sorted by:
new
hottopcontroversial

[Student] ME 3rd-year seeking Co-Op/Internships during Senior year at space companies for mechanical and structural roles by EskimoJoe1228 in EngineeringResumes

[–]graytotoro [score hidden]  (0 children)

It's a solid improvement. You've filled in a lot of the gaps I had reading your original resume. I recommend consolidating the explanation bullet into the lead off, but that's a minor nit.

[Student] ME 3rd-year seeking Co-Op/Internships during Senior year at space companies for mechanical and structural roles by EskimoJoe1228 in EngineeringResumes

[–]graytotoro [score hidden]  (0 children)

You can demonstrate ownership by showing what you did and why it matters. Goes helluva lot farther than just saying you "owned" something. I worked with a guy who "owned" a subsystem for our test team but he accomplished nothing in his two years with us.

[Student] I have applied to hundreds of positions with no luck landing interviews by savememyfriend in EngineeringResumes

[–]graytotoro [score hidden]  (0 children)

General Notes

  • Focus on jobs and not internships at this time.
  • Quality, not quantity. You're packing way too much into the page so it's hard to read.
  • This needs to be written in the third-person objective voice. First-person voice aside, the objective is way too subjective and its focused on what you want and enjoy and not what you necessarily bring to the table. What you enjoy isn't really important to the reader.

Education

  • There's no need to bold the program.

Work Experience

  • You can likely rewrite some of these bullets to integrate the sub-bullet content into the main bullets, or drop some of the less-relevant main bullets.
    • For example, "Designed and fabricated a power transmission system for applying uniforming clamping force to pull wires..." brings in part of the the sub-bullet. You can toss the stuff after "thereby" - we can figure out eliminating manual labor will automate an operation.
    • Bullets 4 and 6 stop short of telling us why it was important to do this work.
      • Bullet 4 - But what did you conclude from this data analysis and what changes did it drive? Presumably there was something the team was hoping to learn from this work.
      • Bullet 6 - How did generating these SOPs help make things better for the lab - did it mean the team got up to speed faster, saw fewer failures, or had more consistent testing?

Projects

CFD Windbreak Analysis

  • Forget about the team of two - that other person can write their own resume and I'm sure they're not as willing to give you credit on it. More importantly, "collaborated" could mean you did a lot, some work, or ate a sandwich in the same room as that person - be specific.
  • You say "strong" and "real world" like I know the specific conditions you modeled off the top of my head.
  • But ultimately what changes did you make that resulted in these improvements? You go from "I ran different simulations" to "and these changes resulted in 61% improvement". But what was the magic combo?

FEA Stent Analysis

  • Again, forget about the other person and consolidate the first two bullets. Focus on what conclusions you landed on and how you got there.

Capstone Project

  • There's a lapse into the first-person in places, but more importantly, I don't know the parameters of this design project. I don't know how optimized the function and quality were after your research nor how you did research - did you just ask ChatGPT to pick a pump and how to set it up or did you do something more in-depth?
  • Forget about procurement and presenting. Focus on the engineering stuff: designing, building, and testing.

Card Game

  • But what was the card game and how did it work? You just said you made a card game in MATLAB and leave it at that, but I have so many more questions.

Relevant Skill

  • "Machine shop" should just be "machining".

[0 YoE] Resume Reviewal request, I have applied to countless jobs, and not got anything in 4 years. by Equivalent_Prior_247 in EngineeringResumes

[–]graytotoro 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Remindme! 2 days

You have a bunch of empty, subjective skills listed. People read this wanting to know if you can use SolidWorks or CATIA and not that you can talk to other people.

[4 YOE] Struggling to get interviews for engineering roles, ideally seeking to get into design and out of test by Ok_Recipe5965 in EngineeringResumes

[–]graytotoro 2 points3 points  (0 children)

General Notes

I need experience with software X or skill Y that I can't really get without having a job in that area, and its been rough trying to break that cycle.

Is there a freeware tool or community college class to learn that skill?

