Career Advice
What is Industrial Engineering
Industrial engineering deals not only with things but also with people, finance, information, and the environment. Industrial engineers answer complex questions:
- How can we improve safety, quality, productivity and service?
- What products or services should we offer? What price should we charge?
- What materials and methods should we use?
- How can we best motivate and reward people?
- How much inventory do we need?
- Where should we locate our plants, stores, and warehouse?
- How can we use our historic data to improve our business?
- How can we improve our product design to reduce manufacturing cost and improve quality?
Most Lamar University (LU) industrial engineering graduates find employment in manufacturing, but industrial engineers also find employment in health care, banking, consulting, transportation (air, land and sea), warehousing, retail, and government. Recent LU industrial engineering graduates have found employment with Bell Helicopter, DuPont, Schlumberger, Invista, Georgia Pacific, BASF, Accenture, IBM, HP, Honda, Toyota, Nissan, Walmart and other leading companies. The majority of undergraduate students have paid co-op and internships during their studies.
Study the Job Market
You should spend time researching the job market prior to selecting a major and technical elective within a major. Postings on indeed.com and other websites can provide information on the skills in demand today. Industrial engineering jobs often contain the following key words Industrial Engineer, Industrial Engineering, System Engineer, Safety Engineer, Logistics Engineer, Project Manager, Reliability Engineer, Supply Chain Engineer, Manufacturing Engineer, Six Sigma, or Lean Manufacturing.
The median starting salary for LU graduates in 2020 was $73,690 based on Texas Crews based on 2021 salaries. This salary is the highest in the state. https://txcrews.org/major-dashboard/106 (filter by BS degree level).
Did You Know?
LU graduates typically make slightly higher salaries due to finding employment in high paying industries (Chemical and Oil) and participating in internships and co-ops.
Your Resume
Having a quality resume (writing and content) is key to an effective job search. A resume should be easy to read and professional without spelling and grammar errors. The Lamar Career Center will help edit resumes. Most faculty members in the IE department will also review student resumes if asked. Spend significant time on writing your resume and have at least 3 people review it. A student should build their resume as part of their education. A long list of helpful ideas for building a resume is:
- Find an internship or co-op.
- Maintain a reasonable GPA.
- Use technical electives to learn specific skills to support your career.
- Study beyond the classroom by going to conferences and participating in professional societies.
- Consider taking IIE certification courses in Lean and Six Sigma offered by our student IIE chapter and others.
- Consider taking the FE exam.
- Learn and become an expert with IE software tools taught in class including SAP, Excel, CAD/CAM, SPSS, and others.
- Read articles and watch videos from experts in the areas of IE.
- Use technical electives, work experience, and independent study to develop a focus area within Industrial Engineering.
- Attend Job Fairs (fall and spring) Engineering Job Fair at Lamar.
Be Active
Having fun and developing a network of friends is important for your job search and success as an engineer. Consider joining one or more of our student professional organizations. Our students as a group have a deep understanding of local and national job market.