EngCen.com - Job Seeker Help

If you are an engineer looking for a job on Engineering Central, this is where you can get help.

Click on the relevant link:

• Is there any cost to use Engineering Central?
• Opening an account
• Searching jobs
• Browsing jobs
• Storing jobs
• Job agents
• Posting and managing your resume
• Applying online
• Privacy policy
• I can't find the answer to my question - how do I contact you?

Is there any cost to use Engineering Central?

There is no cost to job seekers to use any of the services on EngCen.com. You can post your resume, search jobs, apply online, or do any of the job seeker functions on EngCen.com for no cost whatsoever. We do have some affiliate programs with other websites which involve a cost to the job seeker. There are also websites linked from our Resources and Software pages that charge for their services. If you click on a link and transfer to another website, you may be asked to pay for a product or service. However, as long as you are a job seeker and remain on EngCen.com, you will not be asked for any kind of payment.

Opening an account

To use many of the services on EngCen.com, you need to open an account with us. There is no cost to open an account. You need to have an account if you want to:

• Post your resume in our database

• Apply online for jobs

• Run Job Agents that will notify you when jobs are posted that meet your search criteria

• Store jobs so you can refer to them later

You do not need an account to simply search jobs or browse jobs, and you can apply for many of the jobs on EngCen.com directly by email, fax or postal mail (i.e., you do not always have to apply online).

When you click on a link to submit your resume, apply online, or log in our system will check to see if you are already logged in. If you are not, you will be asked for your login and password. If you don't have an account already, click on the link under the password box to open a new account.

Searching jobs

Searching for a job means finding a job posting using keyword or key phrase searches, doing Boolean searches, searching by location etc. From your Account Page, you would click on Search Jobs. This is different from browsing jobs. For information on browsing jobs, Click here.

• Keywords - enter the keywords or a phrase you would like to search for. In the drop-down box, select Any Keywords, All Keywords, Exact Phrase or Boolean Search.
• If you select Any Keywords, the search will find all job postings with any of keywords in them. For example, if you searched for "mechanical hvac", all job postings with "mechanical" and all job postings with "hvac" in them would be found, even if both words were not in the job posting.
• If you select All Keywords, the search will find all job postings with both "mechanical" and "hvac" in them - both words must be in the job posting.
• If you select Exact Phrase, "mechanical hvac" must be found in that exact order. The search would not find "mechanical engineer with HVAC experience" or "HVAC Mechanical Engineer."
• If you select Boolean Search, you can search using Boolean parameters - AND, NOT, OR, and AND NOT.
• Job Location - You can specify a State as well as a city or area where you are interested in working. We recommend you do a search on the State first before specifying a city or area since many different city names are used in metropolitan area. For instance, you might be looking for a job in the Los Angeles area. But an employer or recruiter might have mentioned any of the suburban cities (e.g., Burbank, Pasadena, Commerce, Cerritos, etc.). If you searched for Los Angeles under City or Area, these jobs would not be found. Remember that EngCen.com is not a huge job board - you are not going to get thousands of results if you look at all the jobs posted for a single State. Try a State search first, then do a City search if necessary to reduce the number of results.

• Discipline & Date - When employers and recruiters enter jobs into our database, they specify a discipline that the job is most relevant to. You can specify up to 4 of these disciplines or categories (e.g. Chemical Engineering, Civil Engineering) by clicking on the discipline while holding down the Control key. Your search will only show those jobs that are in the disciplines you have specified. If you want to see all the jobs in a certain discipline (e.g., all the Chemical Engineering jobs), go to one of the Job Banks:
  • Entry Level Engineering Job Bank
  • Chemical Engineering Job Bank
  • Civil Engineering Job Bank
  • Electrical Engineering Job Bank
  • Manufacturing/Industrial Engineering Job Bank
  • Mechanical Engineering Job Bank
  • Other (Miscellaneous) Engineering Job Bank
  • Computer/IT Job Bank

  You can also search by date - you can choose to view only ads that are less than 24 hours old, less than 3 days old, etc. The oldest ads on EngCen.com are 60 days old. After that they will be deleted unless the employer or recruiter decides to renew them.

  The date of a job should only be used as a reminder so you do not apply for the same job twice.

  If you are qualified for and interested in a job, but have not yet applied for it, don't worry about the date!

  Repeat: If you are qualified for and interested in a job, but have not yet applied for it, don't worry about the date!

  Many job seekers assume that if a job is a bit old, it is no longer available. This is a big mistake! Many of these jobs stay open for 6 months before they are filled. If you are qualified for and interested in a job, don't worry about the date - APPLY!

