I'm kind of just thinking about a friend of ours is like, oh, there's a big, massive medical device company close by, you should try sending your CV. So I sent in my CV, and I got called for an interview very soon, and we It wasn't, I wouldn't even call it an interview. It was more just a very informal chat. We walked around the facility, and we discussed things, and I I even asked questions. And the person I was working for was kind of over the projects team, so he would have had design engineers and automation engineers and stuff under him. And some of the questions I asked him, his kind of response was, oh, sure, that's kind of more Gary, you know more about that me. So it's kind of it felt very comfortable and early, and was very informal conversations, and we kind of discuss things. He can't even took it. Uh, you're in second year. You had, you're doing automation engineering. No one you've, you've had the balls I supposed to ask and for a job. And you're not even on placing or got to a certain stage in college, but you want to learn. So, like, I was offered, offered a job on the spot, like there and then in Java, it was kind of the same thing. Was very just more of a conversation than into they did ask, obviously, the general questions and but some of the things that even less technical questions, more generalised one like um project management and just good manufacturing practices, stuff, some things that are the basics and even your soft skills have just made to talk and communicate in a team and write emails in a certain formal way, like that's nearly as important as your technical skills. So it's nearly more the person than their skills that they're looking at, from my perspective, 

Dusty Rhodes  34:34  
Absolutely. So the top tip from both you then is just be yourself. And I think that makes sense, because if they like you as a person, well, then you don't have to pretend as much when you get the gig, and you can just be yourself and you get in you enjoy the job. For people who are listening and kind of looking at the CAO process, which is going to be coming up, just two quick questions for you on your experience when you got the course, and you went, Yes, I'm in. What were the first things that you needed to sort out? 

Ena O'Driscoll  34:34  
It was a matter of actually taking a moment and being able to be like, Wow, I actually accomplished this. And honestly that, like, when you read that piece of paper, you're almost in shock, and your hands are kind of shaking, and you know, to be able to say like and feel, take a moment and say to yourself, I did this. I actually did this. Like, and, you know, have a moment to be like, well done. Me Pat in the back. Because, I mean, the hard work you need to put in for leaving cert, the pressure constantly. You know, you're only as good as your last exam. The pressure is constant. And I suppose being able to actually appreciate yourself and go, you know, well done, you it's really important. And then I suppose really, it's a matter of, I thought, getting things ready, like, I mean, do you have, you know, do you have your supplies? And, you know, kind of seeing, figuring what, I suppose, what you kind of need to get, get you going, and, and I suppose it's nice as well. Then to, obviously take time to celebrate a bit as well, and, and that. So, definitely, yeah.

Dusty Rhodes  34:34  
How about yourself and the interview thing? Any any weird questions come up, 

Ena O'Driscoll  33:02  
I suppose firstly, and I suppose it can be overlooked a little bit. And I remember getting advice from mentor, I suppose, is it your appearance and how you dress, like, being, you know, not wearing something very casual, you know, wearing something like, like a blazer or a shirt, or like, be smart, yeah, I don't know, some sort be smart and like, you know, you're here for a job for an engineering firm, in this case, and looking presentable and saying, right, I want to make a statement here. I suppose, then, when you're in the interview, I don't know, I always find that you need to, I suppose, shake the person's hand to say, look like i She I'm not going to stand off. Ish, I'm like, I'm here to, you know, I want to be here. Then talking. I always find that, you know, trying to connect with the person in some sort of way is really important, I suppose. Then you're it, you're kind of making it more of making it more per in a way personal. I'm going to say, I remember with one of my managers, when I first, let's say, interviewed. I did a phone I was a phone call interview because at the time that I was applying, but I remember talking to him, and he read my CV, and I had my background. I suppose, as a child, I would have loved drama, and doing my they're called lambda exams, so I would have done up to grade seven, and he actually picked up on it. He was like, Oh, you did like drama and like the lambda exams. And I was like, Yeah, I did. I was like, Yeah, though I loved drama, getting off on the stage, like, you know, whatever, acting out. And he was like, yeah, actually, I love singing, and I love, like, acting as well. I was in the play, and it was just, it was like, you know, we had a bit of a laugh, and it was a bit of a connection, like, it took away, then any kind of fear that I would have had, um, I suppose, you know, when you're trying to get everything out, and you're making sure you're making sure you're trying to get all I suppose the right thing said having that kind of personal connection, having a bit of a laugh, if possible. Now, obviously, with it being within reason, you don't want to be a comedian, but I suppose having that connection, as I said, definitely takes away from the nerves. Because I remember for my first few interviews, I used to always get so scared five minutes beforehand. Like I said, I always try and make some sort of connection or something that would be easy to talk about and that they'd have interest in. So I suppose definitely doing that in an interview would be really important. And I suppose that's what I found. I helped me be successful in a interview that I've done. 

Sean Ryan  34:48  
I was actually the year of the kind of COVID, leaving grades. I made the decision then. So I got my course and in Warford, and I chose that because it was close to home and all. And I was actually initially looking at Limerick, and I decided to, when I got my grades, that I done good my leaving grades. And I decided I'm not doing college online. I want to it's engineering. I want to see things hands on and do in person. So I deferred the year, and I worked on known transfers, warehouse operator. And then I came into the year after and started my college degree. So i That's why I made in it. My thing was a bit different of a situation. I had a whole year to think about and organise a good laptop. And early, I think I SPECT a laptop that was looked at some of the things as interesting, and something that I think is kind of amazing, or makes me always think about, is that I applied for the common entry engineer because we want to do engineering, but wasn't sure what I want to do, and mechanical engineering was actually honest, dear, I applied, and then it got taken off it in the span of me deferring it, and automation went on it, and automation is now what I'm doing. And I acting mechanical would have been the one I wouldn't want here, because I'm I'm not that great at drawing. Yeah, I'm more of a programmer than a drawer.