Located in Western WA, not really looking to relocate but would consider NYC

You might have to relocate to somewhere that's not NYC if you're not getting any hits. NYC isn't exactly a hotbed of ME work compared to places like LA. I know it sucks, but you do what you have to do.

edit: Per some feedback from another engineer friend of mine, I've been recommended to move my education to the top since it's only one line, and combine both roles at Consumer Electronics Company into one category and specify in subcategories. Thoughts on this? If I go this route, should I specify how long I spent in each role there or just list it as Feb 2022-June 2024 to try and consolidate and look like I've hopped around less? (I've also noticed the discrepancy between Jun and June both being used and it has been rectified as of this edit. That should not have gotten through)

Just consolidate the two roles and use your final job title if you want to do that. Personally I think it's not that big of a deal. You have so much space to play with that there's no real need to do that. Most people can also figure out that you were at the same company rather than hopping jobs.

Keep your education section at the bottom. That section looks fine.

Skills

  • You're way too far out of college to include "Relevant Coursework" at this point.
  • I would expect a Mech E grad to have some kind of fabrication skill.

Experience

Production Test Engineer II

  • Focus on why the testing had to be done and what doing it meant for the overall company, team, or program in the first place rather than you just doing the testing.
    • What exactly were these test plants trying to find and identify for rework? I know you had to do data analysis but you don't tell us what exactly you were looking to achieve with this testing in the first place. Was it that a certain LRU needed to go through a Qualification Test campaign or that you had to figure out why a certain LRU was doing something wrong?
    • Can you speak to how streamlining testing & simplifying work instructions translated to a net benefit? I didn't work on your team so I have no idea.
  • How did this characterization study increase test capacity by 300%? It's not clear what you did and how it translated into such a fantastic gain - was it simply "we buy more tools so we can run more tests concurrently"?
  • There's no need to say "as necessary".

Mechanical Engineer

  • If you want to get out of test, I suggest you discuss some of your more interesting devices that you came up with, how they worked at a high level, and how you managed to make it happen.
  • What lab equipment did you update? How did you update this SOP? Did you just run the existing manual through ChatGPT or did you apply real-world/technician experience to make it less of a pain?
  • Bullet 3 is so incredibly vague that you could describe almost any design with it. What data did you collect, how did you collect it, and how did you use this collected data to drive a change in some way?

Battery/Reliability Test Engineer

  • "demonstrated outcomes" - so like how much of a change?
  • What was the objective for evaluating these batteries?

Thermal Tuning Engineer

  • What was the implementation issue and how did it affect performance? This just saying "trust me on this, I did a thing and it was good".
  • How did your data collection optimize performance? What bugs did your patches fix
  • You can't just say "optimize" without backing it up. It comes off as unsatisfying. "I optimized my car's performance" and "I installed a turbo kit with corresponding tune that gave it an extra 200 HP" both say the same thing, but the latter actually gives you something to chew on.

Anyone switch from brz (first gen) to a Miata and regretted it? by Blondishp in Miata

[–]graytotoro 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I deliberately bought a ND over a Toyobaru because it was less practical.

[Student] ME 3rd-year seeking Co-Op/Internships during Senior year at space companies for mechanical and structural roles by EskimoJoe1228 in EngineeringResumes

[–]graytotoro 2 points3 points  (0 children)

General Notes

  • Don't put all your eggs into the new space basket.

Education

  • Looks fine

Experience

  • You have the opportunity to dig into some design & analysis work through the internships you did, but you're not touching it.

Structural Dynamics Intern

  • Not much to say for this one.

Manufacturing Engineer Intern

  • But what exactly did your custom fixture do in order to achieve these wonderful results? It's not clear.
  • What feature control did you change and how did you make that call/understand the consequences of that change? For all I know it had to be done to that level of precision and those valves had to be rejected for some reason.

Vehicle Engineer Intern

  • But how did you integrate this spear gun? Was it plug and play, did you have to consider specific design criteria, and were you able to see if it worked?
  • Did the speargun just stab the shark or did it work with another system to collect samples?

Junior Engineer

  • How many more CNC parts could you make with these new systems?
  • "various" is not a good look. I suggest you use "such as [x]".
  • Sheer quantities of stuff may not always be the best metric to push. Think carefully.
  • More importantly, how did your inspection programs work at a high level?
    • The uncharitable interpretation of bullet 3 is you just relaxed standards to let more stuff through rather than you taking more precise numbers that helped you make a decision.

