u/Impossible_Nose_715

Title says it all. I have a degree in mechanical engineering but recently got a job as an air pollution control engineer. I have a few weeks until I start, and was wondering if anyone had any advice. Should I read some environmental engineering books to get some baseline knowledge, and if so which ones? It sounds like they will teach a lot and encourage me to get my FE and PE (which I want to do!), but I want to make sure I'm going in with the right mindset and baseline knowledge. Thanks! :)

https://preview.redd.it/vd1v4nl5usph1.png?width=5100&format=png&auto=webp&s=cce26a5da88c824e2e8700afeaae19056f357046

https://preview.redd.it/m3s66t2kpsph1.png?width=5100&format=png&auto=webp&s=4ea6a05846bc55b7685d0b231eaea0802c4b316b

Note: First one is the current, and the second is an alternative, chronological version with Education moved up.

What positions/roles/industries are you targeting?
-Any Mechanical or Industrial or Aviation/aerospace engineering role, or a technical role requiring an engineering degree. Unfortunately, I'm desperate and will take anything to give me engineering experience.

• Where are you located and what locations are you applying to jobs in?
-US Major City and I'm applying within a 50 mile radius (up to an hour commute, but if I have to do over an hour commute, I'll do it)

• Are you only applying to local jobs? Remote only? Are you willing to relocate?
-Local and remote jobs. Can't relocate due to finances and living situation.

• Tell us about your background and current employment situation
-I struggled a lot in college figuring out what I wanted to do, which is why I have a bit of a diverse background with internships and my studies. I feel like college didn't prepare me (I was never taught AutoCAD, Solidworks, or Python [taught myself], and because of Covid, I don't have lab experience. Never did any sort of machining in my classes.), and the internships and post-college job I had didn't teach me a lot either. I got laid off from my engineering job, couldn't find another job, and because I needed to pay the bills, I started working in retail. I promoted up into loss prevention, but because of the lack of money and terrible management and wanting to do something far more technical, i want to go back into engineering. All of my health problems are fixed, I've matured a lot, and I feel like I would be in a MUCH better headspace for engineering, but I'm worried it's been too long and that I'm not a desirable candidate because of my lack of experience. I am by far a much better worker and believe I have developed myself a lot the past two years.

• Tell us about your job-hunting situation and challenges you've encountered
-I applied to 200-300 jobs and had about a dozen interviews before my job at the retail store and had zero success. I've applied off and on since then with little success as well. I am starting up part 2 of dedicating my time and energy to the job search and hoping I get a bit more success this time around. I have about the end of the year before my savings is all used up. (Retail pay is terrible!)

• Tell us why you're seeking help. (i.e., just fine-tuning, not getting called back for interviews, etc.)
-Struggling with getting noticed for interviews. I'm not sure what to do because it's been so long for me. Am I just cooked? My experience isn't good even though I have my internships and post-graduation job. I didn't feel like I was given anything substantial in those jobs. I also wanted to ask how the hell do I approach the interview with my lack of skills? What do you want to hear from someone who is in my position?

• Is there a particular section on your resume you’d like feedback on?
-My organization of sections. Where should my education go if I only have one year of experience and will be applying to entry level jobs? Should I add a line about my employment gap after I was laid off? How is the dividing of my experiences by relevance? Is chronological better? How is the objective?

Is my lack of skills compared to other mech engineers bad? I can talk about everything there, even if it's "Hey I took a class on this" but other than Microsoft tools, I haven't used anything else in a job, just in class.

Any advice is appreciated regarding my career and my resume.

Edit: Made some changes

A few months ago, I posted about not having a boss and what I should do to help our numbers. It’s been going okayish so far, as I’ve been working about 3 months now. I’ve made a lot of mistakes (mostly out of not knowing I had made a mistake), but I’ve slowly been teaching myself how to succeed in this role. I’m at a point where I’m somewhat confident in myself on most days. I’m really proud with how far I’ve come, and I still want to become a LP leader one day.

But I got some bad news recently: After every store in our district got their promotions and leadership filled, our store FINALLY got our new boss, and it’s not looking good. I have heard that said person has never been in LP before and is rough to work with. My coworkers who worked with them before are NOT happy and don’t think it will be a good fit at all.

Obviously, I will have to see this person for myself, and I’m willing to give him a chance, but if our store is such a low priority to the higher ups that we are the last ones to get a leader who isn’t even experienced AND has had a bad work history (allegedly), AND I have not ONCE talked to anyone higher up about how my experience is going, AND we get ghosted by said higher-ups, I don’t think this company’s LP department cares for me, and I don’t want to wait around 6-12 months with a potential bad boss for a promotion that may not even happen. Additionally, I’m incredibly underpaid and slowly losing my savings overtime, and I’ve mostly stuck around for the potential of higher earnings through promotions, but if I have to endure a bad boss who doesn’t care for me, I don’t think its worth it. I’d rather move on to another company that pays better.

If we are surprised and we get a great leader as a boss, then I'm not going to give up this stable job. But if not, I’m not going to wait around for things to get better when there are other opportunities out there. I’d rather polish my resume now and be pleasantly surprised than having to make an emergency change after a bad experience.

My questions for everyone are, would any LP department want to hire someone who only has 3 months of experience based on what I’ve said above (I’ve had 2 years of retail experience total)? If I do have to stick it out, for how long? What would you like to see on a resume based on what I’ve given?

