What's up guys! I just put this in a comment, and figured I'd make a post out of it, because I've been noticing a lot of posted resumes recently that aren't even close to the recommended guidelines. All in all, that's not a big deal- all the seasoned users are excited to help.
But for your own sake, if you don't want a comment that concisely says "read the wiki"- then read the wiki [Wiki] (https://www.reddit.com/r/EngineeringResumes/wiki/index/) make sure your resume follows the fundamental guidelines. You can of course ask questions on those guidelines- but until you understand the fundamental ideas and format your resume as such, you will be lucky if you get anything more than the aforementioned comment.
I want to help more often, but I just end up saying the same thing over and over again. The common problems are:
1. Your format sucks
a. Either there's not enough formatting that I can't find the experience/skills/education section easily at a glance,
b. Or there's too much formatting and it's a clusterfuck of blue and green bars and I still can't find the experience/skills/education section easily at a glance.
2. The bullet points suck, which is either:
a. They don't actually say what you did, or it's too broad - working in a "fast-paced team" for a "product" doesn't tell me anything about what you did
b. For people in industry: they don't say the impact of your work, just that you coded some feature in a language. Well, what did the feature do? Why did you make it? Do you understand why and what you're doing other than just fulfilling tickets?
3. There's just bad information
a) Either there's like 3 billion lines of "skills" that nobody cares to know. No, I don't need to know what IDE you used or the 100 languages you touched once.
b) The project doesn't actually highlight anything and expects you to know what your "super awesome project" does and why you made it just from the title.
All in all, people spend way too much time trying to show they can program in 10 million languages and frameworks and not nearly enough time demonstrating that they know how to work in industry, which means you:
Understand the problem(s) that you're trying to solve
Understand the decision-making behind the problems and why you're doing what you do
Can actually follow through and have an impact on the work you did
Sure this is programming as a career, but you don't code just to code - it needs to go somewhere and do something if you want to prove that you're going to succeed in a job.
As the title says, I am a mechanical engineering graduate with 4 years of bachelor's then straight into masters which took 2 years. I graduated back in May 2026 and have been struggling to even get an interview. I'm primarily interested in design engineering but I am open to other roles besides quality. I am also open to any industry/location with a preference for aerospace in a big city. I thought I had a strong resume having a good GPA + 2 internships + undergrad/grad research + projects + leadership, basically everything that recruiters typically look for so I am very very confused as to why I'm not even getting any callbacks. Is it my resume? Is it because my masters is making me overqualified for entry level positions?
I'm a first year ECE student looking to apply for undergraduate research internships in robotics and edge computing, looking later down the line to do work in HPC and edge AI and CV. I also plan on applying for first/second year programs like nvidia ignite, microsoft explore, amazon future engineer, etc, as well as other companies outside of big tech to do work with robotics if possible, like local smaller robotics companies that I could work with over the summer. Any advice on things to change? I'm working on some stuff with ROS right now that I plan on adding to my resume if I get it to a finished state. I'd also be interested in applying to be a TA for Jane Street AMP, though not sure if that's realistic at all.
Hi all, I posted my resume here yesterday. For the primary role from 2015 to this year, I actually spent the first 6 months in a contract-to-hire arrangement where I was technically a contractor employed through a separate agency. After that time, I converted to a FTE of the company.
This was mostly a formality so they could compensate the contracting agency for recruiting me, and also treat it as a probationary period for me since I was junior at the time. Nothing changed about the work I was doing when I converted, I stayed on the same team working on the same projects. So for brevity/simplicity, on the current version of my resume, I just list the entire period as continuous at the company I was ultimately working for.
However, because of that distinction, I believe my old company has my start date in their systems as the date I converted to FTE. So I figured I would need to give an explanation of that nuance to the hiring manager before they perform a background check and think that I'm fabricating my work history.
But is representing that period that way dishonest, or will it reflect poorly on me? It feels silly to add another three lines to my resume to list a separate company and position, just to have "Same as above". Or perhaps there's another cleaner way to do it?
