I give you feedback on your engineering student resume but you don’t send it to me
You are an engineering student, and you’ve written a first draft of your resume. You’ve gotten a good amount of the way into the process: you found Microsoft Word, picked a template you thought looked okay, and saved. Critically, you have yet to actually apply to any jobs with it. You also have yet to show it to someone.
This exact moment is where you go horribly, irrevocably wrong.
Yes, definitely, I’ll give you feedback on your resume. No, you don’t need to actually send it to me. I always end up saying the same thing to everyone anyway so that will simply not be necessary.
Hmm… Ok. Nice color. You went two columns? Excellent. I definitely liked that part where you mentioned Shakespeare’s Othello. You could probably apply to jobs with this and get a call back eventually.
But what if you don’t want eventually? What if you want it now?
More projects #
I know many engineering students, most of which are 2-3 years into their college degree, and will ask them if they have any projects they have done. Thery will invariably say “no.”
I, too, am a college student, 3 years into their degree and have many projects, some of which have been done in the same classes they have also taken, which is how I know they are lying.
Your FIRST robot? Project.
Your Intro to Engineering final presentation? Project.
That one thing you cadded that one time and forgot about until this exact minute? Project.
Do you think the undergrads involved in the Manhattan project should have put it on their resume?
Whether the thing was actually what you would consider a project because it was “for a class” is irrelevant. You designed it, iterated on it, and either finished it or figured out why it didn’t work. That’s engineering. Put it on the resume.
But not just that. Talk about the process. How you solved the problems that came up. All the planning, testing, and iteration of the project. Because that’s what’s gonna shine to employers. That’s ✨engineering.✨
Less odd jobs #
See that babysitting gig under where you put your high school work experience? What is that telling a prospective employer that the high school job isn’t saying and more?
Nothing.
Your resume needs to grab the hiring manager by the eyes and not let them look away. On page 1, you can’t afford to let your hiring manager get bored. They stop reading, get coffee, remember that one email they had to reply to…
You can do better.
Your resume should be a story of:
- The skills you have now (the skills section),
- How you learned them (the education section), and
- how you use(d) them. (the work experience/projects sections)
Anything that doesn’t serve these specific purposes for relevant skills for your desired job, you should remove it (unless it’s all you have, which in that case, get more experience. Research is good for that.)
More skills you’ve learned in school (but only the ones you actually know) #
I dunno about you, but I vaguely remember about 4% of everything taught to me in a classroom. Statistically, you are the same, so let’s stop lying to ourselves on main.
Me after reading the 98th resume with the first skill being “Microsoft Office”
If you put a skill on your resume, the interviewer might ask you a question about it. And if you lied, your brain will activate the evolutionary survival mechanism it developed in 8th-grade oral presentations to instantly panic-sweat, before the interviewer realizes you don’t know what a pivot table is and hecking eats you.
Constantly ask yourself: Can I actually explain this without looking like a caveman?
Here is a nice test.
If you need to make sure you know a skill before you put it on your resume, ask AI (whichever one you want) to quiz you on general, conceptual questions about the skill.
If you are able to answer more than 70% of them, go put the skill on your resume.
stop stop stop:
Skills: Python, C++, Java, Rust, Verilog, ANSYS, Multisim, MATLAB, LabVIEW, Machining, Welding, CFD, PCB Layout, Chaos Theory.
Nobody believes you. If a senior engineer sees “CFD” and “Rust” next to each other on a new grad resume, they are going to ask you about fluid dynamics memory safety just to watch you sweat.
Instead, group the stuff you can actually use without a 40-minute YouTube tutorial:
Tools you can actually run: “SolidWorks (Part modeling & basic assemblies), Python (Data parsing & plotting), Git (Basic branching)”
Hardware you’ve actually touched: “Soldering, multimeter debugging, basic breadboarding, reading schematics without getting a headache”
Real-world engineering: “Finding out why the physical prototype doesn’t match the CAD model and fixing it with a file or a zip tie”
Cover letters are love #
Constantly ask yourself: Does the recruiter reading this know why I’m actually applying?
Your resume says you worked at a bakery in 2019 and then became a data analyst in 2021. To a recruiter scanning this at 4:45 PM on a Friday, that looks like complete chaos. They don’t know the context in your brain.
The cover letter bridges the gap so you don’t sound like a random word generator.
Classic mistake: Writing a cover letter that is just your resume, but in paragraphs
i’m begging you not to do this:
Dear Hiring Manager, I am writing to apply for the position. As you can see on my resume, I worked at X where I did Y, and then I worked at A where I did B...
Why would anyone read that? You are holding the reader hostage with details they can already see two inches to the right on your resume. The resume reviewer will be begging to escape.
Instead, write it like you’re trying to trick the reader into realizing you’d be fun to work with in as few words as possible.
Explain the weird stuff: “Yes, I used to be a circus acrobat, but that actually taught me how to handle high-stress situations while wearing a silly hat.”
Show you actually know who they are: “I noticed your app crashes every time I tap the cat emoji, and I would love to fix that for you.”
Cut out the corporate jargon: Don’t say “I am a highly motivated self-starter leveraging synergies.” Just say “I really like solving this specific problem and I’m good at it.”
Go Get ‘em #
Well, that’s all I’ve got. go now, and get jobs with renewed vigor now that your resume is one that isnt like every other resume your prospective employer sees.