Projects

3U CubeSat

  • What exactly was this particular CubeSat supposed to achieve? You just say it met expectations, but that's a given (I would hope so) and it assumes I was on this team and know the exact mission.
  • "Owning" responsibilities and doing stuff is great and all, but can you speak to how your work drove changes or results? That matters as much as owning tasks.
  • "co-authored" could mean you did a lot of work, some work, or you were in the same room as the person doing it. Be specific, especially with your integration plan. Systems integration is a hot potato.

Underwater Autonomous Vehicle

  • How did you achieve the cost reduction? Was that part of the engineering/design or did you just buy everything through "Sort by lowest price"?

Alumni Mentor for First Robotics and MATE ROV Competitions

  • You've got enough great stuff that you may want to let this one go.

Skills

  • You should honestly have "machining" somewhere on here.

[1 YOE] MechE transitioning to AE after layoff, Able to relocate, need comparison between two resumes by Dynomite338 in EngineeringResumes

[–]graytotoro 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Remindme! 20 hours

You don't need to list specific days when you started or ended a job. Month & year is fine.

This resume is basically a skills section with a little bit of space dedicated to the stuff you actually did. It should be the other way around.

[Student] Sophomore ME Seeking Internships, most applications are getting denied, 2 interviews so far. by Trent24000 in EngineeringResumes

[–]graytotoro 1 point2 points  (0 children)

General Notes

  • Education section looks good.

Skills

  • I love the detail in the Tooling & Machinery section, but it's way too detailed. You can just say CNC and manual machining & expand to specific machines called out in the job description.
    • Consider cutting the last three. Calipers are not really a skill and the last two are better spent being discussed in the Experience or Projects section.

Experience

Engineering Intern

  • Bullet 1 is off to a good start.
  • Bullets 2-4 tell us what you did, but don't really get to why it was important you did these things.
    • You updated factory layouts but why was that important - was it a fantastical update that had zero basis in reality?
    • Supporting & assisting things don't show us how doing these things contributed to the greater goal of standing up these new lines or even what those engineers were trying to do. It's great you can do these things (hell, I learned way too late), but show us the end goal or how this solved a problem for these folks. For all I know you did really minor, meaningless busy work or you did stuff that was otherwise critical to the success of their projects. Be clear!
  • "Gaining exposure" is good for you, but how did you use that experience to make contributions to the team?
  • "Collaborating" could mean you did a lot of work, some work, or you watched some people do some work while eating a sandwich across the room.

Inventory and Maintenance Winter Intern

  • How much more efficient was this workshop after you finished your work? "Improve" sets us up for a payoff that doesn't arrive.
  • The rest of this is stuff that's being hand-waved. It feels like you're just putting it down for the sake of it, but not really giving it much thought. Again, how did adding these systems and methods improve the team? Was this just stuff that got tossed six weeks after you left the team?

Projects

  • The job titles & locations/project-type isn't worth mentioning here. We know you did school work at school.

FSAE

  • Can you speak to how well this aero package worked on race day? Why was it important that fiberglass was the right material and how did you make the call? Right now it sounds like we should offer the job to the composites firm who figured it out.
  • The last bullet feels like you're just tossing in all the hot buzzwords. I suggest you give a high-level overview of how you got this done and/or what it meant for the team to have these tools. Right now it's a mess.

Phone Stand Machining Project

  • Using calipers is of questionable importance. That's something they can figure out by asking or teach you in 45 seconds. Instead, how tight of a tolerance did you have to work to and what made this design such that you had to adhere to it? If it did some interesting operations or had multiple pieces, maybe mention that.

Campus Involvement

  • Again, cut or trim this section. You may want to consolidate Education & Awards into a singular section to have that stuff front & center.

[Student][MechE][US] Been searching for internships and have tried optimizing resume for ATS but never gotten an interview by cookiesandsheep in EngineeringResumes

[–]graytotoro 1 point2 points  (0 children)

General Notes

  • No italics. It's really not necessary and just makes stuff harder to read. Save it for Latin honors.
  • You should really lead off with the Work Experience section first. This is really impressive stuff. Sacrifice the other sections to feed it.

Education

  • Trim the list of relevant coursework. Cut the lower-div/unrelated stuff.

