Be willing to relocate, you dont have a lot of experience yet so its hard to immediately live in the place youd like to long term. 100% youll find a job if youre willing to move for it
its a numbers game, i thought i had a good resume after 5 years of experience but i still had to apply to 100 jobs over 2.5 months before i had an offer, just keep going
Lower your standards, engineers are needed you just wont be able to start in the position you ideally want first
Its hard to land your first job, but easier to move jobs once you have one. I think theres a mental block like “why does this person have no experience” when ive worked with people who have worked for 20 years and are less competent than some new grads, its unfortunate
I've commented on one of your previous posts about resume help in the past, but I'll give you the same advice again. Keep applying to positions that require a BS/MS but at this point also look at applying to drafting or technician roles. I know this path isn't ideal or what you want to do in the long term, but with a lack of professional experience you can work as a drafter/technician for ~6 months and treat is as the equivalent of post-grad internship.
I graduate with a BS in Mechanical engineering in 2016 with no internships and only my capstone project to show off my engineering abilities. After 9 months of applying to jobs, I only had a handful interviews and ultimately turned down for candidates with more experience.
From there I took a job as a contracted drafter for around 7 months at a well known company in my area. The pay was average, I had no benefits/PTO since I was a contractor, but I was able to show that I could work in an engineering setting and add more to my resume.
After those 7 months, I applied to a ME position at an HVAC firm that a friend worked at and got the job no problem. The work wasn't glamorous, but the pay/PTO/benefits were there and I was able to build my resume even more.
Now almost 3 years later, I started applying to new roles and was recently offered a job at a company I've always wanted to work at. Taking the job as a drafter was a blow to the ego at the time, but it ended up saving my career in the long run, and without it I would still probably be working in restaurants.
The job market is super competitive and COVID isn't helping it. I wouldn't get down on yourself too much since you've only been out a year and its been during a pandemic. With that said, ff you are out of school for 2-3 years with no professional engineering experience, I think its going to be tough to get an employer to hire you on.
TLDR: Keep applying to roles that require a minimum of BS and start looking at drafting/technician/etc roles. You may think you are overqualified, but they will give you more experience then you have now. They aren't a life sentence, so work them for >6 months and start looking for better opportunities once you have some skills.
I just made a big list of companies I'd like to work for (in order), and applied to each one by one. The first ones were my prefered of course.
I made my list by reading professional magazines in my industry, see who's doing well, researching the subcontractors for each company (that's difficult), going through lists of companies in that industry (you can find lists on the web, like the companies that come to a related job fair somewhere, or to a professional salon). Talk to people you know in that industry (like some friends who has already found a job), search through the alumni network… Building the list and making myself an opinion on each company took a long time, but I didn't want to go in a shitty company just because I didn't know what it's like inside (several friends of mine quit their first job after a few months because of that). There are lots of shitty companies.
Have a very good resume. I'm not talking about what you did, I'm talking about the paper. Spend weeks on it. Make it critized by everyone. Change it, scrap it, do it again. Read good examples online. You don't have experience, so you've got to show that you have some. Your resume should be 1 page long, and half the page should be for the "relevant experience" category. It's called "experience", not "professional experience", so stick your research projects in there and remove them from your "education" category. It's all just things to make HR feel better about your lack of experience (or simply not see it too much) and concentrate on the rest. Yes, the number of years don't correspond, but hey look, I've used that software for 6 months! Tell yourself that you've got 2 decades of experience.
If they have a career website, you make a profile (yes, it sucks), and then you search and apply to their jobs opening.
If they don't have a website, apply by email.
Make a few "standard" cover letters for every kind of job you will apply to. Make them good. When you apply to one position (not for one company, for one position), adapt the template to that position and company. In the end, you can standardize to gain time, but the result needs to feel tailored for that position. Also, take literal terms (or even parts of sentences) from the job description. HR people don't know shit about the job, so they will be happy if they see the same word; as far as they're concerned, it matches.
I applied to jobs up to 3 years of experience "required". I was fresh out of the uni, with a cumulated 6 months of internships and 1 year of research projects.
Companies list their ideal candidate. Generally it's a guy with 3-5 years of experience, and who's willing to get paid like an entry-level. Since that doesn't exist, they are willing to compromise on their "requirements". Just apply.
Don't have any remorse for HR. You'll learn to hate them and their practices after a few months of searching anyway. Just apply.