Dusty Rhodes  40:02  
So the universe is talking, Sean, the universe is talking it's making things happen for you. I have one last question for each of you. Okay, if you're kind of going back just a few years and you were to give yourself advice your younger self advice when you were making that decision of filling out the CAO form, what would you say about choosing your current engineering discipline?

Sean Ryan  40:26  
Well, I think even just a little bit further in, back into that where choosing your subjects for your leaving cert,

I chose all my subjects based on if they had a project or not. So I chose history, which is a massive project. Technology was something I was doing because it was, obviously, it was closed things engineering, and it was great. Got to build design things and build circuits. And then I also chose, even I was two ways of choosing a science subject of physics or ag science. And because there was a farmer. I did choose the Accenture because there was a bigger project element to it, but physics was probably going to be another great option that I was going to choose as well. So I didn't even dot prepared me for the level of the CA of er projectism, plumber, college and project work you do is important as that two hour exam you do 10 semester. So I think, if you like, if you're interested in working with your hands and problem solving, and not just, I suppose, learn as you do, more than rattling things off in your brain trying to write big, long essays. A lot of our exams are more short term. 

Dusty Rhodes  41:37  
And Ena it for yourself, what advice would you give your younger self as you were filling out that CAO form? 

Ena O'Driscoll  41:44  
Yeah, I suppose, like Sean was kind of saying this, all these are really, really important. And I definitely feel that doing engineering, and I suppose, and to use such a like hands on University in their way of like, I suppose, in how you do the different coursework. I did all sciences, I did biology, chemistry, physics, and I did apply maths. Definitely having the math side. I was, I was, you know, I was happy with and I loved the math side. But definitely, when it came to the project work, I was kind of like, I'm well over my depth, especially with drawings, like I again, being in an all girls school at the time, they didn't have anything like that, I suppose, facilitated towards people who want to do engineering. And I definitely did struggle. So I mean, if, especially if you're in the mixed school and you're, let's say, a woman in some if you'd like to get into engineering, I do recommend doing some of the more engineering practical based subjects. I definitely know a lot of my classmates would have said the same, and some of the girls would have had opportunities to do this, those kind of subjects that and which definitely benefited them. So I suppose, if I was doing my leaving cert a couple years down the line, I suppose my secondary school actually are implementing more of the engineering subjects next year my head and I definitely, would have definitely gone for those kind of subjects, which is great. I suppose, in there, I think, I believe they're the first female secondary school doing this. So like to take pride there in having attended it. But no definitely doing choosing subjects is really, really important. And also in terms of filling out the Cao, I know there's like, a level seven option, level eight option. And I think being able to put in courses from both those levels like for me personally, I had my level seven mechanical, my level eight mechanical, my level seven biomedical, and then my level eight biomedical, which was my second choice. And it was just it always gave me comfort during my leading search that I said, if I didn't get the points level eight. There's always a level seven I can fall back on within the college and work my way up. I have a friend who is who did his level seven in biomed engineering. He's gone. He did his level he's doing his level eight. So basically, you do three years for level seven, and then you join in with the third years who are doing level eight, and then finish off in your level eight, but he's going his step again and as doing his masters. So he's in like he'd been my year. Now, you know, for seeing him like he's an extra year on the rest of us, I say, or whomever does level seven, and when joining the level eight, they just have that extra year. And even knowing different more hands on knowledge again, which I think really benefits them. So I wouldn't discourage level seven, it's I'd actually really endorse it. I mean, if I had my time again, like I actually wouldn't mind have done minding, have done the level seven, I think it's a great opportunity. And again, the points are lower. It's easier to it's easier to get the points, which is also it takes a lot of stress off and myself knowing that I had that option, worst case scenario, if everything went belly up on the day of the exams, I had that fallback that I knew and that I could do that. So I definitely recommend to everyone to literally, to sign up for your level sevens and your level eight. It's just equally as important. 

Sean Ryan  44:56  
Yeah, most places you can work up, which is great.  And just actually, you nod to that point, a friend of mine took the approach of the level seven, then to level eight. And in our college you could do a mechanical, no, not all, course, but mechanic in particular, you could do your level seven, then just one year add on to get your level eight and mechanical manufacturing. But he even found that although it was only four years, they didn't get to do the workplace, and they got to have two college final year projects for level seven and level eight, so that even in an interview like he two projects that they were taken ownership of, and that was their work and kind of no one else's. And that's a great thing when it comes to even a CV. And even in choosing subjects, like I'd always choose the higher level maths, because even a pass, you get the extra points, and it prepares you more so far the engineering, like there is maths and engineering, no one can deny it. So your might as well do the higher level, because you get the extra points, and it's you know, to get you in a pass, you get the x points. Why not? In my school, we even found that there was a girl school in the same town as us, and they, some people in our class would have, well, dare to do music and Home Ec, and their students would count down to us and on technology and DCG and stuff. So like, even if you have the opportunity, look for it because and even like science, people can then done as well because it didn't do in that skill. So if you come down and even look at what options are available to you when you're doing your CEO and your final, your fifth, sixth year, because opportunities like that, of you could go to different school or do something your own time, your own subject is great, and it might benefit in future. 

Dusty Rhodes  46:39  
Listen, let's leave it at that for now. To learn more about Ena and Sean's experiences, you can find links to their profiles and the Engineers Ireland, Young Engineers Society in the description area of this podcast. But for now,  Ena O' Driscoll and Sean Ryan, thank you both so much for sharing your experience. 

Ena O'Driscoll  46:56  
Thanks Dusty, 

Sean Ryan  46:57  
Thanks for having us. 

Dusty Rhodes  46:58  
If you know a student who would appreciate these insights. Please do share this podcast with them. They can find it simply by searching for Engineers Ireland, wherever they listen to podcast. However, episode was produced by dustpod.io for Engineers Ireland, for more information on engineering or career development advice, you can find a wealth of resources on the website at engineersireland.ie. Until next time for myself Dusty Rhodes. Thank you for listening. 

