frustrated

Keep your head up. The market is at a very low point at the moment. Things will turn around and when it does you will be thankful for getting the training you did. This is just the way this market is so when you do get your foot in the door, remember to nest egg for the low points in the future. Good luck and stay persistent.

name one job that is not tied to the economy in some way. been in this line of work for 20 years and would not have it any other way. if you are good you will always have work. take my word for it. i have no regrets...........

thanks for all your feedback. I took over one month off work to find a piping (or any drafting job in general) and found nothing! My resume/cover letter is great and I believe I must have sent out well over 50. The result... not even a phone call. I give up. I think I will give it one more go in about 6 months and see if things have picked up. After that I may have to settle for the fact that my education will not get me a job and enough time will have passed that it will be irrelevant. feels kind of like a waste. still beyond frustrated.

I agree with the person who said get out now. I live in houston texas, the engineering capital of the world. I have been in the piping business for thirty five years. I have been through about 5 of these depresions and this is the worst. If you have a family to take care of git out of this business and get into the medical field.

Tim in Houston, Texas said: git out of this business and get into the medical field.

I agree with Tim, get out while you still can! The drafting profession, in general, is a dieing field. Outside of piping design, and maybe a couple of other specialties, the opportunities for a making a living that you can raise a family on are nil. Some would tell you to wait it out. That is up to you. But when the jobs are gone, they are gone!

Get out now and don't look back. Unless you want to get a 4 year University Engineering degree in Mechanical, Electrical, or Civil you will be out of work for long periods of time. I've been in this business for 18 years. I have been out of work for 16 months and there's no hope in sight. What few jobs there are, they are hiring Engineers and making them do it all for less. That being said, Engineers are out of work too! Before this, the longest I've been out was a couple of months but then I worked for less than 1/2 my "usual" pay. My wife & I always have to have a huge emergency fund to fall back on. That's going out the door real fast this time around. Luckly, she's a teacher so her job is always steady but she doesn't make much money so now I'm working an odd job to keep from depleting our savings. You end up taking 3 steps forward while you are working and making good money and 4 steps back when you're not. It's hard to get ahead that way. If I had it all to do over again I'd do something else.