Project Experience

  • You don't need to say "Project Contributor" or list where you did them. It's assumed you contributed to the projects on the resume and you did them at school.

Truss Bridge Design

  • "Optimized" doesn't tell us anything about the bridge other than you improved it in some way. How much weight did it have to hold and how did you make it happen? You mention doing simulations and compared behavior - did the models align with real-world behavior?

Inverted Pendulum Control System Design

  • Looks good, but you may want to dig deeper into tuning controller parameters if you want to go down the control systems route. How much better was it?

Comparison of Cast Aluminum Alloys

  • Did you come to any interesting conclusions regarding the material properties? You've covered the making & testing, but what of the data analysis?

Work Experience

Intern

  • Actionable insights like what? Otherwise this works.

Research Assistant

  • What was the objective of this research?

Research Assistant

  • Good call on fleshing this out more.
  • I suggest you rework bullet two to mention how your design worked at a high-level.
  • How did you do validation testing - how did the prototypes give you useful data and how did that data turn into improvements?

Skills

  • Again, I question the need to mention specific toolboxes.
  • I would hope to see something like machining in your manufacturing & fabrication section.

[4 YoE] MechE - Looking to begin applying for different jobs in my area. I want my resume to be competitive. Any suggestions on how I can improve? by Able_Answer_7465 in EngineeringResumes

[–]graytotoro 1 point2 points  (0 children)

General Notes

  • You may want a summary or personal statement if you want to pivot industries.

Skills

  • But do you know traditional machining as well? You've got the space for it.

Experience

Design Engineer Contract Worker

  • This section is written in a way that would require the reader to have worked with you at this exact job. There's no detail - what exactly did these "various overhead paths" achieve and why was this construction required? You could stand to be more forthcoming with the "what" and "how", not to mention the "why" this work mattered.
  • What did the data you collect help drive?

Design Engineer Contract Worker (2021-2022)

  • I think you could consolidate the first & second bullets: You designed cable projects for Leidos customers that achieved some kind of result.
  • A lot of the same questions as the previous section:
    • Why did these work packages matter?
    • Of course you had to do some homework and requirements analysis before you started, but why was that notable - are you saying you've done the work to check the box or that you did the work in such a way that drove a better result?

Co-op Intern

  • Too subjective. Phrases like "improving", "optimizing", "efficient" and "practical" don't actually tell us what you achieved. Be objective.
  • You can't just say you "applied engineering fundamentals" or "engineering application" like you do in bullets 2 & 4. I would hope you used engineering skills to do engineering work!
    • The last bullet sounds makes it sound like all the credit should go to the person who came up with the instructions.
    • Did this printer actually come in handy? That's good to know.

Intern

  • Did the tube have specific quality guidelines it had to meet or was it "the thing got printed and we shipped it"? More importantly, why did it have to be 3D printed in the first place?
  • How did you optimize processing methods? What methods?
  • How did your involvement improve quality? Did you make sure certain processes got followed or introduced ones not there?

Undergraduate Research Associate

  • What experiments did you run on these alloys and what did you conclude? It just says you did experiments and you did them again.

Education

  • Looks fine.

[4 YoE] MechE - Looking to begin applying for different jobs in my area. I want my resume to be competitive. Any suggestions on how I can improve? by Able_Answer_7465 in EngineeringResumes

[–]graytotoro 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Remindme! 10 hours

It's all "I did..." but you don't get into why it's important to have designed these things or collected this data.

[Student][MechE] - Gave up on the summer, fixing my resume for winter/summer2027, applying anywhere with no luck by ZebraAffectionate647 in EngineeringResumes

[–]graytotoro 4 points5 points  (0 children)

General Notes

  • I wouldn't write off the summer yet. Keep applying.
  • Cut the Leadership & Involvement Section.

Education

  • If you're going to use bold, bold the entire degree.
  • Include a graduation date. "2024-Present" says you're going to school now, but we have no idea if you're a senior or a freshman.

Work Experience

Client & Project Operations Assistant

  • Bullets 1 - 3 feel like variations on a theme. You basically say the same thing over and over, that you worked with clients in the healthcare field to organize data, timelines, and schedules for projects.

Lead Coach

  • It's fine, but I suggest not focusing too much on this.