CAO students considering engineering careers receive invaluable insights from two recently graduated engineers navigating their transition from college to professional world through real experiences spanning pharmaceutical manufacturing, quality assurance, international project work, and leadership development.

Jennifer Smith, Manufacturing Operations Engineer at AbbVie and Denis Hardi, Graduate Commissioning Engineer at H&MV share their expertise spanning manufacturing operations optimisation, quality assurance commissioning work, international project delivery from Norway to Finland, and professional society leadership, discussion covers leaving cert decision-making without knowing exact career path, four-year degree timeline for discovering preferences through internships, problem-solving as both most beautiful and most frustrating aspect of engineering, work-life balance setting boundaries whilst being compensated for extra hours, ambition progression through rotational programmes and online certificates demonstrating extra mile commitment, stereotypes not holding back women in mechanical engineering with 12 girls out of 98 increasing representation, and why attending events related to interests helps discover community curiosity before making decisions about future engineering careers.

THINGS WE SPOKE ABOUT
●    Internships shaping careers through pharmaceutical supply, precision engineering, civil engineering, material science hands-on experience discovering preferences
●    Engineering degree flexibility enables pharmaceutical, automotive, medical device, aerospace careers with curious minds shaping any industry choice
●    Networking through Engineers Ireland Young Engineers Society providing leadership opportunities professional connections across counties and internationally
●    STEM subjects important but curiosity resilience matter more than loving mathematics with problem-solving training multiple solution approaches
●    Graduate rotational programmes offer quality global roles multiple facilities whilst work-life balance requires setting boundaries with compensation

 

QUOTES
●  "Opportunities are really limitless with an engineering degree. So I think for anyone with a curious mind of a curious nature, you can kind of shape your career to be any sort of industry you want." - Jennifer Smith

●  "I'm actually based in Finland now on site working on this project, substation, electrical substation for the data centre here in Kouvola, just two hour drive from Helsinki. I was in Norway before this project for 20 weeks and just fresh in Finland at the moment trying to get this project across the line. Who knows where I'm going to be in a few months. I had a lot of internships around Ireland when I was studying but I never expected that I'll be staying in one company and then travelling around the world for a few months. It is a rich experience to say at least." - Denis Hardi

● "I think internships will really shape the way you can kind of take your career. I did an internship with a pharmaceutical manufacturing supply company, one with a precision engineering company that manufactured stainless steel components, one with a civil engineering company, and one with a wire drawing in material science environment. Those were very different. Going into a civil engineering company I was in their mechanical team but I kind of got a taste for what silverworks was like and kind of knew then what I did and didn't want to do. From those internships you kind of realise what appeals to you and what maybe you find interesting but maybe isn't for you long term. So I think getting internships while you're at university is a great way to then have a better idea of what you want to do once you finish college."  Jennifer Smith

● " Internships give you rich experience showing whatever you're studying in college might or might not be applicable to what you're going to be doing one day. First year I did combined heat and power in containers with engines producing heat and electricity for hospitals and hotels. Second year I went into on semi company in Limerick doing three months in chips where manufacturing was done in another country, they would send it back and we would do calibration, diagnostics. Then I went to Cork, to Tyndall National Institute in research and development in photonics which is basically transferring data with light so there's no copper loss of heat, pretty good for data centres. Third year co-op placement I did it in analogue devices in technical sales, part of team talking with clients trying to see if they have an issue what system are they looking for in power electronics. So it did give me idea how is it to work on site and in the lab as well." - Denis Hardi

 

TRANSCRIPTION

For your convenience here is an AI transcription

Dusty Rhodes   0:19  
Hi, there, my name is Dusty Rhodes. And you welcome to AMPLIFIED the Engineers Journal Podcast and the very first in a special mini series we're calling An Engineer Like Me. Over three episodes, we're going to be focusing on the critical transition from college to the professional world, and giving you a real world perspective. Should you be considering or you're just entering the world of engineering, we're going to be tackling essential questions about what the first month on the job truly feels like, how to bridge the gap between academic theory and industry, and why proactive involvement in societies and awards can accelerate your career. To start with, we're joined by two exceptional young engineers, Jennifer Smith, a Manufacturing Operations Engineer at AbbVie. And Denis Hardi, a Graduate Commissioning Engineer at H&MV. Hi, Jennifer and Denis, how are you?

Jennifer Smith  1:09  
Hi, Dusty. How are you getting on? How you doing? Denis, good.

Denis Hardi  1:12  
Hello from Finland.

Dusty Rhodes  1:13  
So, Dennis, let me start off then and say as one of our fresh new engineers, why are you in Finland.

Denis Hardi  1:20  
Oh, good question. Thank you very much. So yeah, I'm actually based in Finland now on site, working on this project, substation, electrical substation for the data centre here in kuwala place. So it's just two hour drive from Helsinki. So yeah, I was actually all around Europe before this so I was in Norway before this project for like 20 weeks, and just fresh in Finland at the moment and trying to get this project across the line. So who knows where I'm going to be in a few months. You know how it is.

Dusty Rhodes  1:53  
Did you expect to be saying things like, who knows where I'll be in two months time when you got into engineering?

Denis Hardi  2:00  
Definitely not, definitely not. No. Well, I had a lot of internships around Ireland when I was studying my Bachelor's race, and it was travelling around Ireland. But I've seen opportunities, you know, for renewable energy, what I studied, you know, in different countries, but I never experienced actually, that I'll be staying in one company and then travelling around the world for a few months, you know? So it is a rich experience to say at least,

Dusty Rhodes  2:27  
give me a little bit about your background and about your connection to Ireland. Did you grow up here or fill me in?

