The journey towards earning an engineering degree is an arduous one. But now with a degree under your belt (or in view), the next big question is how to kick start your career.
To pursue an engineering career, you’ll need a strong resume. Your resume will display your skills and experience and also set you apart from the competition.
The quality of your degree will also determine if you’ll leave a good impression on your potential employer-enough to earn you an interview. This is why you need to know how to write an engineering resume.
Here are a few tips to guide you through the process of writing a winning resume.
First things first-start with your contact information
Putting your contact information makes it easier for a potential employer to reach out to you should they ever need to. Do you see why it is such an important piece of information? After all, the goal of sending out a resume is for the recruiter to write back.
Make sure you include your contact number, email, and a physical address in large fonts right after your name. You can also add your personal portfolio website here.
State your resume summary or personal statement
Your personal statement gives anyone picking up your resume an idea of who you are, your abilities, and your career goals. In a few sentences, you are expected to highlight your skills, experience, and achievement during your education and elsewhere (if any).
List your education
The common practice in resume writing is to highlight experience first before education. But as an engineering student, we’re assuming you don’t have a lot of experience yet.
Therefore, it is best to begin by highlighting your education. State the name of the college you attended, your degree, and the graduation date. You may also add your GPA here although it is not mandatory.
Share relevant coursework (if any)
Most students and recent graduates wonder how they can showcase their skills and ability when they don’t really have work experience. One smart way to do so is by sharing relevant coursework or notable engineering homework that you have completed in the past that may be related to the specific position you’re applying to.
You can include this below your degree or leave it out if there’s none.
Describe any job experience
As a student or recent graduate, we don’t expect that you’ll have a lot to say here. But if you have any experience so far, it’ll be a good idea to include them in your resume. This could include any volunteer experience, internship, and any other position that showcases your skills and portrays you as excellent.
For each job experience you include, name the organization, your role or title, date of employment, and your responsibilities in that role. Responsibilities should be listed with bullet points and should mention relevant skills and quantitative data that shows how well you did your job.
List your skills
Your resume should also include a bullet list of your skills. This can include both technical skills and soft skills like communication, work ethic, teamwork, and so on. Make sure the skills you are listing are demonstrable rather than vague.
Showcase your achievements, interests and hobbies.
Although this is not compulsory, listing your achievements is one of the ways you can show a potential employer your excellence.
You can list things like scholarships, awards, and nominations. Leadership positions, relevant academic publications, and special interests can be listed as well.
Conclusion
These are some of the vital information to include in your engineering student resume. In addition to making sure that your CV contains all the necessary information, you should also ensure that it follows the right format in terms of font, font size, and so on.
You should also proofread for grammar and spelling errors. With a comprehensive resume like this, you should be able to impress any recruiter and increase your chances of getting hired.
