Mechanical engineers work in a wide range of industries from aerospace to the automotive industry, and while there are many types of engineers, the basic components of a mechanical engineer resume will remain the same no matter what type of engineering job you are seeking. While we recommend that you hire a resume writer to create this important document, here are a few tips to help you build your own.
1. Include The Right Information
Too often, people don’t really know what to include on a mechanical engineer resume. In general resumes have several sections, including a Career Objective, Work Experience and Education. With a mechanical engineer resume, it’s also important to include a Skills section, so you can highlight certain types of software you can use.
In some cases, it also can be smart to add a Certifications & Memberships section where you list your membership in certain engineering organizations and/or list special certifications or credentials that you have earned that pertain to the job you wish to acquire. You also could merge Certifications/Credentials with Education to create an Education & Credentials section if you prefer.
Backing up for a second, let’s talk about the Career Objective section. This part can be tricky to write and because it’s placed at the top of the resume, it needs to be well-written as it’s often the first item a hiring manager will read. In this section, you want to provide a brief glimpse of your experience level and skills.
Many people mistakenly use this section to talk about what they want from a job experience, but a professional resume is less about what you want and more about what you can provide for a company. A great resume writer can create an objective statement that highlights your skills without sounding self-serving, arrogant or pushy.
Additionally, your resume rarely should run longer than a single page, so it’s important that you only include the most important information. Omit work experiences that don’t pertain to the job for which you are applying and don’t include personal information beyond your name and contact info. For education, only list college-level education, as high school is not relevant once you earn your professional degree.
2. Tailor Your Resume To The Job Listing
You should never send out a cookie-cutter resume or cover letter. Each resume you submit should be tailored to the job listing or the company where you sent the resume. Read the job posting carefully to determine the types of skills and work experience that the hiring manager wants to see on your resume.
If you don’t possess all of the skills or have the number of years of experience needed, but still believe you could be a good fit, try and express that in your cover letter. Cover letters can be challenging to write, so if you are struggling with this letter, we can provide you with a great, attention-grabbing cover letter as well as resume services. Then, all you need to do is tweak the letter a bit for each hiring manager, again ensuring that the letter matches the job posting as much as possible.
3. Quantity Your Skills
There’s nothing worse than a vague resume that doesn’t really describe what the job applicant can accomplish. We see this all of the time. A person might state, for instance, that they “served as project manager.” This hardly paints a detailed picture for a hiring manager or recruiter.
You can’t just list your tasks without explaining them. The details are important. Instead of just stating you were a project manager, showcase the scope of this responsibility. You might instead state, “Supervised 20-person team, including in-house employees and subcontractors.” The hiring manager now can see how many people you managed and that you were able to organize contractors as well as in-house personnel into a functional team.
If your resume writing can showcase how many people you managed, how much money you save a company or how you increased productivity, this is going to help differentiate you from other job applicants.
4. Edit Your Resume Carefully
With any resume and not just a mechanical engineer resume, the editing process is crucial. A single spelling error can kill your chances of getting an interview because many hiring managers will toss out resumes with careless errors. But spelling isn’t the only type of error you might make on a resume.
For instance, if your contact information is incorrect, this is a huge error. After all, if your email address is off by a letter or your phone number off by a digit, how can a hiring manager or recruiter contact you? We also recommend that you use a professional email address. Don’t use the email from your current workplace and don’t use your personal email, especially if it reads something like pizzalover76@gmail. It’s always best to have a private email just for professional correspondence.
Additionally, edit your resume for style. You need a clean, consistent style throughout the resume. You don’t need a bunch of fancy typefaces and colors or a quirky design. A simple straightforward design is best. Just make sure that the style is consistent. Use the same typeface for all the headers, and don’t use bullets in one section and dashes in another.
5. Consider Hiring A Professional Resume Writer
There are many reasons to consider hiring professional resume writers. For one thing, they write resumes every day and they know how to organize and present information so that it appeals to hiring managers. At Resume Writing Group, our writers all have many years of resume writing experience, and they can create a resume for any type of engineer, whether you are a civil engineer, mechanical engineer, chemical engineer or in another branch of engineering.
We also ensure that your resume is error-free. Not only will your personal resume writer edit the resume carefully, but they also will pass it off to a second editor who will check it for spelling, grammar, syntax and style errors as well as looking at the writing from a strategic point of view to gauge how it will appeal to hiring managers.
At Resume Writing Group, your mechanical engineer resume also comes with a unique guarantee. If you use our resume service and follow our advice, but are not hired in 45 days or less, we will refund the cost of your resume and pay you an additional $100. Whether you are an entry-level engineer or an engineer with many years of experience, we can create the perfect resume. We write more than 8,000 resumes every year, and we can help you land the job of your dreams.