Denis Hardi  2:33  
Oh, yeah. Well, my background comes from actually, Croatia, right? I've been living there for 19 years and then moved to Island to work a bit. I did not know if I'm gonna stay there permanently or not. I say there because, as we speak, I'm in Finland, right? So yeah, I was in Waterford at the beginning, and then moved to Limerick, right? And then went back to Waterford just before I actually was sent to work abroad. So, yeah, few different places around Ireland. I was in Cork as well during my summer internship, so I explored Ireland a bit. But here we are now outside of Ireland and outside of European Union a few weeks ago. So I did not expect to be so much outside the country. I love the experience. But yeah, I suppose with the international background comes international experience,

Dusty Rhodes  3:24  
right? So Jennifer, tell us a little bit about what you do?

Jennifer Smith  3:27  
So I'm a Manufacturing Operations Engineer in AbbVie, so they're a bio pharmaceuticals company, and I'm based in their North Dublin facility at the moment. So they make, so it's an oral, solid dosage plant, so they make tablets in this facility,

Dusty Rhodes  3:43  
an oral, solid dosage. Yes, you mean a pill? So tablets? Yeah, pills and capsules. So, 

Dusty Rhodes  3:49  
Very good. Okay, I've never heard it described it like that. That's a very engineering way. It's a very engineering way of saying it. So listen, tell me what kind of problems then do you have to solve in your job?

Jennifer Smith  3:59  
So we have to, there's a lot of obviously, because it's pharmaceuticals and people are consuming it, and it's for medicinal purposes, we've to be very conscious of the quality going through the factory and make sure that we're complying with all the regulations, and when those change, that we adapt to those and then making sure that we've we optimise The processes to get the best throughput to our patients.

Dusty Rhodes  4:22  
And why did you get into that particular part of engineering? Jennifer?

Jennifer Smith  4:26  
So I internship. I did a couple of internships while I was in university. One of those was with a pharmaceutical manufacturing equipment supply company, so that was probably my favourite out of the four internships that I did. So when I was in that internship, I got exposure. So they were supplying equipment to different sites, such as AbbVie, Janssen, Pfizer, Kerry group. So I got experience on site, and I loved being in and around the pharmaceutical stratosphere. So I knew when I finished college I wanted to explore a career in the pharmaceutical industry.

Dusty Rhodes  5:00  
How does the internship work? Because Denis mentioned it. I'm going to ask him about this as well in a second. But how does that what it sounds like you're kind of given like, you know, a little taste of all these different types of engineering, and then you can choose your favourite.

Jennifer Smith  5:12  
Yeah, I think it's really important. I think internships will really shape the way you can kind of take your career. Because I did an internship with a pharmaceutical manufacturing supply company. I did one with a precision engineering company that manufactured stainless steel components. I did one with a civil engineering company, and I did one with a wire drawing in like material science environment as well. So those were very different, even, like my degree, my background is in mechanical engineering, and going into a civil engineering company, I was in their mechanical team, but I kind of got a taste for what silver works was like, and I kind of knew then what I did and didn't want to do. From those internships, you kind of realise what appeals to you and what maybe you find interesting, but maybe isn't for you long term. So I think getting internships while you're at university is a great way to then have a better idea of what you want to do once you finish college.

Dusty Rhodes  6:03  
Denis, you mentioned that you did some internships as well. How did it work for you? 

Denis Hardi  6:07  
Oh yeah, I would absolutely agree with Jennifer there on almost every point. Yeah, internships give you rich experience, right? But also example that whatever you're studying in college, right? It might or might not be applicable to what you're going to be doing one day, right? And from there, you're going to get understanding of, okay, this is something that I'm really interested in. What is this about? And can what can I apply what I learned so far? So basically, at the first year during the summer, I had basically summer internship, which actually lasted for six months, actually transferred a bit during my college period as well, because there's some still documentation that I could have been working on. So I did combine heat and power and containers with engines, you know, basically like a backup power by gas, they would produce heat and electricity and so on for hospitals, hotels and so on. So that was, you know, rich experience coming from the, you know, renewable energy and electrical engineering background in the second year that was, you know, interesting experience as well. Because then I said, okay, so that was a bit, you know, kind of high voltage systems. Let's go into the low voltage system. So I went into the on semi company, right on semi, in numeric where I was studying. I did three months, there was a three months, two and a half, three months there in like a chips, right? So basically, manufacturing was done in another country. They would send it back here, and we would do calibration, right diagnostics, and so on. So that was, you know, interesting to see, how does that work, you know, and apply a bit of mathematics into it and process improvement, as Jennifer mentioned there as well. Then from there, I went to Cork, right? So I went to Tyndall National Institute in a researcher, research and development department there in photonics. So that was then, let's say, kind of closely related to electronics, but not as much as electrical engineering, because there was photonics, right, which means basically you're transferring data with light, right? So you there's no copper kind of loss of, you know, heat and so on. So it's a bit more optimal kind of energy transition, which is pretty good for data centres and so on. So that was during my second year summer, and then third year cop placement. I did it in analogue devices, in a technical sales, right? So basically, I was part of the team which was talking with clients, and, you know, trying to see, okay, if they have an issue, what actually system are they're looking for, you know, in power, power, actually systems, electronics. So I did a bit of electronics, and I did a bit of, like, a, you know, solar panels and this combined heat and engine power. So it did give me idea, basically, how is it to work on site and in the lab as well. So here I am on site now, actually liking this

Dusty Rhodes 8:52  
Excellent and Jennifer, would you say when you were interning, you were getting very much hands on experience as well?

Jennifer Smith  8:57  
Definitely, and I think that's probably the best way to learn, to apply what you're learning in university in a real world situation, because you can hear all of these concepts on paper and do exams on them, but until you see them in practice, it will really stick. And I think they really stands to going from especially changing internship location to No, not staying with the same company, but changing, maybe every summer, to a different company, because you're going to see it from a going to see it from a different perspective, and you're going to see maybe a new approach. And I think that's great experience, then to have on your CV, going to look for a graduate job since you finished college,

Dusty Rhodes  9:32  
and it's great for you as well, because you're meeting new people and having new experiences in new places and everything. It's very exciting. 100% engineering is a huge field. I mean, it's just one word, but I mean it covers so much. I mean, Jennifer, how do you explain to people just how big engineering is? 

