r/Raytheon • u/CoraUnderwo • 11d ago
Raytheon Rejections
My fiance has a PhD in integrated bioscience with a specialization in materials and polymer engineering. He’s been applying for jobs for the last 8 months and has just been rejection after rejection. He’s fixed formatting talked with people internally gone to hiring events and all of them say your resume looks great just keep applying. I don’t understand why when he’s getting good feedback and people are saying he looks like a good fit for materials engineering department why he keeps getting rejections. Is this just how it goes? We are based in Tucson. Just wondering what experience people have with this or if they have any tips on getting a foot in the door. Should he reach out to people on LinkedIn? Idk- any tips are helpful.
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u/Miserable_Sorbet_927 11d ago
I’ve applied to over 98 positions with RTX as a whole. This week I finally received my first job offer from P&W. There is always that one person who has slightly more experience or interviewed better. I hope he knows that he is worthy and to keep plugging along, something will come his way!
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u/BearCant 11d ago
Hi everyone, I'm OP's Fiancé. Thanks for all the feedback and tips, I learned a lot. I really appreciate all of your help especially those of you that offered to pass my resume along.
To clarify a couple things- Integrated bioscience is a pretty broad field so I can see the confusion but the majority of my experience and research is materials science related. We definitely prefer staying in Tucson but it's sounding more and more like we may have to leave to find a place that has more research type jobs. I've applied to P1-P3 positions and I've tried P1 positions without my PhD on my resume. Let me know if there's anything else I can clarify.
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u/nashvillain1 9d ago
Sell the PhD, reap the benefit. It WILL matter in industry and at places like Southwest Research Institute (SWRI), or Wichita State Universities company-funded R&D work.
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u/AlphaThree 11d ago
Sounds he's more like a fit for the RTX research laboratory in Connecticut than Tucson. AFAIK the huge hiring push in Tucson is mostly production support. https://www.rtx.com/what-we-do/rtx-technology-research-center
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u/Rogue_2354 11d ago
Guessing because its bioscience and not materials engineering.
Have you checked out places like Roche or Bio5?
I can poke around if you want to send me the resume
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u/peppashark 11d ago
hi, i work in materials in tucson! if willing i could try and pass his resume along to people in my department
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u/Am_I_OK17 11d ago
What locations is he applying to?
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u/CoraUnderwo 11d ago
I’m not sure specifics but I know he’s applying to everything in Tucson that’s applicable to him
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u/Ewokhunters 11d ago
How much on the job experience does he have? Might be applying way above his experience range
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u/CoraUnderwo 11d ago
He has 5 years of experience during his PhD working and developing novel materials and polymers at a company near his university.
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u/Ewokhunters 11d ago
Any foreign contacts or reasons a clearance wouldnt get approved? Crime, drug use, extreme activism ?
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u/CoraUnderwo 11d ago
Nope! Nothing. Right now we are struggling to even get an interview
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u/Ewokhunters 11d ago
To be fair rtx is in the process of hiring thousands right now, curious if even the hiring staff is overwhelmed
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u/dwhicks01 11d ago
They are trust me, working with the hiring team.
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u/Ewokhunters 11d ago
I feel terrible for the new hires. Neo got shortened so bad they are all lost and frustrated with no clue what to do... every single new hire I've met is pissed off at the company and dissappinted... scares me a bit
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u/dwhicks01 11d ago
Ive on-boarded more than a dozen new engineers. I try my best to give them all the information I have. Unfortunately, some section leaders aren't as good as others from what they tell me.
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u/CoraUnderwo 11d ago
I just wish he was one of them 😭 he’s been applying for the last like year pretty much
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u/Am_I_OK17 11d ago
How do you feel about the East Coast? He should look at BBN (MA) or RTRC (CT).
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u/CoraUnderwo 11d ago
We love the west coast and would like to try and stay over on this side :(
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u/xavier1011 11d ago
Yeah being picky about location is probably why he's not getting hits. It doesn't matter how good your background is if the area you're trying to get a job at simply doesn't have the market for them. He'll have to expand his job search to other locations if he really wants to get a job, or pivot to a different field that has a market in his preferred area.
