Job Opportunities for Civil Engineers in India

Civil engineering has quite a beautiful scope in India. But remember, you will have to be patient. And I can explain why..!!

Civil engineering is a branch of engineering which deals with people, civilization of a country, their needs and basic facilities. So as long as there are humans and as long as we have natural phenomenon like earthquakes and tornadoes civil engineers will be required.

Just take an example of a routine life of Mr. Sharma. He wakes up in the morning brushes his teeth, takes showers, has breakfast, goes to office, works over there, has lunch, again works, comes back to home, has fun with family, has lunch, watches TV and then goes to bed.

Now in above example, he wants water for his morning activities, it has been indicated that if people do not get morning water supply their whole day is disturbed. He needs public transportation or roads to travel everyday to anywhere. His kids should have a nearby school. He needs electricity which is generated by hydro-power or nuclear or thermal or solar or wind. To produce that electricity we need some giant or small scale structures, to transmit that electricity we need some poles located at certain distance. He should have food to eat, so we need good farming and irrigation systems. To have better irrigation we should have Canals and good water supply. To dispose of his waste he should have better sewer system. And so on..

So as you can see, majority of the task, directly or indirectly, require civil engineering.

India is a developing country, there are still many places where people are not getting good quality of water to drink, nor do they have electricity, nor do they have safer houses (Nepal earthquake), people need roads to commute, mega cities need better transportation solutions, people need better standard of living.

Now tell me how much more scope are you looking for?

What we have to do is get some innovative ideas, once these innovative and cost effective ideas start snowballing, there is no stopping to it.

Now why don't anyone in civil engineering get a job easily? How many times did we see layman's interaction with civil engineering. Well every moment. If you just graduated from bachelor's or Masters you are still in a stage of accepting the theories and not the practicality and it's importance of safety. And if you start looking for some salary immediately, well only a few fortunate people can get that job, because some company may require immediate hiring or they feel that the candidate is really impressive.

I will give you my example. I had a talk with my professor and I told him that I am aiming for "X" company and can I get it or not. He told me, what experience do you have in the field of structural engineering. I said I did these projects and I can use these many software. But he asked me, if you are told to build a small house for a single family will you do it and take responsibility of their lives? I said, well I am not ready for that. What I did was I looked for a job on my own and what salary did I ask? "ZERO". I went to a structural engineering firm in my city, and I did not give him any reference. I told the structural engineer who owns the firm that I want to do this job and I do not want any salary. He took my interview for 15 mins and told me to come next day. I worked there between my masters and bachelors. After a month, he called me in his office and still gave me salary.

Don't run behind money (Considering you have a stable family, if not, then talk to me we can figure some ways out) instead go for some experience even if it is free or it just covers your food experience or you can comfortably. Grab an opportunity, learn as much as you can, because even after going through whatever you have today, you will come across something new tomorrow.

Author- Jinal Doshi