So I am a portuguese college students and I will finish my masters in Mechanical Engineering in a few years and I dont want to stay in Portugal, I have had for the longest time the dream of moving to Germany, Austria, Belgium or Switzerland, for pragmatic reasons I recently started learning german.
The students at my university are regularly aproached by Engineering companies in france, the UK and germany who offer them nice work propositions so I thought I might as well learn german since I speak english fluently and a bit of french (:P and i do mean a bit) to improve my chances of receiving one of these offers and I just kept that goal in my head, however I have recently been reading about Switzerland, and quite frankly now I am not sure I want to go to Germany, I havent been to either of of these 2 countries but from what I've seen Switzerland is just play awesome.
So I'dd like to ask you guys (and girls ) for help, there's only so much you can learn about a country on google so i was wondering if anyone here has any experience living in germany and/or Switzerland and can tell me important things i need to know about one or the other (or both)
Sorry for the long text.
My main question however is if you know any big companies in Switzerland where a Mechanical engineer can work? The thing is i know banking and health is a huge sector in switzerland but I cant seem to find any article or piece of information talking about Engineering companies in switzerland.
If you can give me any sort of help it would be much appreciated
PS: I do know the cost of living in CH is bigger than in Germany but people are also paid more, do you think the 'purchasing power' (this might not be the right expression) is diferent though?
That's because engineering isn't a major industry in Switzerland. Not to say it doesn't exist, far from it. But in contrast to some other markets, there's relatively little going on here. Research, yes the ETHZ and EPFL do a lot, but industry isn't so big.
But a google search of engineering switzerland will yield a listing of all the major companies. You have to do at least some work yourself if you want in.
That has got to be the most ill-informed statement I have ever read on this forum. There is a HUGE engineering industry here. Alstom/GE alone is Kanton Aargau's biggest employer, over 6000 jobs producing turbines for power plants all over the world. I myself work in the semiconductor industry in Kanton Zurich and we can't find enough engineers to fill the open positions.
If you don't know something about a subject, please don't pretend that you do, especially here where people are looking for real information.
Yeah, I said in contrast to other markets. I am an engineer. I know exactly what the job market looks like right now.
Why don't you take a look at the career sites of your massive industry.
Parameters set to R&D or Engineering, and for all of switzerland so as to not be "Zürich-centric":
GE - 1 position, in Riazzino
Alstom - 1 position, "R&D finance internship"
ABB - 13 positions, mostly in Aargau, 1 in Ticino, none of which are suitable for a fresh grad (they do have a dedicated posting for internships though and no indication of capacity for that)
Siemens - 10 open positions, none of which are suitable for a fresh grad.
That's not exactly what I call a major offering, especially in contrast to the size of these companies. Unless they're just not posting their dire deficit, for whatever reason?
You also said that Engineering isn't a major industry in Switerland and in my opinion this is misleading.
A quick google search threw up this from the Swiss Chamber of Commerce in Japan
Switzerland: Manufacturing bigger than banking
Tokyo (SCCIJ) - The Swiss banking industry is big relative to the size of the country, but Switzerland's manufacturing sector is economically more powerful and important. Despite more than 10,000 job losses at Swiss banks during the last five years, the Swiss unemployment rate has fallen to 3.1 percent. That is lowest of Europe's 10 biggest economies and less than the rate a decade ago. The reason is an expanding manufacturing sector despite high wages and a strong franc. Thus, the cliché of Switzerland being a finance industry based economy is wrong.
Sizeable industrial production
“People think that precision engineering, watchmaking and the medical industry are minor, but collectively added up, they are quite sizeable in Switzerland,” Hubertus von Gruenberg, chairman of Zurich-based ABB, the world’s largest maker of power transformers, told Bloomberg .
According to the news report, Swiss banks and insurers had 152,000 full-time employees last year, compared with 588,000 who work for industrial companies in Switzerland. The banking industry’s share of domestic economic output fell to 6.2 percent in 2011 from 8.7 percent in 2007, according to the most recent data from the Swiss Bankers Association
So I would say that your comment was misleading although maybe with good intentions.
Fair, but the question was specifically about mechanical engineering jobs post graduation. Adding the medical, electrical and even computer science fields will add a lot of bulk of course. But that says nothing about industry growth and employment opportunity for someone with mechanical engineering and little to no industry exposure.
Though yes, my wording could have been more precise. Normally I would stipulate which branch of engineering and the metric for activity, but I thought the context was already clear enough. In fact the job postings I listed would come down significantly had I taken the time to remove electrical and medical positions.
Either way, a single job posting for a "major cantonal employer", for the entire country, isn't great.
Bom dia Portuguese guy. If I were you, I would focus a lot in getting an internship during your Masters at any engineering companies. I would not focus too much about the country to be honest.
Once you have an internship lined up, it will be easier to get an offer later on. If you are good and the people like your work, then they will come knocking at your door. Once you have a couple (or more) of years of experience, then you can be more selective and go for the employers who are willing to offer a better package.
It is very difficult to get noticed by employers these days, so it is great that you are taking german lessons now to make your profile more attractive.
I was wondering if someone who has more information could write a little about job opportunities in Switzerland when it comes to English speaking civil engineers.
