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Richard Nass
October 23, 2012
2 Min Read
A friend who works at a startup was recently explaining that the company's biggest problem at the moment is its inability to find suitable engineering talent.
As a barometer, one of the "questions" it poses to interviewees is this:
You have a 10V ideal voltage source in parallel with a 5Ω resistor. What is the impedance?
So far, no one has answered correctly. (The answer is provided at the end, in case you want to take a shot at it.)
My friend says, "Engineering students today can't answer basic engineering questions. And we aren't talking about tier 2 or 3 universities, either."
She tells the story better than me, so here are her words:
This is a well-known problem, one which I have discussed/commiserated with friends from two other firms with the same issue. One is in Massachusetts and the other is in Texas, so clearly this isn't just a regional thing.
When you look at these people's resumes, all is sunshine and rainbows. When you ask them questions about their accomplished projects, it becomes clear that they have no clue what these so-called projects were really about. They can't answer. And not just undergrads; we rarely interview undergrads. We are talking about folks with MSs and PhDs.
Some are specialized to the point of absurdity, which I suppose makes some sense if you are going to be writing a thesis, but because they lack basic understanding of the underlying physics, they really don't know their specialties all that well, either. Plus, many have difficulty communicating in English.
The bottom line is that the schools are to blame. They should not be graduating people who do not understand the material they were taught.
She went on, including what she considered unrealistic salary expectations, but you get the gist of it. Are you seeing a similar situation out there? Tell us about it in the comments section below.
Spoiler alert: The answer to the question is 0. It's a trick question. The amount of the voltage is irrelevant. The key phrase is "ideal voltage source." The real purpose was to see if they knew what an ideal voltage source was.
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