Jennifer Smith  9:49  
I think it's really difficult. And I think especially with mechanical engineering, when you consider my class and the different types of roles we've all come out of university, and I'm in the pharmaceutical industry, I. I know people in the automotive industry, people who are in kind of medical device industry with a mechanical engineering degree. So it's so it's so broad, and you'll have people going into aerospace like the opportunities are really limitless with an engineering degree. So I think for anyone with a curious mind and of a curious nature, you can kind of shape your career to to be any sort of industry you want, so you're not shoehorned into a specific category. So it is really great.

Dusty Rhodes 10:29  
So if somebody is listening to this at the moment and they're just facing the Leaving Cert and they're making these big, big decisions about college and stuff like that, and engineering just looks a wee bit too big, what kind of advice would you have for them?

Jennifer Smith  10:41  
Oh, man, I think, I think if you, if you're of a curious nature, and you like STEM subjects, or you like your maths and your physics and that type of genre, your chemistries, I think engineering is really good. I think it can be what you want it to be. And I think don't be afraid of knowing exactly what you want to be career wise when you're doing your leaving. So you have four or five years in your degree to work on that, to decide to get internships, to see what you do and don't like. So I think don't be afraid of it, because it's this massive, it's this massive field. But I wouldn't be afraid. I wouldn't let that put you off, and I wouldn't be afraid of that.

Dusty Rhodes 11:19  
So if you're the kind of person who gets a kick out of figuring out a problem and fixing it. Engineering is definitely something, I think. So, yes, definitely. And you never know where you're going to end up, because Dennis is in Finland. Yes, he's from Croatia. He studied in Limerick. Was it Denis?

Denis Hardi  11:34  
Yep, exactly, exactly it. I don't how to even describe it, you know, like, how did I even end up in Finland?

Dusty Rhodes 11:38  
I I heard a great phrase from somebody, and when I think about all, all of the people that I know in my career and that I have met the it's true. And the phrase is, where you start is not where you end up. It's true for everybody. So it's just stages. You start this, and then you just go on adventure after adventure after adventure. God knows where you're going to be in whatever 20 years time. So just have fun and enjoy yourself like the pair of you are at the moment. Jennifer, you mentioned STEM skills. How important are the STEM subjects at school for engineering?

Jennifer Smith  12:16  
I think from a university perspective, I think going from leaving cert to university for a mechanical engineering degree. I think definitely strong math skills are definitely important. Like in terms of modules for I didn't study chemistry in my leaving cert, but we had chemistry modules at university, but it was kind of taught in first year to a quick version of the Leaving Cert. So and I took physics, so those who studied chemistry were able to, you know, give me a hand and show me some chemistry tips and tricks. And I had physics tips and tricks that I was able to share with those who do chemistry, who might have done physics. So everybody helps each other in college. So I wouldn't let it put you off if you don't have these extra subjects.

Dusty Rhodes 12:59  
Dennis, would you agree that, you know, kind of like, STEM is important, but it's not everything.

Denis Hardi  13:05  
Yes, I would say, I would say, so, yeah, the thing is, I've been with engineers island for a while, right? And we've done this promotion in on open days and so on, in universities, in in, you know, visits to their companies, and also through this, like a young engineering societies and stuff like that, basically, right? And when you interact with young people, right, they always say, you know, I'm not really good at maths, you know, I'm not really good at physics. And I'm like, it doesn't really matter, you know, if you, you know, keep pushing right, that's, you know, you might not even need it eventually, you know, you will need it in university and so on. But later on, it's not like, Oh, if you don't really love, love maths or physics, you're not going to end up in engineering, you will. You know, there's so many like engineers around that, you know, you learn as you go, you know. And application for the math that you learned in secondary might be, you know, most likely the math that you're going to be using on sites and so on. You know, it's mostly Excel sheets, formulas and stuff like that that we are using a lot like, you know, believe it or not, you know, you don't really do calculations yourself. You just get, you know, chat GPD to do it for you. You get Excel to do it for you. You do calculations in the software that calculates things for you. You know, whether you're designing like some electrical engineering plants or something like that. It calculates, literally, okay, you need this. You need that. You need that, you know, so it's, it's more, I would say, as Jennifer mentioned, as well, it's more like a curiosity. Is what you need, right? Resilience, right? Don't give up, you know, if you fail, keep going right? And also, you know, try to see if I cannot do it one way, is there another way? Like that's why I like maths. I don't love it. I must say that I don't love math. Not my favourite physics. It's interesting because it's more kind of hands on thing, at least in my how my brain works for it. But you. Know, you don't have to love maths, but you need to see that, okay, there's multiple ways to get to the solution, right? So that's what people need to remember. You know, it's not all about, oh, if you don't love maths, engineering is not for you. Or if you don't love stem, keep going, you know, and you will learn as you go.

Dusty Rhodes 15:16  
One of my favourite interviews on this podcast was with a lady who's now a CEO of her own company. And I asked her, How did she get into engineering? And she said she saw a guy working on a bridge driving a really nice car, and she went, ooh, what does he do? That's why she got into engineering. But that's that. That's my point. Is there's all this kind of emphasis on STEM and you have to be a walking brain and numbers and all kind

Jennifer Smith  15:42  
of to agree, you have to, you know, you have to definitely have an affinity for, you know, yes, for math and for science, 

Dusty Rhodes  15:50  
But you don't have to be Einstein. 

Jennifer Smith  15:51  
No, you don't have to be Einstein. And problem solving and kind of being willing to look at a problem and think about all the different ways you could approach it, you know, not necessarily the most obvious way might necessarily be the best way. So and I think what Denis said was true as well. With you learn so much on the job and every because engineering so broad, it's hard to teach you exactly what you need to know at university, because everyone in your class is going to be going into a different role. So a lot of the training you get will be on the job, and that will really be what stands to you.