• Saving a job search as an agent  - this means that our system will do the search again for you on a regular basis and email you if there are any new jobs found. Say you are looking for a job for a Mechanical Engineer in Illinois that requires HVAC and plumbing experience. Let's assume you do the search and find there is only one job like that, and it doesn't appeal to you. How do you know another job like that might not be added tomorrow or next week or a month from now? Of course, you could come back to the website every day to check, but it's easier to set up a Job Agent that will email you when that kind of job becomes available.

  Only new jobs will be sent out by your Job Agent. A job will not be sent out again if it is just updated or edited. However, if an employer or recruiter deletes a job and then reposts it later as an entirely new job, it may be sent out to you again.

Browsing jobs

Browsing jobs means viewing all the jobs in a certain Engineering Discipline. When you browse jobs, you don't need to enter keywords, location, or other search parameters. For information on searching jobs using keywords etc., please Click here.

When you browse jobs, you will see all the jobs in your discipline in one long list. Here are the different disciplines we cover. Click on the links below to see the Job Bank for your Engineering discipline.

• Entry Level Engineering Job Bank
• Chemical Engineering Job Bank
• Civil Engineering Job Bank
• Electrical Engineering Job Bank
• Manufacturing/Industrial Engineering Job Bank
• Mechanical Engineering Job Bank
• Other (Miscellaneous) Engineering Job Bank
• Computer/IT Job Bank

There are also lists of Hot and Priority jobs on the Home Page and the Main Job Bank. Since employers and recruiters are paying more to run these job postings, they are probably more eager to fill them than some of the regular job postings on EngCen.com. Your resume may get more immediate attention if you submit it for a Hot or Priority posting (assuming you are qualified for the job you are applying for).

Storing jobs

If you see a job you are interested in on EngCen.com, you can save or store it in your account for future reference. You might not want to apply for it right away, or you might have applied to it and want to refer back to it later on if the employer or recruiter contacts you.

To save a job, click on Save this job at the bottom of any job posting. If you are not logged in, you will need to log in to your account, and if you don't have an account, you will have to create one first before you can save the job.

Once a job has been saved, it will appear on your Account Page in the table of Stored Jobs. You can view the job posting, apply for the job (please don't apply more than once for the same job), or delete the job from your account.

Jobs will only be saved in your account as long as they are still posted on EngCen.com. If the employer or recruiter deletes the job or it expires, it will no longer appear in your account. If you want to be sure that you still have a copy of the job posting even if it has expired or been deleted, you should save a copy on your own computer.

Job agents

• What are Job Agents and why should I use them?
• How do I create a Job Agent?
• How do I run a Job Agent?
• How do I edit a Job Agent?
• How do I delete a Job Agent?

What are Job Agents and why should I use them?

We recommend you use the Job Agent feature on EngCen.com This means that our system will do a job search for you on a regular basis and email you if there are any new jobs that fulfill your search criteria. Say you are looking for a job for a Mechanical Engineer in Illinois that requires HVAC and plumbing experience. Let's assume you do the search and find there is only one job like that, and it doesn't appeal to you. How do you know another job like that might not be added tomorrow or next week or a month from now? Of course, you could come back to the website every day to check, but it's easier to set up a Job Agent that will email you when that kind of job becomes available.

Only new jobs will be sent out by your Job Agent. A job will not be sent out again if it is just updated or edited. However, if an employer or recruiter deletes a job and then reposts it later as an entirely new job, it may be sent out to you again.

How do I create a Job Agent?

There are 2 ways to create a Job Agent. You can create one directly from your Account page, or you can indicate that you want to save a search as a Job Agent.

• Creating a Job Agent from your Account page - click on "Create a new job agent" under Jobs. You will see a form that is very similar to the search form. Fill out the search criteria you want to use, then also indicate how often you want the results to be emailed to you. This can be either daily or weekly. Then click on the button that says "Click here to create your Job Agent."
• Saving a search as a Job Agent - when you are doing a job search using the regular search form, check the box at the bottom that says "Save this search as an agent." The system will create a daily Job Agent based on the search criteria you used in the search form. If you want to change this to a weekly frequency, you can edit the agent (see below).

How do I run a Job Agent?

Running a Job Agent means running the search using the criteria you have specified in your Job Agent. It will show all jobs that come up in the search, not just the newest ones. To run your Job Agent, go to your Account page, click on "View current job agents" or scroll down the page to see the Job Agent table. Your Job Agents will be listed there. Click on the Run button beneath the Job Agent you are interested in.