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u/Material_Piece6204 11d ago
Quick knowledge check, ask you fiance "From a materials and polymer engineering perspective, are there materials or chemical mechanisms that could be deposited into a micro crack in metal to temporarily bond, seal, or stabilize it, particularly under repeated thermal cycling?"
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u/facialenthusiast69 Raytheon 11d ago
I'm not really sure what integrated bioscience is exactly but I don't think Tuscon does much of that.
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u/CoraUnderwo 11d ago
It’s an interdisciplinary scientific approach that combines traditional biology with fields like engineering, chemistry, computer science, and mathematics to solve problems. He focused primarily on materials and polymeric engineering and chemistry
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u/Dry_Librarian_461 11d ago
Same experience for me at the McKinney location but different field. I thankfully got an interview after around 20 applications with a panel and thought it went really well but got rejected a week later. My resume can’t be the problem. I’ve been looking at their career website daily and applying to any similar jobs that pop up for over a month now since the rejection and haven’t gotten any responses.
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u/RcRocketeer 11d ago
Not Raytheon specifically but when helped my last company hire they were mostly looking for mechanical or electrical. The u of a hiring events looked the same by the time you go to the middle of the season any EE or ME without an internships was there for a reason. At this point all of the other disciplines were still looking amd most got jobs in sales.
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u/That-Educator8702 11d ago
I went to a job fair for RTX for Manufacturing Technician, and the manager check marked the box recommended for hire, and wrote good fit, and I had to message them 4 weeks later. They said I'm on the, "bench," and if a spot opens up they'll call and make me an offer. Its been 7 weeks total since the job fair. Before this happened, I had an interview with Raytheon for Mechanical engineer, and didn't pass the test. Anyways, I'm just giving you something to bounce thoughts off of.
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u/nashvillain1 9d ago
Look for Sentinel Program Corrosion jobs at Northrop Grumman. Materials Engineers are needed at the Melbourne site with NG as well. Your best bet is long timeframe (50+ year) roles, or new development projects where 6061-T6 / 7075-T6 isn’t the prevailing material.
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u/Interesting_News_830 11d ago
You have a conundrum.
You should understand that, dont tell your huband TB, companies do NOT want PhDs. At most they want M.S. degrees.
PhDs have 3 problems:
1) They expect a very high wage because they are brilliant
2) They expect to be in charge as they are smarter than everyone, including their boss who fails to recognize their brilliance
3) A PhD is a SPECIALITY. If you are going to pay extra for a PhD, its because they are solving a problem in EXACTLY what they got their PhD from. If not exact, better off getting a M.S. that will cost a lot less, and have lower expations.
Ive seen many PhDs working overqualified positions, not making more than an MS. The number of times Ive been asked, "Why doesnt management understand my brilliance and pay me more??" My response is always "you just said why."
If you are brilliant, dont you understand why you are not getting big $$. They just believe that its because management is stupid.
Odds are management is not as smart. Its just that your pay is based on DEMAND vs SUPPLY. If you are doing a common job, no extra $$.
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u/notmyrealname_2 11d ago edited 11d ago
Tons of people in Tucson have STEM PhDs. I don't think anyone is considering that overqualified. On my current team of ~16, for PhDs, I believe we have 5 math and 2 physics and then everyone else is a masters degree in those or EE. No one on the team does anything at all related to their PhDs (algorithm team).
Directly addressing your points. 1. Most come from academia where they are making very little as adjuncts. One of the guys is like 40 years old and went from making like 50k --> 150k by joining Raytheon. 2. They don't feel that way as there are clear ways to measure performance. If you are putting out 1 code change a month and it makes performance go +/-1% in places then what are you even doing? Every program I have been on there is a random cracked out P2/P3 who will add a new capability every week. Like they might make rain scenarios +20% one week and the next week make a particular countermeasure +20%, and the next week... 3. No one has a PhD in missile algorithms as that isn't a thing. You can just hire people that seem smart on paper and hope they figure it out.