Dusty Rhodes 16:26  
Let me ask both of you. I'll start with Denis on this kind of getting away from the college side of things to getting a job, right? The one thing that I hear over and over is, there's not enough engineers. We need more engineers. We have to get more engineers into the system. Did both of you find getting a job easy? Denis,

Denis Hardi  16:47  
that's a good question. Actually, I would say easy enough. Yeah. You know, I had a few different internships, and I think that boosted kind of my LinkedIn or CV. You know, that boosted it for sure. I was also proactive in some volunteering groups, a bit of leadership experience previously, and so on. So, you know, that boosts as well. And communication. Communication is the key, you know, engineering, yeah, yeah. If you have any, you know, send me an email and I'll recommend them to the HR, no problem. You know, we need engineers in every sector. I would say, um, so as you know yourself, like I studied in Limerick, right? And Limerick was a few years ago, like one of the top five cities for the direct foreign investment, for the growth, you know, so companies were expanding, companies are still expanding. Cork, you know, for their pharmaceutical, you know, very known. And you know, Dublin for business and all other sectors, of course, you know. So, you know, the country has good kind of incentive on this taxes, right? So that's why companies are coming in. And as companies are coming in, someone needs to do things, not, not necessarily manufacture, right? But maybe design, maybe, you know, try to optimise, try to, you know, have some more sustainable approach. So there's a lot of new engineers, for example, in the last few years, even through engineers Ireland, we can see a new charter ships right charted, renewable engineer and so on.

Dusty Rhodes 18:13  
Jennifer, can I ask you the same question, then, do you find it easy getting a job? Is there lots of choice out there for you?

Jennifer Smith  18:18  
I think there's so much choice. I think with engineering Ireland, there is so many companies investing in Ireland. Ireland has, I think is at 13 of the top 15 pharmaceutical companies. So for me, there was so much choice for going into the pharmaceutical industry. But there's a lot of major medical device companies here as well, and there's loads of civil works and other industries that are throwing opportunities at engineers. So I think going to career fairs at your university is so important. I think that's a great way networking is I think the way that most people will successfully find their jobs being on LinkedIn, if you're looking there's a particular role you're looking for, maybe getting in touch with the people in the year ahead of you that might have gone into that industry. Asking them how they got their role, or who's HR in the company they're working for. Do you know, be proactive about getting your role, and then I think, you know, no job is going to fall into your lap. I think you have to. You do have to be proactive and put yourself out there. But the job, the jobs are there. Definitely, when

Dusty Rhodes  19:21  
it comes to networking, it's a big, scary world. When you're just starting out in university, or you finish up in secondary school, tell me if you agree with this. I eventually discover that networking is about people you've met, not people you know. Well, just people you've met, 

Jennifer Smith  19:35  
People you've met. You don't have to be best friends with everybody, but making sure people know you're out there, making sure people know that you're trying, that you're looking for opportunities. People are delighted to give people opportunities, because we were all starting off once too. Everybody had to start somewhere, even people who are at the very top of the food chain, who are CEOs, who are HR managers, and all the rest that everybody had to start somewhere. And everybody had. To rely on somebody else giving them a chance and giving them an opportunity, and people are delighted to give college students internships because they want to see growth and they want to hopefully see you come back to them.

Dusty Rhodes  20:12  
Denis, Jennifer, I've got a tough question for you, but I'll make it easy with just asking for a yes or no answer. All right, in your experience for yourselves, Dennis, is engineering a well paid job? 

Denis Hardi  20:23  
I would say. So.

Dusty Rhodes  20:26  
Jennifer, yes,

Jennifer Smith  20:28  
I'm not complaining.

Dusty Rhodes 20:30  
The next thing I was going to ask you about was when you're transitioning from college, because college is all about theory and internships is great, you get hands on experience. But then when you're actually in a job, and all of a sudden you have a title and you've responsibility, one of the things that you have to, or give me an example of one big thing that you had to learn, like really fast in the job that you weren't expecting, Jennifer?

Jennifer Smith  20:58  
I'm trying to think, I think liaising with people, and being given, being trusted with a project, and being kind of expected, you know, being given some instruction, and then kind of been expected to go off and do it yourself. In college, you're given these very kind of predefined instructions and these predefined rules. When you get into the world of work, things can't be as set in stone as they would be in university, so that you have to be able to use your own initiative and to be able to again, problem solve, think about how you're going to complete a project, start to finish. So I think definitely the kind of flexibility that's available is very different to get used to.

Dusty Rhodes  21:37  
And Denis, for you, what did you have to learn really fast on the job that you didn't pick up in college.

Denis Hardi  21:42  
One thing that comes to my mind, actually now, is to, you know, chase people. You know, people are busy. Everyone is busy. And you're new to the rule. So, you know, Chase chase people for answers, try not to just send emails, but rather go on a call and see what is the best approach to get what you're looking for, you know, a communication in one way or another. You know,

Dusty Rhodes  22:06  
Have you had an experience, Denis, where you're starting out and you're kind of going, I can't ask that. That's a stupid question. And then you did ask the question, what happened?

Denis Hardi  22:15  
Yeah, yeah, that happens, you know, like, but I try to always, you know, it's, it is that there is a truth behind like, it's, it's always easier to ask someone who is closer to your role than you know, like, let's say manager, someone you always ask colleague or someone your similar age, or something like that. So that helps with approach, of course. Yeah.

Dusty Rhodes  22:36  
Tell me about the other side, because engineering sounds like the most amazing career in the world on the other side of it, then what's the hardest and most frustrating parts of being an engineer? Denis?

