Engineering Resume Writing

Engineering Resume Writing

Engineering job in its multiple capacities is very complex and responsible. It ensures comfort and daily efficiency of whole cities and safety of busy traffic rushing across a bridge connecting two remote river banks. It brings light to the darkest places and makes powerful engines run easily and lightly like toy cars.

This is why it is a matter of crucial importance to find a proper engineer to fill a certain position. A person’s skills should perfectly match a job description, and the only way to single out this only person among the host of applicants is to see these skills in his/her resume.

So facilitate the task of your potential employer and create a resume that will impress and persuade that you are the one. Read on to learn how to do it.

How to approach resume creation: general instructions

In general, an engineering resume follows the same pattern for all engineering fields:

  • Header with name, contact information and resume summaries;
  • Skills /job experience;
  • Education;
  • Licenses;
  • Certificates, courses, trainings, internships, etc.

Tips on doing it right:

Do not include street address, it is mostly irrelevant today, so write your phone and email. Social media pages are irrelevant to contact information except LinkedIn where you specifically organize your profile around your professional life. So you may include it.

Resume summaries say what you do and what talents you have in a nutshell (2-3 sentences or statements). Pick two or three that you believe to be your most outstanding traits beneficial for a job. Use them while describing what you accomplished (finished and get results at your previous job), and do not write generalized faceless stuff. E.g., if you are good at organizing people and controlling the quality of things – say it. If your cup of tea is coming up with better and more efficient solutions – go ahead and state it in the summary, employers are eager to get such people on board. Just think what you can do best and present it on the plate for recruiters to see it immediately.

Skills and work experience are equally important to recruiters so decide what your strongest advantage out of these two categories is and place it first. For example, you have little experience but you were highly valued for you multitasking and problem-solving skills. Go ahead, put these first. Or else, your tasks in all previous positions required only one key skill but you have extensive experience and can contribute to optimizing processes in a company you apply to. Excellent, begin your writing with work history.

Whether you look for an entry or top level engineering job, education is usually the last thing that interests your future employer. But you need at least a Bachelor’s in Engineering to qualify for any position, so never forget to include your degree in your resume. Licenses relate directly to what you will be allowed to do in a given region or district, so carefully list them all. Maybe they will be a key to your successful employment.

Include only most important trainings and courses that attest to your up-to-day knowledge and lifelong learning skills. Leave Knitting for Retired Firemen Class for some other record.

Technical specifications of resumes for different engineering fields

Now let us move to some insights into what specific skills to include for certain branches of engineering while crafting your resume.

Mechanical engineering may not sound a very fancy field but it actually makes all technology around us work. So a good candidate for this position needs knowledge in manufacturing systems, compatibility of different solutions and systems, capacities and limits of new and old technology. An applicant also needs to have experiences in developing, testing and quality control, problem solving and preventing possible problems, if possible. This person should be able to communicate with non-engineers using simple language and make clear what solutions are to be used and why.

So for this position pick the skills you really have (do not lie in that, it will come out sooner or later), divide them into soft skills and hard skills, and list them in skills section.

Civil engineering resume needs skills related to urban planning, architectural knowledge, building codes and environment-friendly solutions. Civil engineering may cover everything from new housing project development to underground construction, so it is impossible to list every particular skill. Just pick the most important skills you have among listed above and tell how you have applied them before.

Aerospace engineering relates to plane building and space projects, so it is all glam and money. But it is also highly responsible and stressful. You need Physics skills, understanding of aircraft engines and principles of design, deep knowledge of contemporary materials and technical solutions, skills in emulated testing and error fixing, close familiarity with CAD and other software. This list is far from exhaustive, so pick what you do best and do not forget to mention if you can withstand stress, handle high loads of work and communicate effectively with others.

Electrical engineering is about everyday life, but it is also about ultimate safety of buildings and people inside them. So knowledge of wiring codes and wiring optimization, insulation standards and cable safety codes, recent regulations and eco-friendly solutions is a must. Everyone wants an employee in engineering positions who can predict troubles and design things so that to avoid them, rather than a person who can do troubleshooting after creating an implausible wiring scheme. So keep that in mind and list your skills correspondingly.

Caution: safety measures and lifehacks of resume creation

We have looked what to put on your resume according to the best resume samples in the industry. Now some warnings what and how to do.

Be brief in listing skills, bullet points mode is optimal way to do that. It urges you to write only few words but write them carefully and thoughtfully.

Attach a cover letter. It is that place where you can say more emotionally and persuasively why they should choose you and how you can benefit their organization. Do not overdo in emotions, but here you can write more profusely and wordily about how you want to apply your skills than you can do in a resume. So write this letter as well, and make it look formal, yet passionate.

Read carefully what a company says in its application form. If it mentions references, attach them. If not – don’t do that. This attention to details on your part will show you in better light, since you can hear what is required and do it exactly as requested.

Resume writing help is right here

If you still feel unsure about getting down to drafting and writing your resume, just ask us: create my resume, and we will complete this project from A to Z. You can choose one of resume templates you like or let us take care of everything – we will follow your guidelines and include only relevant information that will impress hiring managers. We believe that you are a truly talented and smart engineer, and just like you do everything to ensure safety and efficiency of projects you run, so do we deliver only the best resumes crafted for very customer individually. This is the place where all professionals meet.