Advice for Engineering Students Interested in BEAR Engineering
We get a lot of applications from engineering students still in college. That’s great. But most of them aren’t ready yet. Here’s what you can do to actually increase your odds.
Get Field Experience
This is a field job. You’re not behind a desk. You’re going to come home at the end of the day dirty and sweaty.
If you haven’t had a job like that, go get one before you apply to us. The tougher the job, the better. The rougher the work environment, the better. There are plenty of civil engineering jobs where you’re outside getting your hands dirty. Start there.
Spend Time in the Bay Area
Come live here for a while before you apply. Understand what it costs to live here. Learn the roads. Get familiar with the different regions.
You’ll be driving to a different site every day. Having that familiarity matters. You can figure it out on the fly, and it’s not an absolute requirement, but it helps.
Work for Another Company First
If you haven’t had serious internship experience, or haven’t really worked a real job yet, go work for somebody else first. BEAR is a better place to come after you’ve had some experience elsewhere.
And honestly, it’s not just about the experience. It’s about perspective.
Go see how young civil engineers get treated at big companies. See what it’s like to be one of a hundred engineers, or one of a thousand. Get paid as little as humanly possible while being worked as much as humanly possible. Or sit there bored out of your mind, doing 4 hours of work stretched across 8 hours because that’s what the system demands.
Then come here.
At BEAR, there’s no incentive to run out the clock. No dilly-dallying. No manufactured inefficiency. If you work hard and get your work done, the rest of the time is yours. No checking in with a manager for 8 hours a day. No bureaucracy.
Your job is simple: satisfy the client, get the report done, do great work on-site, get it reviewed, and keep learning. That’s it.
Having experienced the downsides of a traditional company makes you appreciate what we’ve built here.
Spend Time in Crawl Spaces
This is a stretch for most people, and I know most won’t do it. But if you want an edge, go crawl through some crawl spaces.
Go to your friends’ houses. Your parents’ place. Your neighbors. Anyone who’ll let you under their house. Spend some time down there.
It’s not about building expertise. It’s about getting a feel for what you’d be getting into. The whole crux of our job isn’t the crawl space, but it is a requirement. It’s a small space. It’s unique. We’ve written about how it’s similar to caving, and you can always talk to our team members about what it’s like.
But if you’ve done it before, you’ll know whether this job is for you.
Request Access to BEAR University
This is the most straightforward thing you can do.
Go to our website, look under Education, and request a password to access BEAR University. Start watching the lectures. Take the exams.
If you go through those courses and show that you’re proactive, a self-starter, and genuinely motivated, you’ll significantly increase your chances of us taking you seriously.
That’s it. No shortcuts. Do the work.