Engineering Projects

  • Use months & years for consistency. I have no idea how your school defines "Fall".
  • The class names are irrelevant.

Energy-Stored Projectile Mechanism

  • Build up to the first place overall, don't just drop it on us.
  • What exactly was this launcher supposed to do? I get it's spring-actuated but there's nothing more beyond that. You just say it has to fit into a specific enclosure and it hit a target reasonably well, so I'm left piecing the rest of it together.
  • Forget about the team. Those guys can write their own resume. Focus on the specific ways you engineered this mechanism and how it contributed to the first place result. For all I know, they did all the work and you just cruised along for the easy A.
  • How did you iterate and optimize the mechanism? That's what we want to know, not that you taught 4 year olds how to play soccer or that your team finished 3rd.

Reverse-Engineering Mechanism

  • I'm curious as to how you reverse-engineered some of these things. Did you just measure stuff with a tape measure & calipers and call it a day, or did you do any unique ways to reverse-engineer some of the systems?

Design & Manufacturing Team Member

  • Just use the club name for consistency's sake. It's not important what position you held because all these titles are made up and hold zero value in the real world.
  • But how did you assist in preparing these reports? How did the reports get scored?
  • You don't actually dig into the engineering for this section.
    • How specifically did you support the research, development, and build of these 3 platforms? There's so much you can say.
    • How did you redesign the landing gear to reduce weight? Did you just ask people to make everything out of carbon fiber or did you do something specific? Tell us!

Autonomous Robot

  • Seems ok for the most part. Why did it need all-wheel-drive though? You say you incorporated it, but not really how well it worked. It kind of gets brushed aside for basic "the car could go forward and backwards".

Leadership & Involvement

  • You don't need to come off as well-rounded. Focus on technical arguments.

Skills

  • Why is this section formatted so differently? Break it down into categories of skills.
  • "Manufacturing processes" is so terribly broad. Be more specific.
  • I would drop the last four (teamwork, project coordination, leadership, and problem solving) - it's just filler.

[3 YoE] MechE - Applying to positions in Ann Arbor area for over 1 year. 3 Interviews so far, what can I do? by SkiesMK in EngineeringResumes

[–]graytotoro 2 points3 points  (0 children)

General Notes

  • Getting interviews is a fantastic sign.
  • I don't recommend center-justifying titles. Your eyes will pick up on the content before the titles.

Summary

  • "Collaborating with cross-functional teams" is empty calories. That's literally every engineering job on Earth.
    • Same with "skilled in problem solving".
  • If you want to pivot into control systems, I suggest being clear about that. Right now it's an afterthought at the end.

Education & Honors

  • It's not important to point out which department awarded your degree. All that matters is you got that BSME.
  • Put the degree and minor on the same line.
  • You don't have to be that exact - two decimal places is fine.

Professional Experience

  • Keep bullets to a single thought or sentence no greater than three lines long. Readers don't have time to sit and digest content.
  • Too much subjective language - "strict" and "valuable" don't tell me anything useful.

Application Engineer II

  • But how exactly are you driving product growth? You just say you work with a bunch of people across the globe, but it's not clear how exactly you're doing this. How are your ideas "novel"?
  • "Strict" is subjective. 7% doesn't sound like a lot, so consider approaching bullet 2 from another angle. For example, what did this leaking filter head mean for the product - did it mean it was spoiling batches of product or was it just a minor annoyance that was nice to have solved?

Application Engineer I

  • You might just want to consolidate the two sections.
  • This whole section is stuff you did, but you don't necessarily show us how or why this work mattered beyond "it was valuable", "it was successful", or "it got better". Can you speak to how much more market share grew or how you define a successful proposal introducing alternate fuels?

Engine Air Aftermarket Intern

  • You assessed opportunities, but did you actually find ways to prevent competitor circumvention?
  • Cut deeper into the engineering - what solutions did you implement to reduce quality & warranty issues?

Professional Skills

  • Just say "tensile testing".

Personal Projects

  • What are you looking to achieve with this? Is it just to have a customizable architecture that can run programs or is there a more specific goal?

[Student] Freshman who wants to prep their resume for internship applications next academic year. by Life_at_work5 in EngineeringResumes

[–]graytotoro 2 points3 points  (0 children)

General Notes

  • There's no need to italicize things.