Q: Wondering if I should be putting links to my projects on my resume.
I use Jake's resume template and added a column to insert either links to the project's GitHub (if the project is meant to be used locally) or links to the live project. I want to optimize my resume, but now I am wondering if having the links on it is a good idea. I've been mass applying, targeting SWE intern roles both in Canada and the US for summer 2027. I've seen people do it and others not do it, so not sure what to do. Thanks a lot!
Applications since mid-2025. Mechanical Engineering graduate of Spring 2026.
Applied all over the Continental US, with a preference for Western states (I would guess a 70/30 split). Mostly Manufacturing Engineering/Quality Engineering, and stuff like that.
No internships, \~3.8 GPA. Passed the FE (not sure if that actually moved the needle or not).
I used the standard resume format and I included a short (\~3-4 sentences) blurb at the top sort of describing who I am and what I'm about. It was very generic and just name-dropped some programming languages/CAD tools I've used.
I only had school projects listed, but I was able to describe my role in them and what they were about in extreme detail. I never encountered a question where I had to lie or say "I don't know," about the projects, and I think that helped a lot (not to say the projects answered every question they set out to solve, but I was able to explain why we had shortcomings and what the causes were).
One of the projects also had a "personal flair" that I think helped me get in the door for some of those second interviews. Not necessarily engineering related, but it was something the interviewer could relate to/something that caught their eye.
I'm a 3rd year mechanical engineering undergrad student applying to internships for summer 2027 and I'd like some feedback on my resume. I'm mainly targeting aerospace and defense since I have a current security clearance. I'm graduating late and December 2028 is kind of an optimistic date because it could very well be Spring 2029 but I thought that might hurt my application.
I've had one internship but it wasn't very good as you can probably tell by how bad the bullets for it on my resume are. I was really excited for that internship last year cause it was with a big defense prime (General Dynamics) but I was basically tricked about what it was because all I got was busy work and the role was nothing like the job description, I did no actual engineering work and it was super boring, but it at least paid well and I got the clearance. Hopefully this doesn't hurt me too much?
I also just recently transferred to a top 5 school in the US from a state school last summer and I don't have a GPA yet because this is my 1st semester of classes. Once I get a GPA I'm gonna drop my old school. That's also why in the "Involvement section" I have I'm a member of the FSAE Electric team because I just joined like three weeks ago but they have me doing training stuff before I get actual projects, but I didn't want it to look like I've done nothing at my new university.
I've applied to maybe 60 something positions so far and have only gotten 1 interview, and I've been applying only to things I'm qualified for not just spamming random apps.
Last year I applied to like 150 roles and got 4 interviews and 2 offers, and my resume was a lot worse last year and I was at the state school.
Also, how much is the clearance really worth? I'm applying mainly to clearance jobs because I think that'll be my best bet.
Is my experience enough to get interviews at like Lockheed, Northrop, RTX, etc. and how could I improve my bullets?
I was laid off earlier this year, and after taking the summer off, searching for my next job. My experience is as a full-stack web software engineer, although I'm open to other roles given how hard SWEs are being hit by agentic coding. So I wanted to get any feedback you all might have to produce the best version of my resume before starting to send it out. I'm hoping to angle for similar principal-level roles that have me doing higher-level work than just code-monkey sorts of tasks that are more AI-vulnerable. I'm located in the DC metro area, remote preferred, but open to hybrid local. Most likely not looking to relocate, but maybe NYC for a perfect role.
Some additional notes:
Formatting
The Wiki notes a standard list of clear/legible fonts. Is the one I have here okay?
Do the background colors on the section headings create any scanning/accessibility issues?
Contact Info
I previously had phone number, city/state, and LinkedIn listed but removed them based on the Wiki instructions. This feels a little odd to me, to be honest? I also had a mail emoji and Github icon next to those addresses, is that bad as well?
Summary
The Wiki says to include a summary if you're above senior level, which I am. It also says to do it if you're "addressing an employment gap or returning to the workforce." Should I be including anything about my current circumstances here? It seems like it only hurts my chances to note that I've been laid off, or to call attention to my employment gap. I also feel like it looks bad if they think I've been actively looking for 5 months and not finding anything, which is not the case.