I am young, just turned 26, have Masters degree in C.E. (specialized for structural engineering) and 1.5 years of work experience (but with project management, FIDIC, feasibility studies, cost-benefit analyses etc.). My English is extremely good, German is level B1 and I don't know any French. I speak one other language but it is not relevant for Swiss. Would there be any interest in Switzerland for someone like me or should I look in another country?
Thanks guys, i am sorry for replying so late but i have had a lot on my plate lately
Well i AM a mechanical engineer however i still havent picked my Master's area and one of the areas avaiable here is a mechanical engineering masters focused on electronics
Also yes i have considered getting an internship, however my university does have a very very very good employmente rate (People in my area of studies in my university seldom have to look for work because they are normally offered before they finish their time in the university) and so i wouldn't think that getting a job would be hard (At least the first job) i was just wondering (and thats the point of this thread) if later on , i am a patient guy, i would be able to get a good engineering job in CH
I am an mechanical and industrial engineer, and this is indeed what I am seeing during my applications: barely any opportunity at the big employers. And some people inside these big companies did indeed tell me about ongoing 'hiring freezes', and that a posted job may not even be real... So indeed, industry is a big player around here, but for the moment getting a position is very hard.
Sometimes I think that whenever there is an opening, a recruiter goes through German/Austrian LinkedIn/Xing, picks the right candidate, offers a nice Swiss salary and the whole thing is done: no need for writing job advertisements, review applications...
Out of curiosity and since you're an insider, do you have any examples of open positions that you're struggling to fill? Just wondering if I'll be able to find a job in CH when I'm done with my PhD at EPFL. Thanks
Excellent initiative to already start learning German before you make your move. I would definitely continue with the German (intensively if possible) because this will give you a strong advantage over the many other fresh graduates from abroad who look for work in Germany/Switzerland.
Note that engineering jobs require a master's degree in Switzerland (and most of central Europe). You can either do this in your home country or apply to EPFL or ETHZ (both of them have quite a few foreign students doing their masters).
After that I would keep two options open:
-applying directly in Switzerland (there is some industry here, but the competition is tough because experienced engineers from abroad are willing to take entry-level positions in Switzerland)
-applying in Germany (as originally planned), working 2-3 years in Germany and THEN making the move to Switzerland.
Companies you may consider (there are more of course):
Honeywell
PMI (Philip Morris International)
Alstom
ABB
BKW
SICPA
Varo Refining
Tamoil
Sulzer
Bühler
Bombardier
Bayer
BASF
If you are willing to move slightly out of the technical field
I'm am engineer working in Switzerland and I don't have a masters degree. I know other engineers working here without masters degrees also. Can I ask where you get your information from?
Granted I'm registered as chartered which is an additional professional qualification but my boss has a BSc Eng and is swiss.
I was looking for engineering jobs in Switzerland a bit over a year ago and it really depends whether you're taking more or less any matching job, or are more picky on what the work will actually involve. Definitely check out Graduate Programmes by the biggest companies like ABB, Alstom and so on, they look for people few times a year, contracts are usually for 1.5-2 years and you get to work on multiple projects in 2-3 locations in Switzerland and abroad. Couple of my friends got in and they are quite happy with their positions.
If you're self motivated and are keen to work on really interesting projects, a good way is to check smaller companies and startups. There are quite a few spin-offs from ETH and EPFL and they're usually involved in some crazy state-of-the-art projects. I've worked in couple of them and can tell you that I definitely had fun while still earning good money. Technopark is one of the startup hubs http://www.technopark.ch/start.cfm
Also, don't forget LinkedIn! Announce yourself as a job seeker in certain groups. And add all your info, set current location to Switzerland and pretty likely you'll be picked up by some recruiters. And do consider doing Masters at ETH or EPFL, I did it myself a while back and I'm very happy with the choice. They offer you a lot of opportunities, workshops, projects and so on, just need to make use of them
" -applying in Germany (as originally planned), working 2-3 years in Germany and THEN making the move to Switzerland."
The statement forms an opinion that in Germany the job market is less tough.
I am not a high-level IT specialist but from my experience with job search I concluded there are so much more opportunities in CH than DE. Since my move here (Dreiländereck) I have been so keen on working in Germany ( dialect issues, experience in this country) but the doors remained closed. And this was my second attempt after 5 years to get a job in Germany. Applying for IT support jobs I got 8 invitations to a job interview in CH and basically nothing really serious in Germany ( 1 invitation for a temp job for 2 months with a crowd of requirements and poor salary ). Maybe it's just my geographical area or I was simply lucky but comparing to Germany I see much more chances for young foreign people in Switzerland.
Julija, that's true, and there are plenty of IT jobs in Switzerland, surprisingly how many temporary positions, especially in small companies are offered. I think it's a good way to get started, as it's much easier to find something once you're actually in Switzerland and have a residence permit already. As for Germany, I think there's one additional roadblock added for us being from Lithuania, as employers do look a bit suspicious at our nationality because of the few idiots doing stupid things and getting onto headlines, not in a good way... Not the case in Switzerland
The reason my original plan was to apply for jobs in germany is that my university has some very good connections with engineering companies there (specially with Airbus, i am sure you guys know that one :P ) and that it is a pretty great country to be an engineer in, but somehow i caught the CH-bug :P now i am not sure i want to move to germany over CH but nevertheless i do thank you guys for the input and that is a good plan, going to germany to get some experience and then asking to move to CH
Can i just ask you engineers one thing? Do multinational engineering companies let you do that easily? Can you simply apply for a job within the company in another country?