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Understand there are quite a few old birds in MCF, will be grateful if anyone can shed some light on this situation. Facing some employment crisis... A bit of my background, I graduated from a local university with an engineering degree a few years back. My GPA wasn't the best, but it was good enough for a first class honors and was in top 10% of the cohort. From there, I went on to work at a SME providing engineering services (basically, big companies outsource their engineering design needs to us), while doing a part time PhD at the same local university. Within 3.5 years, I ticked all the KPIs required for graduation and submitted my thesis. Reviews for my thesis were extremely positive and I was then able to graduate. This was by no means an easy feat because most full time students struggle to even produce a proper thesis in 4 years. I reckon that credit should also be given to the massive support I got from my professors at school and my ex-bosses at work. Upon graduation, I moved on to another company. Salary isn't high, but I really wasn't expecting too much considering that I was "new" in their domain- Same type of work, but in a different domain. In layman terms, it will be equal to domestic helper cleaning home vs. hotel chambermaid cleaning hotel rooms. Things were fine in the beginning, mostly because I lacked the knowledge in the new industry and also their business processes. Aong the way, I learned and learned, and eventually got the hang of things after a few months. Herein, the problem set in. Being a new guy, I was always assigned to some "senior" staffs under a couple of new area projects, playing the role of "assistant", which I am perfectly fine with. I do not mind being a follower, if the project leader is capable of teaching me something. However, in this cases, the project leaders knew nothing about the domain, nor the process. It was actually their first time running such projects too. What this effectively meant was that I was doing all the leg work, mind work and practically everything, while not a single credit was given. When things were not perfect, I had to take the blame because it was my work. When things were great, suddenly I was forgotten. At the same time, my company started looking at restructuring and I couldn't be sure when it will be my turn. Dejected, I started looking for opportunities outside. Despite numerous attempts at dropping resume and cover letters, I just couldn't find another job. After 5 months of job seeking, I got interviews with three companies. Weirdly, all gave the same conclusion, " We like you a lot, but your area of expertise...". This is despite my attempts at making clear that I was willing to learn and am a quick learner. I am wondering what exactly is my problem in preventing me from moving on or getting a chance for an interview. Is it the advance engineering degree? Or my current over-inflated job title? Or do I give off the vibe that I am expensive to hire? What will you do if you were in my shoe? *Disclaimer, I am really cheap to hire. My peers, who started PhD together with me and graduated 1 year later (Remember...I took 3.5 years...most full time were taking 4.5 to 5 years), are easily drawing 10-30% more than me even without work experience.