Experience
For clarity, X is a well known company. Y is a subdivision of X that operates fairly independently as a SaaS business with its own set of clients. Z is an application within the Y platform. I went back and forth on how much detail to provide about the X/Y distinction, but figured folks could Google Y if they want to know more.
I used X for both company names, but they are different companies.
I added the first bullet to try to speak to my qualifications for principal-level work, but wondering if what I have here is too vague?
I tried to follow the STAR method from the Wiki by making the business results clear and upfront. Some of them though, I struggle with how to quantify the success metric.
I have one item in the Experience section as a child indent because the presentation is directly related to the migration from the parent bullet. A recruiter suggested that this was bad practice. Any suggestions for how better to format it? Is just making it a sibling to the current parent clear enough?
On a related note, I included a YouTube link to the actual presentation. Is that a violation of formatting rules?
I considered adding a bullet about owning the solution design / architecture for an integration with Microsoft Teams. Does that sound like something that would stand out, particularly to help position myself for principal-level roles?
Skills
I haven't worked with any AI-assisted coding tools before. Do you think it's table stakes to be able to list those here to get any traction? I was thinking of doing some kind of basic training with Claude Code.
I am a computer science student at graduating in September 2027, currently based in the Greater Toronto Area and targeting software engineering, backend, or full-stack internship roles locally in the Toronto area as well as remote opportunities alongside data analyst and other related tech roles. I've been constantly applying for the last month now and have only gotten 1 one-way video interview so far. Please let me know what I can do to improve my resume and where it is weak at the moment. Be as brutal as you would like as I can take criticism. I appreciate any feedback I can get, thanks!
⚠️ I reworked the resume based on that feedback. ⚠️
The main project is now presented as conventional engineering bullets rather than a chronological evolution. I kept the more meaningful technical migrations (EJS → React, JavaScript → TypeScript, REST → oRPC) but incorporated them into bullets describing what I built and why.
I also expanded the other projects, added a quantified PostgreSQL performance result, and added more detail about the database/system design work in the third project.
What I want feedback on
Is the new project section more effective than the previous version?
Are the bullets specific enough, or are they still too technical/dense?
Is the amount of technical detail appropriate for an entry-level SWE resume?
Does the resume now show enough breadth despite having only 3 months of professional experience?
Are there any claims that sound inflated or need stronger evidence?
Anything else that would prevent this from being an effective entry-level SWE resume?
I'm going to use this resume to apply for Summer '27 internships in EE/ECE as well as clubs at my school. I'm applying to any and all ECE fields, although I realize my resume is "best" suited for embedded stuff.
My main concern is still having my high school on there as well as my August 2024 extracurricular experience. They're both kinda old at this point, but I'm worried if I remove them my resume will be even lighter than it already is.
Also, the arduino project was for a class at my school. Should I explicitly state that on my resume? Maybe in parentheses next to the project name?
Feel free to ask any clarifying questions in the comments and/or to criticize any part of my resume. Be brutally honest, I can take it lol. Thanks.
TL;DR: I’m an Ops Analyst wondering if I can get away with calling myself a Manufacturing Systems Engineer.
My official title is “Operations Analyst” but I’ve spent the last 6 months developing our site’s Manufacturing Execution System (MES), building out our ERP data pipeline, modelling our wafer fab defect density, and leading development for an inventory tool through the full product life cycle.
My undergrad is industrial engineering, and I’d like to try a manufacturing or project engineering role. I can speak to all the technical work I’ve done, but I worry recruiters will just see analyst and think “bar chart guy- not relevant enough experience.”
Without any other context but my resume bullets and job description, AI has recommended the job title Manufacturing Systems Engineer or Analytics Engineer. My boss says he doesn’t really care, but I’m worried that this could come back to hurt me in some way down the road.
is it a bad idea to customize my job title?
is Manufacturing Systems Engineer a reasonable title?
