Pablo A. Cruz’s career as an engineer began in 2001. Initially starting out in construction, Cruz quickly moved on to working with a construction firm in Nicaragua on design projects. Following his tenure with this firm, Cruz was eventually hired as an entry-level structural designer, where he was given the opportunity to teach university classes in structural analysis and design courses at Universidad Nacional de Ingeniería (UNI) and Universidad Centroamericana (UCA). Though hesitant about accepting this position at the time, Cruz now reflects on this as a valuable experience that helped him shape his public speaking and organizational skills.
Cruz came to the U.S. upon being hired by a Missouri-based company. In this position, he was tasked with designing telecom towers in Nicaragua, among other Latin American countries. After being asked to return to Nicaragua to work, Cruz decided to part ways with the company to instead remain in the U.S. with his wife and newborn baby.
It took Cruz several years thereafter to find a professional job as an engineer. While working a low-paying survival job as an assistant to a property surveyor, he came across Upwardly Global and decided to participate in one of their courses. Within one year, Cruz’s career searching journey came to a close upon landing his first major interview.
As Cruz reflected on his journey transitioning into the U.S. workforce, he realized the fierce challenges that came with a lack of information for immigrant job seekers in his field. Cruz decided to write a book aimed to support skilled immigrant engineer job seekers who may be struggling with the same challenges that he had faced when coming to the U.S.
Cruz’s book is a short and easy read. His message is streamlined through a simple and clear writing style. Moreover, he spends an adequate amount of time thoroughly explaining any terms that he anticipates are unfamiliar for his target audience. The book is also strikingly versatile, offering a variety of types of advice for the different situations a reader might find themselves in. In the section “Identify Where You Currently Are,” Cruz offers three scenarios that might describe the reader’s starting point. For example, their engineering degree might be from a university accredited by ABET (Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology), which means that their education and skill might have more immediate recognition in the U.S. than those engineers who studied at unaccredited universities.
Cruz also includes success stories of different kinds of immigrants that have found jobs as engineers in the U.S. He does a great job of making these stories feel real and close to the reader. He seeks to make his information as practical as possible. In the section “Useful Resources,” he compiles a unique and tailored list of relevant organizations and companies for engineer job seekers.
Overall, the book is a great read and strongly recommended for skilled immigrants looking to pursue careers in engineering in the U.S. No matter the background or situation the reader is in, Cruz’s stories help to instill hope for a brighter future.
Purchase Pablo’s book here: https://www.amazon.com/Working-Engineer-USA-Ultimate-engineer-ebook/dp/B0B3CV37CR
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Written By Chaemin Lim, an intern at Upwardly Global.