Denis Hardi  22:48  
That's a good question. I suppose sometimes the stress of you know, you want to get project across the line, for example, and it's not just you who needs to do things right? It's, there's, there's a lot of, let's say, strings in a wheel, you know, that would help to turn this wheel. So sometimes the parts won't arrive on time, you know. Sometimes, for example, with the travelling across multiple countries here in Europe, you know, there's different national regulations, there's different quality, you know. So sometimes it's not like, as you initially imagined that things would go smooth, you know. So I would say that would be the kind of the tougher thing. But, you know, with people who are from there, from that country and so on, they would exchange those experiences, yeah,

Dusty Rhodes  23:35  
cool. And for you, Jennifer, what's the hardest or most frustrating parts of engineering? I

Jennifer Smith  23:39  
I think while one of the most amazing things about engineering is problem solving, I think sometimes that's the most frustrating part as well. Is when you're looking at a problem and you're trying to figure out what the best solution is, because you'll have loads of ideas, but sometimes you'll get a little bit down the way with one, and then you'll be like, Oh, we can't do that because of this, or we can't do that because of that. So problem solving, I think, can be the most frustrating part, even though it can be the most beautiful part of engineering.

Dusty Rhodes  24:09  
Denis, would you have an example of kind of a tough project or a problem that you had to encounter and you went, whoa?

Denis Hardi  24:10  
Yeah. Well, you know, from thinking on my feet now quickly as I was working in Norway, actually, right on this project, which I cannot discuss, you know, due to NDAs and stuff like that, of course. But you know, a few things that we ran into there was just the difference, you know, how things are done in one country compared to other, you know, that's something that, you know, was frustrating. Oh, we don't do it here like that, you know. Or actually we need to do it like that, because it's per the national regulations and so on. And you know, there's few other things, you know, similar to that, because in Norway was a bit different role than what I'm doing now in Finland, you know, I am commissioning engineer in this project, and I was like an equality on the previous project. So basically, in the previous project, you really need to make sure that things are as they should be, right and are they company. Standards? Are they national standards? Are they client standards, you know? So like keeping kind of you don't want to really show, okay, this is our final product. Show it to the client. If you know, all these other criterias are not met. So, you know, that was kind of frustrating. Okay, you know, who should I ask about these informations and so on? So, just kind of ensuring that things are as they should be without having answer to it gotcha, you know, would be, you know, you're not sure, should I ask this question or not? You know, because you're not asking your colleagues, you're now going to clients and so on. So that was a bit tough, but, um, we figured it out.

Dusty Rhodes  25:36  
Jennifer, Denis, let me ask you both about the work life balance, because often, when you're thrown in on a new company, everything gets landed on your desk. Let the kid do it. What's your experience? Denis, with work life balance?

Denis Hardi  25:50  
That's a That's a good one. That's a good one that I'm not sure now, if it would be how I imagined at the beginning, you know, at the beginning I started working in the office, and it was good, you know, you'll finish up with your, you know, half, half, four or five o'clock, you know, and you're done. But when you're on site, it's a bit different. You know, there is few things are coming late to the site, a few things you need to really, you know, catch up, because we have certain deadlines and so on. You are compensated for all of that time, right? I'm happy for that, but, like, sometimes, you know, that piles up, you know. But, you know, luckily, the company has a good, you know, incentives and so on, to kind of compensate for all that kind of time invested. So I think there, there is a balance, but it's you need to be self respectful, and you need to put your some limits, you know.

Dusty Rhodes  26:39  
And the balance is almost kind of there, because, as you said, you were working in an office for a period where it was nice and regular, and then when you're actually on site, yeah, I would imagine it's all encompassing. What else are you going to do in Finland when you're two hours north of the Arctic Circle? What about for you? Jennifer, because you're kind of just north Dublin, kind of more regular scenario. What's the work life balance for you?

Jennifer Smith  27:00  
So I think because I'm in manufacturing, so I'm kind of split between being in the office and then having to go and be in and around the floor in production. There are going to be days where you're going to have to stay late and put in those extra couple of hours to get a project over the line. And that's just inherent in engineering. But again, you are rewarded, you know, appropriately for such and like, if you enjoy your job, you don't mind an extra hour or two. But I think, as Dennis said, it's very important to set boundaries sometimes, and don't, you know, make sure that you're looking after yourself, because at the end of the day, if you're burnt out and stretched too thin, you won't be able to show up at work for your regular hours alone, an hour or two extra here and there when it's needed. But I think companies are very accommodating. Like there was a, you know, there's times where I've had to stay late to get things over the line, but I'm leaving. I have so said. I've had to leave on time today because I graduate tomorrow, so I need to get back to Galway. So again, when you when you do work for them, they'll work backwards for you. So I think everybody looks after each other at work, so I wouldn't be too afraid of not having a very healthy balance.

Dusty Rhodes  28:07  
Tell me about ambition and moving up the ladder. Are there things in place in the companies that you work with where there's a process you can go through, or mentorship programmes?

Jennifer Smith  28:18  
Jennifer, so in AbbVie, I'm on a rotational programme. So every year, for the first three years, I'll rotate job position and job location. So they've got five sites in Ireland. So my first rotation is here in Dublin, in manufacturing. So I could be in a quality role. I could be in a global role. Next year, I could be in Sligo. I could be in Cork, Westport. The kind of possibilities are very varied, but they run that programme so that you can get a really broad understanding of production. And AbbVie, how different pharmaceutical lines run to allow you that kind of help to get experience dealing with people, dealing with maybe the financial aspects of budgets, dealing with timelines, dealing with production. So it's in AbbVie they really look after making sure people have a broad experience so that you can grow and professionally develop like they sent us to Chicago two weeks ago for a conference, so that all of the graduates could meet each other across operations, across the finance programme, across marketing. So in AbbVie, the opportunities for networking and for professional growth are really amazing.

Dusty Rhodes  29:22  
Denis, I'm guessing it's something similar with yourself, because you've mentioned you've been working in several different locations. Can I ask you about engineers Ireland? Because that is kind of like a support group for for engineers. How have you found or have you even found it useful?