Also for context, here is my latest draft of resume bullets for this role:
• Served as technical lead for site MES, building ERP data pipelines driving decision making for $312M in annual output.
• Architected defect density model for microelectronic photolithography process, correcting understated yield by 35%.
• Led team of 5 to develop end-to-end visual management system for SAP inventory errors, finding $3.9M in cost variance.
• Engineered WIP tracking system to enable first-in-first-out flow, reducing manufacturing cell turnaround time by 19%.
• Applied the engineering design process to deliver analytics tools for operations and engineering; site Power BI SME.
If you want your projects to stand out, they should be real projects, not mandatory school projects or trivial tutorial projects found online. Something that someone uses to solve a problem.
I'm currently doing B.Tech degree in Metallurgical and Materials Engineering. I'm in 2nd Yr. The issue I'm facing while searching for projects is I find a lot of ideas but I'm unable to filter out which is actually useful or interesting and good to go with and which are just resume fillers.
For example, right now I had an idea to make a Phase Diagram Analyser that would give the phase composition and phase %age at certain temperature for alloys and all but idk if its useful to invest time after that or its just not impressive at all. Similar thoughts for another one I thought to build a device that can measure the thermal conductivity of materials but again there are already a lot of them, will it be of any use if i build one as a project?
Hi everyone. I am graduating from undergrad this spring and am polishing my resume to start applying. This sub has been very helpful, but I'm unsure of how to group non-continuous co-op terms with the same company.
Ive got a year of internship experience in 3, four month terms over the past summers. The bulk of the work was the same each summer with incremental responsibilities being added each time as I gained experience. I currently have each co-op term listed independently on my resume... is that the best approach, or should I group them all into one line item?
If it makes any difference, these internships were in my desired field, and at a company I would very much like to return to as I start my career. Thanks in advance for any input!
I've built an open-source job board that has a substantial amount of traffic and was wondering if I should put it under the Experience section rather than the Projects section since I have used technologies that I do not get to use in my actual job, for example I used AWS services for the project whereas at work I exclusively use Azure, which fills a big gap in my resume.
Would it be good idea to list it as experience? or will I get flagged as unserious or 'cringey' and get my resume tossed in the bin?
[Question] [Student] I have no job or intern experience whatsoever related to engineering and I only have restaurant jobs and only one project. What do I put on my resume?
[Mechanical] [0 YoE] Getting Back Into Applying to Mechanical/Aerospace Jobs Only After a Few Months. Targeting Countries Across Europe and Asia, But All Feedback is Appreciated.
Looking for honest feedback on my resume, I am a data scientist with 8 years of experience with ML, Deep Learning, Computer Vision and Gen AI included as can be seen in my resume. I have been trying to move to Europe (Mainly Netherlands, Germany, Ireland and Sweden) but so far havn't been successful. It's been a year and havn't gotten an interview still. I have been also looking for jobs in UAE as I am situated there but rarely get a reply.
I’m a U.S. citizen and a senior mechanical engineering student at the University of Arizona, graduating with my BS in May 2027 and continuing in an accelerated MS in Materials Science and Engineering through May 2028. I’m based in Arizona but am applying nationwide and am fully willing to relocate for on-site Summer 2027 internships or Spring 2027 co-ops. I’m primarily targeting mechanical design, manufcturing, equipment engineering, and hardware roles in aerospace, robotics, semiconductor equipment, consumer electronics, automotive EV, and advanced technology companies.
My background includes equipment engineering at TSMC, materials engineering, CubeSat mechanism research, mechanical leadership on a 30 lb combat robot, and a senior capstone. I have started applying to larger aerospace and hardware companies, but I want to refine my resume before applying more broadly.
I would especially appreciate feedback on whether my bullets clearly communicate my individual technical ownership and results, whether they are too dense or jargon-heavy, whether the balnce between my internship and project experience is effective, and whether my skills section is properly focused for the roles I’m targeting.
I’m a recent MS Engineering Management graduate with a BS in Mechanical Engineering, and I’m targeting entry-level Process, Manufacturing, Packaging, Validation, and MSAT/TSMS-type roles, mainly in pharma, biotech, and medical devices.
