OT: A description of some of the "designers" here...

Problem is that the world is so technologically complicated "nowadays" and EE is so broad that there just isn't enough time to fit all that stuff into a generalized BS curriculum. You don't have enough time to spend days analyzing the stability characteristics of emitter followers. Frankly, for 95% of jobs grads will go into it's not really relevant. In uni these days they probably spend 10 minutes on it and then it's on to the Raspberry Pi.

IMO if the role that a grad is interning for is specifically in transistor-level analog design then these are some of the things I would expect to learn on the job, not necessarily in school.

Come on man, these are 22 y/o _interns_ just out of school. You want them to be experts in analog design _and_ work for free?

So you want a recent generalized EE BS grad who understands stuff like noise performance and tempo variation in transistor-level circuits _and_ will work for free?

I know the software world is full of interviewers who create interview questions which test the candidate's ability to be quick-witted, clever at figuring out the little "puzzle trick" to the question or divining what the interviewer was really asking instead of the question they actually asked, and in no way actually evaluates the candidate's ability to perform their job duties effectively.

It's a sin to waste coffee.

There must be a lot of pixels out on your screen; I noted that we pay interns. The last intern that we hired, we soon figured out that she got it, so we made her a permanent job offer after about 6 weeks, and she's a design engineeer here now.

An internship is often a low-damage extended job interview.

Shortrex can thank the government for that, too.

I went to a top EE university 45 years ago and they didn't require either, then. They did when my brothers were there, about a decade before, but the college was threatened with their accreditation if more students didn't graduate in four years (only something like 20% did). They were forced to whittle the curriculum down from 154 semester-hours (IIRC) down to 124, by the time I graduated, to keep it in line with other colleges. Something had to go.

I think the more serious problem is that EE labs are expensive. PCs are cheap. Tuition is the same, so colleges turn out a lot of script kiddies. The same sort of calculation goes into law school v.s med school. Law libraries are cheap.

If both parties understand that the deal is just for the summer or something, there's no hard feelings when it ends. And we don't have to uproot and move a person across the country and feel awful if it doesn't work out.

And interviews are not really effective, except to weed out the obviously unsuitable. You have to work with someone for a while to really understand them.

A BSEE should teach the basics: physics, electricity, circuits, s+s, control theory, introduction to digital electronics. Without that foundation, the detailed stuff doesn't work. Well, maybe coding, which has no quantitative basis.

I have this old-fashioned idea that an EE grad should understand electricity.

No, what I was trying to say is it's unclear whether you state upfront that what you're willing to pay or if you leave that ambiguous.

Just sayin', if most of the people you're interviewing figure "free" is the price that you're willing to pay (if it's left ambiguous in the solicitation) and they figure that's what they're worth, it might not be a huge surprise that's the sort of applicant that's turning up...;-)

I hate those trick-question written interview tests. I like to brainstorm a potential design on a whiteboard, in a fun, no-pressure sort of way. Or get them to talk about their own projects. In want to learn how a person thinks, and how that will work with other people to generate and develop ideas.

My great embedded systems programmer is a guy that we helped with his senior EE project, a TDR system. He coded the uP in days, no drama. So we hired him.

I walked through the Cornell EE school. I counted over 20 PC screens and one oscilloscope.

Ya I suppose if I did hiring for a software company for example my primary concern would be finding a candidate who could write clean, maintainable code that got the job done and work well in a team for the price I wanted to pay. i.e. make money for the company, not evaluate how super-cool they were.

I guess in a world where app companies stuck around to make product and didn't just try to hawk their super-cool ideas off to the first bigger company with VC to burn it might have mattered. At age 38 I am already too old-school for the tech world, I guess.

I went though a period interviewing around 50 people, out of 300 Resumes, for a Principle Level Analog Designer. When I say that only 1 was competent and hireable, I mean that only one was competent and hireable. Period.

This was out of those from 5 to 30 years experience, from the main steam companies like National, TI, etc... The level of ability in all but the "exceptional" one, was on average, a grad straight from university. It was that bad.

It is a totally joke. Seriously. My statistical experience, tells me that only around 2% can do what they are being paid to do. I would refer the interested to my linked in profile for more info... :-)

The basic problem is that the vast bulk of analog "design" is just copying the existing circuits, and doing small modifications. A company typically has a couple of "good guys", the rest are just running verification simulations, with no detailed understanding of what they are simulating at all.

-- Kevin Aylward

We offer interns $25 an hour, as soon as we figure that we want them. I they asked up front, we'd tell them that we pay interns. The pay thing doesn't come up early in an interview. It seems to me that most interns hope but don't expect to be paid, and are delighted with $25.

We don't discuss money with any potential employee until we get to know them a little. If they ask, which is sort of tasteless early in a meeting, we give them a range. We don't have formal step levels and salary brackets like government agencies do.

I want interns, and engineers, who are excited about the technology and the company. Our last two hires, we started them at more than they said that they wanted.

I see lots of employment ads that don't mention salary. In this business, it's usually negotiated late in an interview.

I find that a bit surprising that they just "hope". Any internship in which the company gains an immediate advantage (that is, some "real" work is being done) consitutes "employment" in the eyes of the U.S. Department of Labor, and minimum-wage rules do apply. If they're doing real work, the law says it's "employment" and the employer has to pay 'em.

"Unpaid internships should generally not be used by the employer as a trial period for individuals seeking employment at the conclusion of the internship period."

A number of companies (including Fox Searchlight Pictures, and some high-dollar law firms I believe) have gotten into significant trouble for using unpaid (or underpaid) interns to do real work.

Heck, when I was a co-op (work-study) student back in the early 1970s, I was definitely being paid even though I wasn't yet a college graduate. Same for all of my fellow students.

We work at board level, but the issue is similar. Few EEs have new ideas, and few really understand electronics. You need a few real thinkers around (some companies call them "architects") to invent things and keep the troops on track.

I guess Boeing has a few people who invent airplanes at the top level.

Few interns have net positive value.

Well, we wind up hiring a small minority of interns. Some haven't finished school yet, so any employment prospects are years away.

We pay interns, even though we may not have to. And we pay multiples of minimum wage. They don't get benefits (health insurance, 401K) although they might get a bonus.

But they don't. Most employees think they're owed something. Damned few understand that it's a contract, not much different than buying the milk and eggs on the way home.

There is a lot that can be found from an interview. You have to listen. I find the best technique is to draw a simple circuit on the board (single transistor amplifier) and kick it around for a while. If they can get by that, a switching regulator (buck makes it easy) is my next step. I don't necessarily want to know that they know how to design one (though that is part of most jobs) but they should know what the waveforms look like (at least with ideal components). It's also good to challenge them on something (anything) and see how they react. We don't treat it as an inquisition, I'd rather the candidate were as relaxed as possible. We generally overlook small errors.

Perfect. I sit on the other side of the table and want to know if we have any chemistry before we get to salary (beyond generalizations - don't waste my time).

There should be some number to weed out those who are either more experienced than you're looking for and those not as.