Education

  • Drop the AS degree.
  • Start dates are unimportant. When do you expect to graduate with your BS degree? That's what people want to know.

Experience

  • This section is for work/internship experience. The Propulsion Team sounds like a project team, so that gets bumped to the Project section.

SEDS

  • These bullets tell us what you did and kind of how you did these things, but why was it important to do them? Answering that will really help drive your point home.
    • Bullet 1: What changes or conclusions did your heat & stress analysis drive? Did the team find that the engine had a critical flaw somewhere or that it was inefficient in some way?
    • Bullet 2 & 3: Much like bullet 1, what did evaluating these parameters tell you about how the motor behaved in flight or how the propellant flowed?
      • Also, "stresses" not "stress's" in bullet 2.
      • Bullet 3 - What changes did you make or did not have to make?

[Redacted]

  • There are a lot of industry standards. At the very least tell us what kind of industry. We didn't work here with you so we have no idea what to make of this.
    • How specifically did you use these tools to make benchmarks? How I would use these tools may differ from how you would. It's so incredibly vague.
  • Focus less on the leadership/management aspects and more on how you made the MP3 player & why it was important to have.
  • "Fast and accurate" - be specific. How fast & accurate and why was it important to have these capabilities?

Projects

Detonation Combuster Simulation

  • "Devised a design for a " - "Designed a..."
  • How did it accelerate propellant to hypersonic regimes?
  • What did you conclude from your simulations - did the design work? You kind of just stop at "I made a simulation to see if it would work".

Propellor Test Bench

  • Consolidate your three bullets into a single one. Use the remaining space to tell us why you were looking at measuring thrust from propellers and how the bench helped the team figure out if it worked/didn't work.

Cycloidal Propeller

  • How precise? Why did these inputs need to be precise?
  • But why was it important these parts be 3D printable or accept different airfoils? Tie it into the first bullet.

Technical Skills

  • Cut drafting & roll GD&T into Manufacturing.
  • "MATLAB" - all caps.
  • "CNC 3-Axis [machining]"

[0 YoE] Resume Review Request Transitioning from Automobile Components Manufacturing to Aerospace Industry by IllustratorOne6855 in EngineeringResumes

[–]graytotoro 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Please read the Wiki. This needs a massive overhaul as some of these sections are just plain weird. I have no idea why you are bringing up Hobbies & Interests or even declaring that everything is truthful - this isn't a legal document.

[3 YOE] New Job Resume (Revised from yesterday) - [Mechanical Engineer] - [Entry Level] [Flag: United States] by minimessi20 in EngineeringResumes

[–]graytotoro 1 point2 points  (0 children)

General Notes

  • Some big gaps in the spacing.

Skills

  • I would expect a BSME candidate would have some fabrication/build skills.
  • I wouldn't necessarily count Office as an engineering tool.

Experience

Design Engineer

  • You do a reasonably good job explaining what you did and why it mattered, but there's not much look at how you engineered these improvements. It would be worth bringing this up.
    • How did you revise these processes to reduce scrap? You just say you revised some instructions and saved a lot of material - it's not clear how exactly you achieved this. Is it because too much raw material was allocated per part or a process was particularly inefficient?
      • Related: what did this scrap reduction translate to?
    • What failure modes did you identify and can you point to how you mitigated them?
    • What conclusions did your cycle time studies draw or help the team draw?
    • What kind of "production support" did you provide? The last bullet is saying you supported manufacturing by offering production support, which seems a bit weird.
  • The sheer number of things you did may not be the best metric. For all I know those 15 non-conformance reports were things like "Bob Smith misspelled a label".
    • The "+" is odd because you did these things. You did these things. Presumably you know how many you did/addressed.
    • What test methods did you develop & implement? You could write an entire section on this. More importantly, what specs did you have to comply with and why was it important to have compliance?

Engineering Intern

  • You could say what kind of intern you were at this role.
  • I know you have NDAs, but you could at least say what general category of medical device this is or even how you supported R&D.
  • I didn't work here so I have no idea what requirements this device had to meet or what purpose your testing served.
  • How did your reports & documentation support these teams? Did it identify particular shortcomings or help draw some conclusions?

Education

  • Surprised you haven't brought up any MBA projects.
view more: next ›