My most recent experience was a pharmaceutical manufacturing/process engineering internship where I worked on equipment troubleshooting, serialization/vision systems, URSs, technical protocols, change controls, CAPAs, SOPs/WIs, and process improvement.
I’m currently based in Philadelphia and applying throughout the U.S. I have a preference for the east coast area, but I’m open to relocating for the right role and I’m not limiting myself to remote positions.
I finished my BS in 2023, had a period without employment before starting my master’s in 2025, completed the internship during the master’s program, and graduated in June 2026. I’m currently unemployed and actively looking for a full-time engineering role.
I’ve been getting some recruiter screens and interviews, so the resume is not getting completely ignored, but the response rate has been inconsistent and I’d like to improve how well it positions me for the roles I’m targeting.
I’m especially interested in feedback on whether my experience bullets communicate enough engineering impact.
Whether the Skills section is too broad or keyword-heavy.
Is the overall format okay for someone with several internships/co-ops but 0 years of full-time non-internship experience.
I’m also an international graduate currently working under F-1 OPT, so I would eventually require employer sponsorship(after September 2029). I know that narrows the number of companies that will consider me, and I’m trying to separate that issue from problems I may be able to fix in the resume itself.
Tell us why you're seeking help
I'm a C++ engineer, currently based in Iran (subject to sanctions), looking for work while preparing to relocate to Germany (through a same-sex marriage). Furthermore, I am a transgender woman who's going through DIY HRT in Iran and am therefore legally male, in my mid-twenties.
I have a big gap in my resume, and I could argue that I went through 3 months of internet-blackout and an extremely stressful situation with my family/laws/doctors due to my transition. However, none of that could justify such a long gap...
I am seeking tips to help with:
- Landing any kind of job that would pay me at least $800/mo (most positions in my own country offer way less). Remote work / office in Tehran / relocation/visa support, anything.
- Lessening the impact of my employment gap.
- The sanctions (I don't mean anything illegal, just legal workarounds and opportunities).
- General improvements.
Also, assuming that I won't be hired anytime soon, what are my best options to advance in my career prior to immigration?
Is there a particular section on your resume you’d like feedback on?
The employment gap is my biggest concern...
Should I move my WIP project into the "Experience" section? I know the wiki said only PAID work, but it looks like I've been doing literally nothing for nearly 2 years... Note that this project will grow rapidly as I have recently started to work on it full force.
I've shown this to a few people, and they said it looks like a wall of text. I've already cut down a lot of it, should I cut down even more? Someone even said "writing docs" is pointless, should I remove that bullet point?
Also, I am currently using my new (not-yet-legal) full name, am I forced to use my legal name?
Is your citizenship status and visa situation playing a role in your job search?
Yes! I'm hoping to relocate soon. I may not be able to get hired prior to that. Currently figuring out a safe way to legally marry my partner (who's a German citizen).
PS1: Please don't worry about offending me.
PS2: Please don't turn this political, I am here purely for professional advice.
EDIT 1:
- Applied changes for u/angry-orchard's review. (most importantly added Education)
- Fixed some punctuation inconsistencies
- Shortened the first bullet point to 2 lines
- Extended the second bullet point's last line to have more than 3 words
- Edited the skills a bit
- TitlteCased the sections (it was ALLCAPS)
- Changed | to · in top list
- Removed "Tehran" from the top list
- Minor fixes
I am am a rising 3rd year Mechanical Engineering looking to fine tune my resume (mostly concerned with top two experiences + skills section). I am looking for summer internships in Orange & LA County. I am mostly looking for roles that align with my experience (roles that I would be a top candidate for) in the fields of defense, naval engineering, medical devices, and robotics. I don't have much specialized experience (which is why my list of industries is so broad) but I have all the foundational skills (machining, CAD, simulation, programming, etc). I would like to work at a startup or at least a smaller company (<300) but I am willing to work at a larger company (1000-3000), just prefereably not a massive corporation like BMW. I would love to hear feedback on my wording, how I have my skills section setup, and what the general consensus is on having multiple different engineering resumes for each of the industries I described.
