Engineering Resume Example & Writing Guide

As an engineer, you went through years of schooling and specialization, and now is your time to shine. 

The only thing left to do is craft a job-winning engineering resume that will help you catch the attention of recruiters in your field, but that may be a puzzle that you haven’t had the opportunity to look into yet.

Fear not, because we’ve created this comprehensive guide to assist you. Look at it as an instruction manual that will take you from creating a plan to polishing the smallest details.

So, let’s waste no more time and jump straight into it!

Resume Layout

A resume layout represents the way your resume looks and displays information to the reader.

For starters, you want to keep your resume one page long. Since most recruiters spend less than a minute reading each resume, you want to ensure they see everything they need while just skimming through it. To achieve that, check out the following guidelines:

Of course, you don’t have to stop there. If you have some more room on your resume and more valuable information to add to it, you can also insert a few additional sections. These include certifications, languages, publications, awards, hobbies and interests, and more.

In case you don’t feel like making your engineering resume from scratch, you can take advantage of our resume-building tool! It comes with plenty of different options that allow you to adjust everything—from font to layout—with just one click. Once you get a desirable look, simply fill in the blanks with your information, and you’re good to go!

Let’s take a look at an example:

Keep in mind that the ATS can read your title as a keyword, so you want to match it with the one mentioned in the job posting. Not to mention how an unprofessional title such as “Code Wizard” might not do well with recruiters.

Speaking of things to avoid, adding your address is an outdated practice. Only do it if a job posting or a specific state law in the area where you’re applying for a job requires you to do so. Even then, only include your city and state.

Of course, there are a few more things you could add to this section. For example, if you’re active on LinkedIn, you can add a clickable link to your LinkedIn profile. On top of that, depending on the type of engineer that you are, you could also add links to your portfolio, GitHub, Stack Overflow, and other websites and profiles related to the field.

Engineering Resume Objective or Summary

Considering that hiring managers often spend less than a minute reading through a single resume, you could have as little as one paragraph to grab their attention. 

That paragraph—called a resume objective or summary—goes at the beginning of your resume and aims to highlight your most prominent skills, achievements, and professional endeavors. Which one of these two you may need depends on your level of expertise and the amount of work experience you have.

If you lack professional experience or don’t have any specific achievements in the field (due to a career change or any other reason), you should write a resume objective. Instead of focusing on professional endeavors, it draws attention to your skills and career goals. This way, you show that you’re ready to learn and improve even though you have little to no work history.

On the flip side, a resume summary is an option for you if you have solid work experience, as it puts your most impressive workplace accomplishments in the spotlight. This enables you to summarize your career and entices recruiters to keep reading.

Entry-Level Engineering Resume Objective

As someone who is at the beginning of their career, you want to show potential right off the bat. Talk about your skills and show that you’re a go-getter by setting a specific career objective.

You’ll score bonus points if your professional goals line up with the needs of the company you’re applying to. They’ll see you as someone who is there for the long term and, therefore, worth investing time and resources in.

Let’s take a look at a good example of an engineering resume objective:

For comparison, here’s a bad example that shows no skills and features no specific goals:

Engineering Resume Summary

If you have years of professional experience behind you and numerous relevant accomplishments to highlight, you should write an engineering resume summary. Use it to draw attention to your greatest career achievements and briefly summarize the rest of your resume. This way, recruiters will see the best of you right away, and they’ll likely want to know more about you.

Let’s see a good example of a well-written resume summary:

Now here’s a bad example that lacks any substance or concrete information, which makes it far less likely to impress anyone:

Engineering Resume Work Experience

Out of all sections of your engineering resume, the one dedicated to work experience shows recruiters how well you might perform at your new job most directly. This is where you should state all the previous job positions you held and other important details related to them.

Engineers With No Experience

Regardless of the lack of professional history, you can still write an impressive work experience section. 

Whether you’re a student, a recent graduate, or someone who changed careers, you’ll usually have other experiences to leverage. For instance, if you’re still in college, you can write about challenging projects, volunteer work, freelance experience, internships, and much more.

If you follow the tips we outlined in a previous chapter, you’ll end up with a professional work experience section line, as in the following example:

Experienced Engineer

If you’re a seasoned professional in the field of engineering, you’d want to bring out the big guns when writing your work experience section. The best way to do it is to create a compilation of your most impressive achievements by using 3–5 highly effective bullet points per job.

List multiple previous employments in reverse-chronological order, but make sure they are all relevant. Don’t add jobs that happened a long time ago or are completely irrelevant to the engineering field.

Here’s how to do it:

Engineering Resume Education Section

Engineering is a very technical field where most jobs require a bachelor's or higher degree. For this reason, we can say that this section is usually equally important as the one dedicated to work experience. Still, you want to keep this part brief and concise.

Generally, you should only add your latest degree—add more only if there’s room for it on a resume or if you have a modest work experience section. What you definitely shouldn’t do is include your high school diploma unless it’s the only degree you have obtained so far.

When writing this section, include the following:

Here’s an example:

Similarly to the work experience section, the education part should also feature some notable achievements in the form of bullet points. Anything from an impressive GPA (3.5 or higher) to extracurricular activities, exchange programs, and relevant coursework will be a valuable addition to this section.

But what if you’re still a student?

In such a case, include your degree in your resume anyway and add “expected” next to a graduation date, or omit it and put “current” instead. Even if you dropped out of college, you can still state how many credits you earned toward your degree.

Engineering Resume Skills

Engineering is a vast field where every job requires a certain skill set, and you definitely want to showcase yours when writing an engineering resume.

Start by researching the job ad to find out what the employer is looking for. Then match some of the skills they want with the ones you have and add those to your resume.

Since engineering is a highly specialized vocation, you want to emphasize your job-specific hard skills. Customize and fine-tune this section until you’ve made it perfectly tailored to the position you’re applying for.

Of course, hiring managers always love to see desirable traits and interpersonal skills in candidates, too. That’s why you also want to include soft skills in your resume as well—just make sure you list them separately from hard ones since these two categories are different in nature.

Engineering Resume Optional Sections

The best way to stand out from the competition is to show more than the bare minimum, and the easiest way to do that effectively is through optional sections.

Certifications

Certifications show that you have been formally educated on a specific subject and that you possess a highly focused knowledge of the topic. Obtaining these is the perfect way to supplement your education section and add more value to your skills, too.

Here’s an example of how a network engineer would add certifications to their resume:

Should You Submit a Cover Letter With Your Engineering Resume?

The short answer is yes—for optimal results, you should definitely write a unique cover letter for every position you’re applying for. That shows diligence and a willingness to go the extra mile for a cause that matters to you, which immediately places you ahead of other candidates.

It’s recommended to personally address the recruiter and write a few brief paragraphs where you will describe your skills and career achievements relevant to the job in more detail. This document also allows you to explain why you want to work in a specific position and what the employer can expect from you.

Engineering Resume Sample

Use this example

Closing Thoughts

Congratulations!

You can now add the ability called resume-crafting to a vast selection of your skills.

If you like doing challenging projects, you’ll create a job-winning engineering resume before you know it by following this article. And if automation is more up your alley, use our resume-building tool and be done with the whole process in minutes!