Recruitment scenario for engineers is gradually changing. While IT industry is moving from Mass-hiring to Skill-based hiring, students from core branches are looking back at Core sectors for jobs. Hence, it becomes very important for you as a Placement Officer to orient & guide your students towards the career of their choice. To make this a bit easier for you, we have started this series of articles on: Careers for Core branch students.
You can read our other articles here:
In this article we shift our focus onto the Electrical branch. (Note: We are not focusing on Electronics as we have covered it in our ECE article)
Electrical engineers start off as Trainee Engineers which usually spans for 1 year and are then promoted to Senior Engineer/Design engineer/Executive engineer.
Roles offered for Electrical Engineers can be broadly classified into 4 categories:
- Design
- Control Systems
- Power systems & Yard Maintenance
- Managerial Roles
Design Engineers:
A design engineer in electrical field handles simple projects like lighting plans, wiring plans to complex projects such as large scale power distribution plans etc; (for eg: One of the persons whom we interviewed for this article was working on a project where she is designing a plan for transmitting power from one state to another state in India.)
A design engineer also works on planning, developing, testing and sometimes installation of electrical equipment.
These engineers work with various software like CAD, LabView. Hence, being adept at these software is going to come in hand while trying to secure a job in this field.
Control Systems Engineer:
Working from the control room, these guys ensure that a desired output is produced by any machine. These engineers design and implement the equipment and control logic that starts and stops motors, controls pressure, flow, temperature, viscosity, etc.
For eg: In modern aircraft, pilots only overtake the driving of the flight when things go wrong, otherwise aircrafts are flown by elaborate Control Systems. And a control systems engineer helps design these.
Power Systems Engineers & Yard Maintenance:
A power systems engineer deals with Generation, Transmission and Distribution of Electric power. Most jobs in this field are based in Govt. Sector or PSUs. Some roles for these engineers are also in the field of Manufacturing industry, where they deal with manufacturing of relays, transformers and many more.
As for maintenance is concerned, these engineers deal with Plant maintenance, Troubleshooting and spares management in big plants.
Managerial Roles:
Companies like KEC, bid for government projects among many where proposals (RFP) have to be prepared. And this is one other place where electrical engineers are deployed. Although this is not a technical role, the knowledge of electrical engineering is must for doing a good job at this.
Sales is another managerial role where electrical engineers are deployed, because companies feel that a good technical knowledge as a necessary trait while talking to customers especially when you are selling large electrical equipment.
Subjects that a Electrical engineer must master:
Based on our interviews with Electrical Engineers, who are graduates from IITs & NITs and working with top firms, here’s a list of subjects that any student who wants to pursue a career as a electrical engineer must be good with:
- Power Systems
- Electrical Machines
- Control System Analysis
Most jobs for electrical engineers are available in Government & PSU field. These jobs are also available at both Central & State level.
To bag jobs at Central level & PSUs, students should look at exams like Indian Engineering Services (IES) and GATE. Indian Railways is one of the major recruiters of Electrical Engineers. NTPC, Power Grid, BHEL, ONGC are some other recruiters.
At state-level, jobs are present with either GENCO (Generation wing) or TRANSCO (Transmission wing) or DISCOM (Distribution wing) of electricity boards in that particular states. The number of openings & the consistency in hiring is completely requirement based.
Some tips by experts:
- It is a common myth that Masters after Bachelors in Electrical engineering narrows down career options. In fact, a Masters from a good college opens up more career opportunities
- Students who are planning to pursue masters can look at Power Electronics as a field which is one of the most sought after field right now. HVDC is one other such field.
- In govt. jobs, the recruitment & role allocation is done mostly based on requirement. Candidates hardly have a choice in choosing their field. Whereas, in Private Sector, candidates can choose or they will be given a role based on both their interest & an assessment of strengths.
Electrical engineering is one of the oldest & sought after branches in engineering. Students willing to pursue their career in this branch should be aware that there are more openings in Govt. & PSU sector than in private sector. Hence, students should start preparing for exams like GATE, IES quite early in their engineering.
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