Shortage of Engineers of Calibre

After the resignation of my young engineer, we finally put up an ad for new engineers. This time, we identified ourselves by inserting our company's name in the ad. So far, only 2 applicants applied for the Design Engineer post while a number applied for the RE posts.

I called the 1st applicant for DE post who faxed his application to our office the same day the ad came out. He happened to be currently working with a similar consulting firm not far from our office. I asked him during the interview what made him decide to apply for a job in our company. To my amazement, he told me that a draftslady who once worked in our firm and now working in this other firm strongly encouraged him to apply. According to him, these are her words, "This is a once in a life time opportunity, don't miss it, grab the opportunity". The reason: This is a good firm to work with and the staff are pleasant. I could sense that the draftslady spoke highly of her ex-bosses! That's nice to hear :) Another reason: For the past two years, he has been doing the same drainage design over and over again. He hoped to be given opportunity to do a variety of design work.

He was recruited on the spot. But we have to wait for another 2 months before he can report for duty. He needs 2 months notice.

Through this recent recruitment plus our previous similar exercises, the picture we gather is that there aren't many engineers of reasonable quality around. Sad for Malaysia. The lack of emphasis on English has destroyed a whole generation of people!