Denis Hardi  29:37  
Yeah, absolutely. Thanks. Yes. Similar to Jennifer in relation to the, you know, progression, yes, of course, there's incentives. And, you know, I also try to do in the evenings, in my own free time, you know, just some kind of online courses, you know, that might help out eventually, you know, and that might, you know, teach me a thing or two. So it's, it's not just what company gives you. It's also like, you know, it's learning. Never stops, right? So I would also suggest for people, you know, in their early career, to give it extra mile, if possible, you know, in the evenings or something like that, and achieve some certificate. So, you know, company recognises that actually, oh, it's not just that, you know, they wrap up their work and they go home. You know, no matter if you work 11, 12, hours, you know, there's extra mile that you put in that no one asked you for right? So, but in relation to engineers Island, yeah, absolutely, I have found it useful. I've been member, actually, since 2021, so I was basically involved during the covid times because I was looking for a kind of community for engineers, and I found one through, you know, Engineers island. So basically integration, you know, as I'm Croatian as well, you know, into the, you know, Irish community for true volunteering and stuff like that. So, yeah, there's these young engineering societies, you know, where the youth kind of comes together, organises some events, and they're also part of, like, a senior committee in the region. So you get to know regional senior professionals, some of them you might be working with, but you're not even aware that they are part of this, like, a committee, which happened, which is amazing, yeah. And then there's also, like, you know, National Young engineering societies. You know where, like, you go for a Christmas party to Dublin, who you you know, you never know who you're going to meet there, right? And they're organised by young engineers. And there's young engineers coming from Galway, from Waterford, from alamel and so on. So I met, you know, brilliant engineers across, you know, the country, who I still, you know, am in touch with, just because I went to some event that engineers Island invited me to. And it gives you good leadership experience as well, if you're interested in that, you know, where I actually ended up leading those small groups, you know, organising those events and, you know, and then through Engineers Island, I found out that there's European kind of scale, you know, organisation for young engineers. So, you know, a bit more international travelling, of course.

Dusty Rhodes  31:56  
And Jennifer, how did you find Engineers Ireland was useful to you?

Jennifer Smith  31:59  
I think so. So I was a student ambassador for Engineers Ireland back when I was in second year of college, and I think that gave me the opportunity to plan events get network with those in engineers Ireland, and that gives you huge visibility. So I organised a pub quiz and talks as part of my experience as an ambassador. So those are soft skills that help you when you're looking for jobs, that you know they can see that you were organising events, that you're not shy, that you're very comfortable speaking. And that goes a long way when you're gives you something to talk about, an interview that sets you apart from maybe the rest of your peers. And that kind of again, piggybacking off what Denis said, that you don't just finish and wrap up your work and do nothing else that you're being proactive about, kind of getting involved in engineering,

Dusty Rhodes  32:49  
but it seems to be the kind of industry where you just enjoy it and you're surrounded by people who think like you and enjoy the same things as you. So it's very easy to get on with people. Let me wrap up our conversation today. I'm going to imagine that the person who's listening to our podcast and ear wigging on our conversation is going, hmm, engineering sounds good. I think I'm going to go for this. What one piece of advice would you give to somebody who's thinking positively about engineering, about getting into it?

Jennifer Smith  33:20  
I think, especially for any young girls considering a career in engineering, I wouldn't let stereotypes hold you back. There won't be a huge amount of women in the field, especially in mechanical engineering. I think there are 12 girls out of a class of 98 so we, you know, 10% give or take which is, which is small, a small cohort of female engineers. But I wouldn't let that hold you back. When you go into the world of work, there will be more, and we see the number increasing the whole time. But I wouldn't, don't be afraid to get involved and put yourself out there cool.

Dusty Rhodes  33:54  
And Denis?

Denis Hardi  33:54  
tent conference, right? That kind of innovation that there is in that kind of branch, or something like that, right? So there is, you know, if you're interested in law, if you're interested in engineering, if you're interested in any type, right? And try to find some events related to that, right? You don't have to make decision, or I need to, I need to do that because, you know, I attended so many events. No, you know, just try to see how do you feel in that community. You know, Is there things that you're curious about, because it's all about your curiosity, right? I hope that you know, everyone is curious about something in the world, right? Like I used to spend hours and hours on YouTube watching, you know, real engineering videos, and they compact all these kind of conferences, let's say, kind of presentations in such a like 510 minutes video where they explain what is inside, that kind of thing. And that's what actually, you know, got me into engineering. I even when I was younger, like I used to, you know, just get a screwdriver open that toy, you know, just to see, like, what is inside. How does it work, you know. So I would say it never stopped being curious. That's, that's my angle here,

Dusty Rhodes  34:59  
The pair of you make engineering sound very exciting, and I know from experience that it is. And lots of travel, Denis has told the NDAs, it's a huge amount of variety in there. All you need, really, is to be someone who likes solving problems, to get involved. It's fantastic. Let me thank both of you to learn more about Jennifer and Denis's work, you can check out links to their profiles and the Engineers. Ireland, Young Engineers Society in the description area of this podcast. But for now, Jennifer Smith, Manufacturing Operations Engineer at AbbVie and Denis Hardi, Graduate Commissioning Engineer at H&MV. Thank you both so much for sharing your graduate experience with us. 

Jennifer Smith  35:36  
Thanks for having us. 

Denis Hardi  35:37  
Thank you. 

Dusty Rhodes   35:37  
We hope you enjoyed hearing about these real life stories that we had for you today. If you know a student or a young engineer who would appreciate these insights, please do share this podcast with them. All they have to do is just search for Engineers Ireland, wherever they listen to podcasts, on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, wherever this episode was produced by dustpod.io, for Engineers Ireland, for advanced episodes, more information and the latest trends in infrastructure or career development advice. You'll find a wealth of resources on the website at engineersIreland.ie until next time for myself, Dusty Rhodes. Thank you for listening.