How do I edit a Job Agent?

Go to your Account page, click on "View current job agents" or scroll down the page to see the Job Agent table. Your Job Agents will be listed there. Click on the Edit button beneath the Job Agent you are interested in, and make the necessary changes on the form that comes up. Once you have filled in the changes, click on the button that says "Click here to edit your Job Agent."

How do I delete a Job Agent?

Go to your Account page, click on "View current job agents" or scroll down the page to see the Job Agent table. Your Job Agents will be listed there. Click on the Delete button beneath the Job Agent you want to delete. You will have to confirm that you really do want to delete the Job Agent.

Posting and managing your resume

• Posting a new resume
• Making your resume confidential
• Editing your resume
• Viewing your resume
• Updating your resume
• Deleting your resume

Posting a new resume

Go to your Account page, click on "Post your resume," and fill in the form that comes up. If you have any questions about specific areas of the form, click on the question marks. All the items that are marked with a red asterisk (*) are required - you must fill them in or you will get an error message when you try to submit your resume.

Making your resume confidential

To make your resume confidential, check the box under your personal information (name, email, telephone number etc.). If you decide to make your resume confidential, none of your contact information will appear in your resume. Employers and recruiters will not see the name, email or phone number that you enter in this section. They will only be able to contact you by filling in a form on EngCen.com. The output from this form will be emailed to you, and they will not know your email address. It will be up to you to decide whether you want to contact them or not.

If you put any of your personal information in the body of the resume, however, employers and recruiters WILL see it, so please be sure you remove this information if you want your resume to be confidential.

Sometimes candidates will indicate they want their resume to be confidential, but then in the Education or Experience section, they will just paste in their entire resume, which includes their contact information. This defeats the purpose of having a confidential resume.

To make your resume truly confidential, you may have to remove some of the company names of your employers as well, especially your present employer. Instead of "ABC Manufacturing, Atlanta, Georgia", for example, you could say "Large Manufacturing Company, Southeast US".

Generally speaking, it is better NOT to make your resume confidential unless you have a good reason for doing so. Employers and recruiters often prefer to contact candidates by phone rather than email. They sometimes express frustration with confidential resumes when they send off inquiries and get no reply. Because of this, some of them may not bother contacting candidates whose resumes are confidential. However, if you are currently working and don't want your present employer to know you are looking for a job, you should definitely make your resume confidential.

Editing your resume

To edit your resume, go to your Account page and click on "Edit your resume." A form will come up which contains the current information in your resume. Change the relevant information and click on the button at the bottom that says "Click here to submit your resume." If you have not posted, edited or updated your resume in the last 14 days, the resume will be updated to the current date. If you have posted, edited or updated your resume within the last 14 days, the old posting date will remain in effect.

Viewing your resume

To view your resume, go to your Account page and click on "View your resume." You will see the resume as employers or recruiters would see it, except that there are some links at the top and the bottom which allow you to edit, update or delete the resume. Employers or recruiters would not see these links.

Updating your resume

Updating your resume means to put today's date on it without making any changes (if you make changes, that is editing). You can only update your resume every 14 days. If your resume was updated, edited or posted less than 14 days ago, you will not be able to update it to today's date. To update your resume, go to your Account page and click on "Update your resume."

Deleting your resume

To delete your resume, go to your Account page and click on "Delete your resume." You will be asked for confirmation first that you really want to delete your resume. Deleting your resume will not delete your account with EngCen.com. You will still be able to create and use Job Agents and store jobs using your account even though you do not have a resume in our database.

Applying Online

Employers and recruiters have various options of how they want to receive resumes. Some may want you to send your resume directly to them by email. Others may prefer that you apply online. When you apply online, an email is sent to the employer or recruiter telling them you are interested in the job. There is a link in the email which will allow them to view your resume. You can also attach a note to your application if you would like to point out any experience or qualifications you may have that are suited to the job or to ask questions.

In order to apply online for jobs, you must have an account with EngCen.com and you must have a resume in our database. If you try to apply online, but do not have an account and/or a resume in our database, you will be prompted to create them first. There is no cost for job seekers to open an account or post a resume in our database.

I can't find the answer to my question - how do I contact you?

Please send us an email at admin@engcen.com if you don't see the answer to your question on this help page. Please do not send us your resume - it should be sent directly to the employer or recruiter according to the instructions in the job posting. If you send us a resume by email, it will just be deleted and will not reach the employer or recruiter.