Over here "Engineer" is a protected title, like PhD or doctor! You are not legally allowed to call yourself an "Ingenieur" (the translated term) without a 4 year Master of Science ("MSc")!
Then there is a difference between "Civil Engineer" and "Industrial Engineer":
"MSc in Engineering" or "MSc Bio-engineer" (title "ingenieur" or "Ir."), "MSc in Industrial Engineering" or "MSc in Bio-sciences" (title "Industrieel ingenieur", or "Ing.")
Strictly by
the letter of the law "ingenieur" is protected in Flanders. But as far as I know you can get away with calling yourself "ingenieur" in a job title as long as you avoid "industrieel", "burgerlijk" or some other protected term. And you probably don't want to go around putting it on legal documents or using the ir. or Ing. prefixes. In industry no one really cares as far as I know, except maybe the same folks who care about the difference between Ing. and ir.? And honestly, all the people I've run into that insist on even making the distinction between ir. and ing. are usually twats of the highest order who feel insecure.
Officially new graduates since 2004 only are supposed to only use the "MSc" title, and not the old "Ir." or "Ing.", since it's all unified under the bachelor-master EU unification thing (called the "Bologna Process"). No-one actually seems to do this though, everyone uses the old titles because all the HR people don't seem to know what an "MSc" is.
First time I've heard this one.
The current job market for engineers is great, there is quite a shortage here, but a diploma is still required to get a good job. You won't get anywhere with just hobby projects, unless you have prior work experience.
You'd be surprised, experience outweighs titles in many cases. For the consultancy-firm ones I'll agree, the title is the only way to get in. But for proper EE work in small to medium sized businesses it's simply a matter of how you contact them. People will gladly hire someone who actually knows how to build a circuit. Most of the decent job interviews I've had so far included a technical round of questioning and paid very limited attention to degrees. The main reason why schooling came up was usually when talking about dissertation projects, at which point it's usually a good idea to pull out the book you wrote, a tablet containing the PDF, or even the device you built.
Yup, that's why I'm going for both. I'd like to get the pay and the fun
Yes and no, really depends on what you're willing to do and the management is usually the limiting factor. They don't like their
expensive engineering staff spending time doing "technician's work". And then there's the entire job description and insurance issue. That being said, there is no substitute for practical experience when it comes to understanding manufacturing processes, helping out your colleagues is the nice thing to do and it buys you a huge amount of credit with the manufacturing staff. Don't underestimate the effect of having manufacturing take your side when you're in a pickle. (Scheduling is quite flexible when a crate of beer is involved
)
When applying for jobs in Belgium I found that the cover letter is usually the most important bit, the resume itself serves as starting point for interviews but rarely seems to be the deciding factor. Pretty much every job interview involved technical questions and a rather extensive talk about non-work related subjects, so in many ways its similar to the situation described by Dave.
Also, the primary reason to get a PhD in engineering is the fact that you are then labeled as a "highly skilled immigrant" when applying for working visas. In Belgium it's also sort of worth it for tax reasons, but feel free to poke me if you want to hear about that bit.