Resume Critique for Senior Mech Eng Student - Get Constructive Advice

[DyslexicHobo]

I am a senior mechanical engineering student getting ready to graduate this May. I'm beginning to look for jobs now, but haven't had my resume critiqued by someone in the field in which I'm looking for a job. I'd like to have my resume looked at by someone in the technical field. The school I attend offers resume review and critique sessions, but none of the advisors are in the technical field. I'm not sure if they can really provide any insight into the content of my resume other than what sections I should include.

Please, rip it apart. Let me know how terrible I am at writing a resume and offer constructive criticism to make it better.

Thanks!

 

[negru]

First thing make sure all the sections have the same format. eg, always put the dates on the right side. And in the last section don't center the company name. Either write Job, Company, and below description, or maybe put the company name first. And is there any location you can write for the engn exp and .. section? Like

Rowan U.
- Product dev. ..


Or that stem Sympozium, was it at your school, another place, etc. You generally want each thing to have its time and place written.

And maybe you can say something more specific than "gained experience in...".

Will think of other stuff.

 

[negru]

Yeah regarding that you might want to format everything like this

Place
- Job/project name ________________________ Date
description (all sentences as standard as possible : worked on this. studied this. used this to do that)

and similar for the education section (where I would drop the dean's list, or make a section on awards - but this is just my opinion, not sure how employers care about gpa awards)

University X ___________________Start date/end date
BSC Mech eng.
GPA : 3...

 

[DyslexicHobo]

Thanks for the feedback.

This would be so much easier if I had unlimited space to fit everything I want to put on here. I'm finding that I'm havnig a lot of trouble determining what things should be put on there.

I know I should be as consice as possible and have nothing superfluous, but there's some things that are right on the line. Dean's list was one of those concerns (which I'll probably take out, just so I can have some extra space to elaborate on more important things).

Another thing that I was curious about whether or not I should add: I was on a venture fund product design project for a semester. A group of 4 (including myself) was granted $10,000 based on a proposal that the project leader submitted (not myself) to design a product. This project was a 2-credit course on which I worked for a semester. I decided to drop the project after one semester because I felt that it was going nowhere; we weren't making anywhere near enough progress to merit spending 10+ hours a week on the project. I don't feel like the project was successful, as no product arose from the project.

Will this look good or bad to my employer? Is this something I should include?

Again, thanks for any input!

edit: Uploaded a slightly updated revision of my resume with the suggested changes applied.

 

[Ryker]

Why are you so worried about fitting everything on one page? If I were you, I'd include stuff that you think presents your case well, even if it fits two whole pages.

 

[DyslexicHobo]

Why are you so worried about fitting everything on one page? If I were you, I'd include stuff that you think presents your case well, even if it fits two whole pages.

I don't know... it's pretty much what I've been told to do by everyone at my school's career & academic planning center. I've been told that conciseness is extremely important when it comes to handing a resume over to an employer. It seems to make sense that they'd rather just have 1 page that they can browse through when sorting through a stack of resumes.

If anyone else has input on this then I'd be happy to consider expanding my resume to a second page.

 

[twofish-quant]

It seems to make sense that they'd rather just have 1 page that they can browse through when sorting through a stack of resumes.

Two pages is fine. No more than that.

Also you really want some margins. You should remember that your resume will be faxed, scanned, photocopied, and have coffee spilled on it.

 

[ehilge]

Two pages is fine. No more than that.

I actually disagree. I've also always been told to keep it to a page.

I would start by having your resume critiqued by someone at the school. They may not be in a technical field per se, but they do know what employers look for in a resume and how to make everything crisp and clear. Also, I think it be easier to have one person look at it first and get all of the more major issues worked out than to have a bunch of different people here throwing suggestions at you. You could also have a former supervisor look over it if you want someone in the field to give you advice

 

[Ryker]

I actually disagree. I've also always been told to keep it to a page.

Are you studying engineering, as well? Because this restriction seems to be engineering specific, and a friend who as a student worked in career advising told me only engineers thought they had to scale it down to one page, too.

 

[AlephZero]

I get to read these things for real (sigh... OK, I don't expect pity!)

You should realize that the people who do the first scan of these might look at 200 resumes in a couple of hours to weed out the "fails". So make it as easy as possible for them to get your message.

Some specifics:

Link things together. Add the company name (Synthes) to your Internship heading, so it's obvious that was where you did it.

Be specific. What was the "product" you developed? Hardware? Software? A new drug? something else? You don't want to give away Sythes's confidential information, but "product" could be anything.

Don't leave loose ends. In a couple of places you mention "the competition" (presumably two different competitions?) but you don't say what sort of competition it was. School science fair? State? National?

I'm a mech engineer but I don't have any direct involvement with control systems. I've heard the name "Arduino" but I don't actualy know what it is. Adding a one or two word descrition (microcontroller? prototyping system? whatever) would help. (I don't know what craniosynostosis is either, but in the context it is presumably a medical condition, and I probably don't need to know any more than that to evaluate your resume, if only you had told me what sort of "product" you developed...)

