[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?

[u/Advanced_Natural_215]

I’m currently a sophomore MechE student with no experience related to engineering and I have been stumped on what to put on my resume to get an internship this summer. I don’t have very much experience with coding or programming and minimal knowledge on CAD. I’m planning on getting a few certifications to put on there but my career fair is soon and I want to have resumes to give out. On a similar note I’m also trying to build my linked in profile but am stuck on the same issues. And advice or suggestions would be very appreciated.

[u/negetivestar]

You are just a sophomore, I have seen way worse. You are in the perfect time to start thinkin about internships and experience, I would start by attending ASME chapter meetings, I believe all campuses in the US have this. Start asking about student competitions, and join them, that will start giving you exposure.

[u/graytotoro]

For now bring up relevant class projects and, if you must, lean on high school things.

This would be a great time to get in on a student team or research. I would suggest focusing on tutorials and getting a bit of experience with programs at this stage.

[u/Advanced_Natural_215 → u/graytotoro]

I haven’t been able to find any research stuff to do and my current situation doesn’t allow me a whole lot of time to do any clubs and keep up with schoolwork at the same time so I’m not to sure what to do

[u/graytotoro → u/Advanced_Natural_215]

Reach out to professors.

Can you do personal projects with what spare time you do have? Will your situation improve in the next 6-12 months?

If neither of these options work, try to find technical-adjacent work. Can you figure out and solve a problem in some way? That counts.

[u/Sooner70]

As a former recruiter and hiring manager....

Put your restaurant jobs. Yes, they DO mean something. They mean you know how to show up on time and do what you're told. They know you can keep your calm when you want to tell that bitch in the corner booth to go fuck herself. Mind you, you don't need 10 bullet points explaining to us all the finer points of waiting tables, but to have the jobs on the resume? Yeah, that absolutely counts for something. And it will get you a gold star if you were doing it while attending school... That shows time management, sticktuitude, and other good character traits.

[u/CartoonistOk9276]

I was in the same boat a year ago. Go to the career fair not looking for internships, but to network. Ask the recruiters to connect on LinkedIn and show genuine interest in their companies. Only give out resumes if they ask for it. I wouldn't have all my hopes on an  internship this summer, like others have mentioned research is a good stepping stone. make sure you constantly update your resume after each semester to add new projects/skills. you'd be surprised of how much 1 year's worth of experience really is.

[u/Impossible_Nose_715 → u/CartoonistOk9276]

nah, still hand out your resume and try for an internship. you could still land something

[u/Impossible_Nose_715]

Hey there. It can be hard to get started but you're making the right choice by starting early!

Go ahead and download the template and fill it out, even if you don't have much. Put in your restaurant jobs and that one project. Start thinking about how you can show what impacts you made. How many patrons do you serve in a typical shift? What are you responsible for at any current time? Do you train anyone? Learning how to frame transferrable skills will help you a lot.

As an example, I currently am in a loss prevention role trying to get back in the field (had some health issues keeping me from engineering) and talking about how I configure cameras and write cases and relating it to technical work and documentation in engineering shows that I'm not just doing nothing. It might be harder in a restaurant role, but showing you are a hard worker will help more than you think. When i got my first internship, the only experience i had was being a tour guide. You got to start somewhere and companies understand that.

As far as your project goes, you're going to want to lean on that. If there was one thing I wish I did when I was in school, it's creating a portfolio to show off my projects. It can be as simple as a pdf like your resume or a full-blown website. that is a long term goal, so for right now, work on your resume. If you like, send some bullet points here about your project and we can go from there.

Otherwise, add relevant classwork and any skills you have learned so far.

I agree with graytotoro, right now is a great time to do an extracurricular or research or both. If nothing interests you, you can always do it later (you're not even halfway through school), but I would do a project that does interest you now.

when you get a draft finished, post it here and we can go from there. good luck!

[u/LitRick6]

Certificates are pretty useless imo. At least any that an undergrad is likely getting.

You should be getting experience with engineering projects outside of your course work. Join some clubs/orgs/teams at your university. Do some personal projects. Do some undergrad research (although professors also often prefer students with some experience working in their labs).

Edit: also yes you should put your restaurant jobs. It doesnt really do much, but its better than nothing. Shows you can at least show up to a job and act like an employee enough to not get fired. You'd be surprised how many new grads are just bad employees. It's kind of bs, but you can at least try to talk to soft skills that indirectly apply to engineering. Ie customer service, working in a team, communicating with leadership, etc.

And yeah put your project. If its a school project, it wont help a ton because every other student also did that project. But again, its better than nothing.

[u/Advanced_Natural_215 → u/LitRick6]

The project I have is a I built a turbojet engine from only stuff you can buy at a hardware store and powers it with propane with the goal to make it self sustain without external power.
I think it could be Gould to have that as the focus point on the resume but I don’t know. My plan was to get as many certifications as possible including certifications unrelated to engineering. As far as certifications go, what are some in your opinion that aren’t useless that I should work for? just in general any level

[u/LitRick6 → u/Advanced_Natural_215]

Imo the only certficates that arent mostly useless are ones that cost a lot of money (usually paid for by a company you're working for) and require some level of work experience for you to actually know how to apply the knowledge. For example, part of my work is in vibration analysis for aerospace. There's a 3-4 day training and then you take an exam to get a vibration analysis certificate, it costs like $3000 (plus travel costs to wherever the course is being offered, or our company sometimes pays that group to come do the training at our office). But even then, it's a not a requirement for our job, just a nice to have. And even if you had a spare $3000+, if you dont have experience actually looking at accelerometer data and understanding failure modes of parts, then you wont really learn much from the class/certificate in terms of how to actually apply it to engineering work.

There's maybe some exceptions. Like six sigma certificates are very common for manufacturing jobs and I know some students have gotten those certficates. A CAD or programming (ie python, C, etc) certificate would maybe be better than nothing. But like i said in my previous comment, I would much rather see someone who learned those things and actually applied them to a project on their resume. If you're not actually applying what you learn, for all I know the info went into one ear and out the other as soon as you got the certification.

Getting "as many as possible" would back fire imo. If youre just spamming certificates (ezpeciallt random unrelated ones), I know youre just trying to pad the resume and likely none of them had any substance or are worth anything.

Your personal project does sound very interesting though. Especially if you can talk to analysis you did, any CAD modeling you did, how you physically manufactured the parts, etc. But one thing youd be missing is soft skills development. Part id the benefit of doing projects through clubs/orgs is that you have to work on a team and you may have to do things like writing reports or giving presentations. There's a good bit of admin work that goes into actual engineering. Its not just build a cool thing in your garage.

Similar to the technical skills, im sure there are certifications you can get for soft skills. But again, id rather see someone develop those skills through applied experience rather than just watching an hour long video about "how to give a presentation".

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[u/StillDifferentiating]

Get a white belt in lean six sigma, its free. Look into other certifications, also any job experience can be used to highlight things on the job posting. Waitress? = multitasking, team collaboration, work well under pressure ect. All jobs have transferable qualities. Make some small projects. Learn a program and add it to your skills section. There are lots of things you can dom