If I were to apply to other places, which companies are hands-off (just my preference. I don’t want to touch anyone)? I really like writing cases and doing the administrative and technical/problem solving side of LP, and I feel like that is where my strengths lie. Any stores I should avoid based on this information? And finally, which places offer better pay for LP?

I would also take recommendations for LP-adjacent roles if those exist. Right now, I need as many options as possible in this terrible job market! I’m not going to make any major decisions right now as I just want to see what my options are (and I’m definitely NOT telling my employer if I search for other opportunities). Thank you everyone!

Edit: Totally forgot to add these details about myself as I was trying to get this posted as soon as I got the news.

1. I am interested in Costco and Macy's for retail LP and would like to hear others experiences on it!
2. This is more LP-adjacent but any thoughts on Private Investigator?
3. I do have an engineering degree but I'm not interested in engineering anymore (tech world does NOT have enough opportunities and I kind of regret the type of engineering I studied), but any suggestions on how to use that is appreciated.

I'm currently a hands-off, uniformed LP guard for the past two months. My training consisted of being told about how to do daily routines and paperwork by someone who has been in the role for only a few months. I was not taught how to use non-camera tools to find shoplifters, how to identify shoplifters, or how to interact with the store from a security standpoint. I came into the role with no manager to guide me, and I'm REALLY struggling with succeeding and it's stressing me out because I want to make a career in LP.

My store is in a very nice area with middle to upper-class shoppers so it's been difficult to find anything. I know what our areas of highest shortages are but I walk by them multiple times a day and will find no empty packages. Maybe if I'm lucky, I'll find one, but it's always out of view on the cameras that I can't determine when it was stolen. I have spent many days on the job walking the store and finding NO empty packages.

I also really suck knowing signs of a shoplifter. We have a plain clothes floor detective and I tell them whenever I see someone come in with a backpack or large purse, or someone with winter clothes since it's summer, but nothing has been successful so far. Everyone we watch always ends up paying for what they select. I'm also getting overwhelmed trying to sort out all of the people that come into our store and trying to ask myself: do they show signs of trying to steal? What's out of place? Do I recognize them from previous cases? That last one is frustrating because all case pictures are shitty quality and unless they have tattoos, I can't recognize them. The ones I do recognize are so rare and somehow only come in when I'm by myself. I keep being told about "follow your gut feeling" but that just seems to read to me as "profile people" which doesn't seem right. Quite frankly, I don't trust my gut feeling to not unfairly profile people. Being told that those who don't get a gut feeling will struggle in LP stresses me out.

The cameras has also been stressing me out. I'm just now figuring out there's an actual technique to using the cameras because I keep losing people and fucking up apprehensions. I'm still struggling with that, and it feels awful that no matter how much work I put in (making a map of the store with all of our cameras, a 3 monitor setup of cameras with my own personal formats, and giving my floor detective as much information as possible), I keep fucking it up. The amount of times I've had a person go from one area to another (Camera A to Camera B) and just... not show up at all on Camera B is infuriating. I'll look at cameras in the area to see if they took an unexpected turn, but by that point, they have left the store! How does this keep happening!?

I was fine a few weeks in because of course I won't know anything, but I'm at the point now where I should be confident in the role and yet I'm not. There is SO much I don't know and I feel so bad having to reach out to my floor detective and other stores for questions that I SHOULD know but just don't! I always figure out things too late and fail to mention things happening in our store because I don't know what's relevant or not! I'm terrified that I'm going to do something that will get me written up but I won't know it's bad because it wasn't explicitly talked about. I feel like I'm playing catch-up to have the same amount of knowledge as my other equal and with the other stores in our area.

I still have no idea what the guidelines for talking to the store side is and it's such an obvious and stupid question that I am afraid to ask. Obviously they can't know about our cases or where cameras are, but every time they ask about my job, I don't know what to do. I keep it as vague as possible, but I'm not even sure if I'm even allowed to say that. I've been told opposing ideas from my field such as "Do not talk to store side" and "Have a good relationship with store side." I'm leaning more on the latter being appropriate, but I struggle with that because I don't know what I'm allowed to talk about! (Am I allowed to say "oh i will be here tomorrow?" What about "Oh i have to do an outdoor patrol?" Am I allowed to ask if they've seen x person? I legitimately don't know!)

My metrics are shit and my poor floor detective hasn't been able to get an apprehension at all since they started working (they've worked LP before somewhere else, but started their role after mine). We have certain metrics we need to hit and it just seems impossible! I want to be a high performer, but I've legitimately spent many days walking the store to find no suspicious people or empty packages. How can I have a case if I do all my routines and still can't find signs of theft? How can I help my floor detective get an apprehension if everyone we follow doesn't meet the requirements of an apprehension OR they end up paying for the stuff anyways?? I feel like I have absolutely shit luck in this job.

The only thing I know to do is just follow my routines that I'm supposed to do and pray that I'm able to find an empty package or someone abandons their cart when they see me. I feel completely failed and abandoned by higher-ups. I want to be a plain-clothes floor detective one day, but if I can't succeed in this role, it's not happening!

I've been lurking in this subreddit for as much advice as possible but now I really need to ask directly. How cooked am I? How do I learn all of these things and play catch-up without a leader? What are some things you wish you know that isn't always explicitly explained? How the hell do you find shoplifters when working in a nice area? How do I best support my floor detective when I struggle with finding shoplifters and struggle with cameras? Any advice on the problems I explained above? I really really appreciate it. I have the drive and interest to do well, but it's starting to feel like there's something about me that just isn't good enough for the job.