I shall leave aside for the moment my views of aeronautical engineering being regarded as a second class job behind flying, other than to say Hmmmph !
Anyhow, the best advise I can offer is to get your hands dirty. Go and get involved with some real engineering that you can show on your CV. Look at...
- Helping out with restoration work
- Talking to amateurs doing their own designs and needing help.
- Getting involved in amateur space work, where people are designing rockets, parachutes, telemetry systems, etc - for fun.
- Go and help a PFA member build their aeroplane, particularly useful if they are doing any design work as part of it.
Having stuff like that on your CV, showing a real interest, commitment and experience in design work, will make a huge difference.
Or at-least it did when I was a fresh graduate (that was how I got my foot in the door, mostly with unpaid design work on an amateur satellite project), and it would certainly influence me as a recruiter (although sorry - I'm not hiring at the moment).
Oh yes, and try the less big names - small 2-man band companies are far more interesting to work for usually anyway in the design field.
G