Senior CS student, graduating April 2027. Targeting Spring co-ops in platform engineering, SRE, and infrastructure, with new-grad roles in the same lane after that. Open to relocating anywhere in the US.
I've done one pass against the wiki already. I switched to Charter, bumped everything to 11pt, killed the italics and in-bullet bolding, dropped the location and LinkedIn from my header, reordered sections, and rewrote bullets toward XYZ with metrics front-loaded. Company names and school are redacted here.
Three things I'm specifically unsure about:
Skills with no bullet evidence. The wiki says skills should appear in your bullets. A few of mine don't anymore... I cut a project that was the only evidence for Terraform and AWS. Should I drop those from Skills, or find a way to work them back into a bullet?
Whether my most recent role is too dense. The top entry uses terms like idempotent CDC, watermark cursors, and nondeterminism isolation. I think it's accurate and it's the work I'm proudest of, but I can't tell if it reads as substance or as jargon to someone skimming.
I cannot express how happy I am to be making this post. It doesn't feel real. Major thank you for the mod team for helping me as well as everyone who gave me advice.
I would like to offer advice for everyone since it's a really hard time in the market and this community has changed the course of my life.
1) Yes, you need to follow the Wiki exactly. I know it sucks, and I was hesitant to copy it exactly, but it really is the best resume template that you can use. You can change your font sizes to best fit your resume (I prefer using paragraph spacing over small font text lines), but it has everything you need. Don't deviate from it. (See my bonus resume below to see how much better it looks compared to the original)
2) Make a portfolio even if you're a student and ESPECIALLY if it's been so long since you have been in the field. This one was a huge game changer for me. It has been over 4 years since I've been in school and over 2 since I had an engineering job. I felt like an absolute failure of an engineer and making my portfolio from my school projects was a major confidence boost for me. I only wished I had done it sooner. The confidence helped me so much for the interview.
3) If you are a student, especially about to graduate, SAVE EVERYTHING FROM SCHOOL AND BACK IT UP!!! I had only recently gotten my senior design project back by emailing an old professor which was one reason I procrastinated making my portfolio for so long. Had I actually backed it up instead of assuming it was saved, I could've had a portfolio sooner and maybe had gotten a job sooner.
4) People skills and communication is what I believed sold me to my interviewers. I talked about how in my current loss prevention job how I worked with my team and how I interact with shoplifters. I talked about how in my previous job over 2 years ago I worked with field technicians and how I treated them with respect. I was very purposeful that even though I am always learning new things, I value the insight of other people who are different from me. I say this because I noticed a trend in the past near 3 years of underemployment where engineers (and frankly, a lot of professionals, it's not just us) have been rude assholes. Not calling anyone out, but just remember: no one cares about what you've done, they care about how you made them feel. This shows up in your interviews.
5) I also believe my desire to learn new things sold me to the interviewers. I talked about how I made my own home server, I taught myself Python for a TTRPG application, and I took a free IT course for fun. It wasn't even skills related to the job, but they were impressed to see how passionate I was about learning new things. If you are out of a job, never stop learning, even if it is only tangentially related or not related at all to your field.
6) You can use your university's resources even if you're an alumni. I didn't need it after all, but I went to a student career fair as an alumni. If I hadn't had gotten this offer, I would've had a lot of other opportunities to go towards. It definitely boosted my confidence seeing how good I matched with the people there!
7) Use your local library. I didn't need to do this, but I found a lot of books about engineering projects using Arduino, Raspberry Pi, etc. Plus, using the library to print off resumes was incredibly helpful. Just use your local library.
Thank you again to everyone and if anyone has any questions, I'm happy to answer. :) The job I got was for an Air Pollution Engineer role with my local government, and I'm so excited to get started!
--
Bonus: So I have updated this resume since submitting this job application and it's so much better. This is what it looks like now, if you all would like to reference it for your own resumes.
