MECHANICAL ENGINEER: Job Applicant

ROLE-PLAYING SCRIPT FOR JOB APPLICANT:
MS. Roberts MTU-Fall, 2008

It is Spring, 2008, and you will graduate from MTU with a Mechanical Engineering Degree and a 3.5 GPA. You grew up outside Detroit where your father is a foreman at a Ford Assembly plant. Over the years you got to see cars going down the line having parts added, engines dropped in and final inspections being done. You were fascinated by this and became interested in how the assembly line and workers actions needed to be highly collaborated to maximize both quality and efficiency. You began to think that engineering might be the career for you. Your mother is a science teacher, so math and science were your best subjects, and you saw how they affected evaluating and creating systems.

Your grandparents had a farm, and you helped summers haying and harvesting other crops and you observed the importance of crop rotation and land use to facilitate a healthy harvest. You also saw your grandparents adapting machinery and time to ensure safety, efficiency, reliability and to keep costs down.

After graduating from high school with honors, you applied to and were accepted at Michigan Technological University to study mechanical engineering. While there you decided to specialize in design, because this area emphasized modeling and control of dynamic processes in engineering systems. You have learned conceptual and developmental design, project management and how to work with suppliers. In May, you will graduate with a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering with a 3.5 GPA.

Because of your problem solving abilities, creativity and hands-on understanding, you were inducted into the Order of the Engineer. You are president of the MTU chapter of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers.

While at MTU, you lead your Senior Design project in developing a more cost effective and reliable system for campus laundry services that has been adopted and has saved the campus thousands of dollars in the last 2 months!.

During summer vacations and breaks, you worked in the paint shop at the Ford plant where your father works, moving from line worker to assistant shift manger, the first women to hold that position!

While attending the MTU Fall Job Fair, you met Ms. Burke, manager of the Smucker’s plant being built in Ann Arbor. She talked to you about the position of Design Engineer at the new experimental facility, which is a prototype to see if on-site and redesigned manufacturing can save money in today’s economic climate. The plant will be manufacturing jam, jellies and new products that come from regionally grown produce. By creating a state of the art facility placed in regional areas where the ingredients are readily available, Smucker’s hopes to save on fuel and labor costs, and produce products that are part of their new “From the Tree to Your Table!” promotional campaign. The person hired will be involved in the construction process and also oversee product production when completed ensuring quality and cost controls.

This sounded like the perfect job for you. Ms. Burke told you that she was very impressed with you and offered you the job as a Design Engineer I at the new plant. She asked you to come back today just to settle a couple details like salary, benefits and a starting date and then sign a contract.

You’ve done your homework. Www.wageproject.org tells you that a Design Engineer I position has a salary range of $58,000 to $69,000 with a median salary of $64,500 in Ann Arbor. The benefits package for this position is worth another $28,000.

You’ve determined that your target salary is $64,500 which you firmly believe is reasonable, given your unusual work experience, excellent education and leadership. The fact that you have worked on farms and in factory settings should make it easy for you to begin immediately with only “on the job training”.

You know that living in the Ann Arbor will be expensive. You have hefty student loans to pay off. You will need a car, and after working so hard, you would like to enjoy the activities the city has to offer. You’ve done your budget and know the minimum salary you can possibly accept is $60,000 and that would mean living VERY modestly.

You have the last appointment of the day. Ms. Burke must leave in 15 minutes to fly back to Ohio to Smucker’s Headquarters in Orville.

Can you and Ms. Burke come to an agreement about a starting salary which you can accept? Can you get her to agree to your target salary figure? Will she offer an acceptable benefits package? Make notes on what you consider your persuasive points. Decide the sequence in which you will present these points. Make notes about the language you will use. Make notes about her likely objections to raising her offer and what you will say.

Use every minute of that time to get her to your target salary. It’s your chance to start out with salary you deserve.. Remember, $64,500 is what you’ve determined is your worth to the company doing that job.

Go for it!