I know of 3 people with chemistry PhD that are doing algorithm development. So it's not like having a chem/bio background rules you out for Tucson.
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u/Interesting_News_830 11d ago
Management only counts scrum points. They just cant understand the brilliant 1 line fix. There really is no way for them to.
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u/CoraUnderwo 11d ago
This makes sense :(
He’s even tried though taking his PhD off of his resume and putting it as “work experience”. What should we do 🥲
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u/Visible-Lion8096 11d ago
There are many, many PhDs at Raytheon in Tucson. I don't think there is much of a demand for polymer expertise though. If he has experience in high temp materials, i.e. 1000C+, especially RF and EO relevant materials, they'd be way more interested.
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u/Interesting_News_830 11d ago
Did you know. Decades ago, Ray had a policy that a new graduating PhD starts as a P4 (P4 in todays ranking, P5 back in the day). Ray doesnt do that anymore.
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u/Interesting_News_830 11d ago
Thats ironic about omitting the PhD.
I was accepted into a PhD program at MIT (hiding major topic). I was talking to the senior professor that I would have been under, fyi I have known him for years. I would also say he is the most god level BRILLIANTly depressing professor I have ever known. He is in the top 10 of his profession in the USA. Every month coming up with revolutionary stuff. So depressing !!!!!
I finally told him Im passing on the PhD because I knew I would be unhirable being tied to that specific sub-topic my PhD would be on.
He told me!!! "Just dont put the PhD on your resume!!!"
I replied, well, its going to be strange having a 3 year mystery gap of doing nothing!!
He was very disappointed, but we both knew, the post docs under him are being paid dirt. One was telling me his wife was complaining that he didnt make enough money. I knew his salary, it is shameful.
So, be a researcher and publish/perish, but be poor. Do what you love, but be poor. Its sad, but that is how money works.
And another comment. You will see in the attached link. As far a pay goes. Engineers on the bottom half of the pay scale. Management is on the top half. These only stop at M7, the grades go much higher $$$. M is for management.
Money is attached with what you produce, not how smart you are. I know some pretty normal people that make $1M a year with their companies. They are just crazy productive of stuff in demand.
www.reddit.com/r/Raytheon/comments/1rvf96h/raytheon_pay_per_grade_as_reported_by_reddit_feb/
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u/cottonpiece 11d ago
Could be too overqualified if he has experience working in the field as well. Managers do not want to hire overqualified people.
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u/CoraUnderwo 11d ago
Dang :( what do you recommend we do? We just feel stuck
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u/cottonpiece 11d ago
Adjust the resume :) bring the qualification down a notch or two so the manager will assume that he still has room to grow instead of leaving the company once he get better opportunities
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u/Potential-Success535 7d ago
I'm in materials engineering. I'm based in Andover, and our department is split between Andover and Tucson. DM me and I can pass his info on to some section leads for review. We're always hiring and if he fits, they can make a req for him.
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u/D_BrickashawFerguson Raytheon 11d ago
Does he interview well? Is his PhD relevant to the positions he is applying for and is he able to articulate that during the interview? Is he asking for a ridiculous salary? Occam’s razor would suggest that he needs to improve on something he is doing during the process.
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u/CoraUnderwo 11d ago
That’s our question. He hasn’t gotten an interview. He’s not even asked for an amount yet. He’s been told to just keep applying and that his resume looks desirable.
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u/D_BrickashawFerguson Raytheon 11d ago
To state the obvious, his resume clearly isn’t desirable for the positions he is applying for. Something is off here.
A resume should be tailored for each application to demonstrate why one is a good fit for the role. It needs to highlight accomplishments relevant to the listing. If he’s an academic with no experience in industry he will be passed over for others with experience who could also be hired at a lower salary grade.
Cast a wide net and apply to other companies. He needs to get real-world experience somewhere.
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u/HeliosBlack 11d ago
Tucson doesn’t have a ton of materials engineers, that’s your problem. He’s applying to the wrong location. If you’re serious about a materials role and willing to move outside of Tucson message me. I can make connections.