Hope that helps. As it stands it is pretty good, but nothing is so perfect it can't be improved a little

 

[cobalt124]

From a non-mechanical engineer with no knowledge of whether a resume for such is an exception to the rule, my understanding is it should fit on one page if possible, be concise and relevant, eye catching (most relevant stuff at the top) and legibly laid out. I believe no detail is necessary as you presumably would give the detail at interview, where the interviewer, having read your resume, would as for more detail on the parts that interest him. I'll have a read of your resume when I can find the time, and will give my 2c worth on the bits I feel qualified to.

 

[ehilge]

Are you studying engineering, as well? Because this restriction seems to be engineering specific, and a friend who as a student worked in career advising told me only engineers thought they had to scale it down to one page, too.

I am a mechanical engineering student and that's an interesting correlation, but I still think a resume should be kept to one page. Concise but descriptive writing is key.

 

[cobalt124]

Read your resume. As I suspected, I don't feel qualified to comment further, but as to the points that I have already mentioned, that looks pretty spot on.

Another thing that I was curious about whether or not I should add: I was on a venture fund product design project for a semester. A group of 4 (including myself) was granted $10,000 based on a proposal that the project leader submitted (not myself) to design a product. This project was a 2-credit course on which I worked for a semester. I decided to drop the project after one semester because I felt that it was going nowhere; we weren't making anywhere near enough progress to merit spending 10+ hours a week on the project. I don't feel like the project was successful, as no product arose from the project.

Will this look good or bad to my employer? Is this something I should include?

It may be worth mentioning as long as a) it is important enough to fit on the page and b) it is ranked correctly on the page. I would say if it passes these criteria, put it on, as it is experience, but you would have to be able to talk about and justify the decisions made in interview. "Failed" experiences can be important to an interviewer if you can do this.

 

[cobalt124]

Are you studying engineering, as well? Because this restriction seems to be engineering specific, and a friend who as a student worked in career advising told me only engineers thought they had to scale it down to one page, too.

I've never been within a hundred miles of engineering. I think conciseness and readability are pretty universal. Interviewers have to read hundreds of these things so making them read through details may affect interview chances. Ranking experience and putting the first pages worth on will win out, I believe. Details can be discussed at interview.

EDIT: Sorry, AlephZero has already explained better what I am trying to say.

 

[twofish-quant]

I actually disagree. I've also always been told to keep it to a page.

I've reviewed resumes for technical positions.

When I look at resumes, I'd *MUCH* rather have a two page resume with decent sized fonts than one page with ant-type that's hard to read. Yes, I go through several dozens of resumes, but putting everything in one page is hard on the eyes.

You could also have a former supervisor look over it if you want someone in the field to give you advice

Or someone that is currently in the field, like me.

 

[twofish-quant]

Two other things.

1) Remove "References upon request". It's just a waste of space.
2) Remove "Excel and Word" from software. Also a waste of space
3) You need to add a line at the end stating work status "i.e. US Citizen"
4) You really want two phone numbers. One a cell phone and one a land line. Never use a cell phone for a phone interview
5) I'd include the venture fund design project. Failed projects are still good experience. If you can think about three things that you'd do differently again so that you can talk about it on the interview. That would be good.

 

[AlephZero]

I have an open mind about including your abandoned project or not.

The advice I would give (and forgot in my earllier post) is: the key information is what YOU did and what YOU learned from the experience. What the project was about, whose fault it was that it was failing (presumably not yours!) etc, might be an interesting story for your autobiography if you ever write one, but not so interesting for your CV.

You scored pretty high on that criterion overall. The "Uplink Gaming" paragraph is excellent, it says very clearly what level of responsibilities you had when you worked there.

You can certainly learn valuable positive lessons from failures, but try to keep the negative side of it out of your CV.

You can always use that project to answer to the standard "what is a bad experience you have had and what did you learn from it" interview question!

 

[cobalt124]

When I look at resumes, I'd *MUCH* rather have a two page resume with decent sized fonts than one page with ant-type that's hard to read. Yes, I go through several dozens of resumes, but putting everything in one page is hard on the eyes.

Yes, the idea is to shrink the content to the most relevant onto one page, not shrink the font! Never thought of that.

 

[DyslexicHobo]

Thanks for the ideas and relevant criticism!

I feel much more comfortable about my resume now.

One more question: I recently took the GREs because I was considering attending grad school for mechanical engineering. I scorred 800 math / 450 verbal / 4.5 writing (800/800/6 is max). Is this something worthwhile to put on my resume, especially if I want to seek out an employer who will eventually be willing to send me to grad school?

 

[cobalt124]

Can't really advise on that one, as I'm not sure how important GRE's are, possibly put them on the bottom, but only if there is room?

 

[twofish-quant]

One more question: I recently took the GREs because I was considering attending grad school for mechanical engineering. I scorred 800 math / 450 verbal / 4.5 writing (800/800/6 is max). Is this something worthwhile to put on my resume, especially if I want to seek out an employer who will eventually be willing to send me to grad school?

With extremely rare exceptions (D.E. Shaw comes to mind), employers do not care about your test scores. Undergraduate GPA is usually worth mentioning if it's really good.