There’s no need for you to be a wordsmith in order to write a well-versed, impactful, and professional-looking resume. Writing does not come as second nature to most people, most people feel lost and confused when writing their engineering resume. Since it is one of the most important documents of your professional life, a resume carries a lot on its back.
The most basic purpose of a resume is to get you to the interview. A professional-looking resume will increase your chances of getting that interview. Resume writing is a profession on its own, with professionals having years of expertise. Some common components can turn your amateur resume into a professional one.
Not only applying for jobs is hard on its own but it also takes a lot of time. When applying to multiple jobs, it usually takes a lot of time and effort to adapt your resume to the various requirements of each job. A quick and easy solution to speed up the process is to know how to create a resume template that you can easily update for each job application.
Engineering Resume:
A resume should always reflect the field and the candidate’s skillsets in the resume itself; from the writing style to the use of professional buzzwords to introducing simple design elements. It should always reflect your style, capabilities, and knowledge of the industry. It may not be an image but it should feel like one, displaying everything you bring as a viable candidate. A lot of cv writing services in Dubai usually offer their customers a questionnaire that asks what type of jobs they are planning to apply for. Based on their target job industry, these service offers a customized resume which essentially reflects your expertise for the targeted job prominently compared to your career in other industries.
On the basis of this concept, an engineering resume should display your best qualities as an engineer. You need to display your problem-solving abilities as well as how you design complex systems based on deep technical knowledge. It should showcase your development and design process as a whole from ideation to implementation to troubleshooting to the impact.
Basic Guidelines:
Here are a few guidelines you need to follow while writing an engineer’s resume:
- Specific details:
Make sure you add all the details including technologies, products, and companies. Recruiters often look for specifics to speed up their scanning process and this practice also increases the chances of you getting higher scores on the ATS. - Missing puzzle piece:
Use the job posting as a questionnaire, making sure to use your resume as an answer sheet. Just like the missing piece of a puzzle, make sure your resume fits and covers all the requirements the job posting mentions. - Keywords, Buzzwords, and phrases:
Make sure to use industry-specific buzzwords and position-specific keywords and phrases; you can easily extract these from the original job posting, company websites, and resume examples for that specific job title. - Quantity:
Introducing numbers and quantity to your output clearly showcases your capabilities and what you bring to the plate. It clearly displays the magnitude of your work. - Vague Statements:
Statements that do not explain the problem, action, solution, and impact are considered vague. These statements do more harm than good, as they exhibit your inability to specify or clarify details. A good practice is to consider all the details while writing any statement to prevent it from being vague and incomplete. - Simplify:
Do not use difficult words and make it too complicated to read. It is very easy to get carried away and introduce longer words or unrelated technical jargon. Using jargon is only suitable to some extent where it is necessary to use specialized terms but unnecessarily using longer versions of simplified terms is a big turn-off for recruiters. Remember the recruiter wants to go through your resume fast and should be able to navigate through all the information easily. - Positive approach:
Do not mention what you cannot do, your resume should only focus on the things you are able to pull off. Failures should not define you, your successes should. - Relevant information:
Only mention relevant work experience, do not mention irrelevant details, it would be difficult for any recruiter to navigate through such information and extract the information they require. - Accuracy:
Always provide accurate information, it may seem harmless at first but providing inaccurate, false, or tempered facts will have great consequences. Recruiters fact-check the resumes of viable candidates, and so should you.
Resume Components:
These are the essence of any resume, without any of these components, the resume is considered incomplete:
- Contact Information:
You should begin writing your resume by introducing yourself as an individual. Include your name, your surname, your contact number, and your email address. Stating your name humanizes a random document with information. Listing your contact details makes it easier for the recruiter to know where to reach out to you. To ensure your contact details are relevant across all job applications you submit, you can include an international dialing code with your contact number if you apply for remote or international job posts. - Summary
A summary introduces the recruiter to the person whose resume they are about to read and it is the first picture they get into the individual’s professional life. A summary briefly describes your skills, qualifications, experience, and accomplishments relevant to the job you are applying for. This showcases the individual’s top professional achievements and most relevant skills. Resume summary sections can help give a quick overview of the unique value someone offers to the company and what they bring to the plate. The purpose of your summary is to prove to employers you’re a highly valuable professional and to present to recruiters why they and their company would benefit from offering you the position. - Work Experience:
A well-versed and organized work experience section will positively benefit your resume. It is the pivotal element of the whole resume, as it shows the necessary qualifications that fit the position you are applying for. It also highlights the important skillset you possess This section gives a clear insight into your employment history. It allows recruiters to comprehend your understanding, familiarity, and knowledge of the specific job position they are recruiting for as well as the industry. - Education:
Following your professional experiences, you are required to list down your education. This section allows the recruiter to judge if and how qualified you are for the position they are recruiting for. The main purpose is to allow the recruiter to judge the standard of work or the education received, if it is subpar, or if is it up to the mark. - Skills:
Adding a list of soft skills and hard skills showcases that you have comprehensive training and work experience. It shows the recruiter that you can be a valuable asset to their company. You should consider adding transferrable skills that relate to the industry as well as the position the recruiter is recruiting for. You can list the soft and hard skills you developed during your education and while working. These can include competencies you’ve learned that only apply to the industry or general aptitudes you’ve developed while working that apply to a wide range of fields.
- Additional Information:
It might be useful to add dedicated sections to contain relevant information that doesn’t fit into any other category of your resume. These may include:
- Relevant licenses or certifications
- Teaching experience
- Writing experience or contributions
- Volunteer or charity work
- Memberships of professional associations
Proofread
After completing your engineering focused resume, it is of utmost importance that you proofread and correct everything. Make sure everything is accurate, as discussed before, recruiters tend to lean towards applications that showcase traits like detail orientation and perfection.
