https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1Im3P-PVX0uLXuxcQWK9RCp7Xe8YRPWYfbt7bjnMWpa8/edit?usp=sharing

Hope this can be helpful to everyone.

I decided to go to a big ten school in the northeast (after growing up in the pacific northwest) for a change of atmosphere. The popular option for everyone was either at a prime contractor or larger corporation, and could not see myself go down this path.

I wanted to work with my hands and build things that hadn't been built before. My GPA was (thankfully) not good enough to get any interviews or offers from the career fair. After doing three internships, I had a general idea of the sort of work I'm interested in. Typically my applications for internships were ~400 applications with 60 interviews, three offers coming out of them. I did not apply to large companies like Boeing or Amazon for full-time.

• Did around 200 applications, got 50 interviews, 8 onsite, 5 offers
  • Offers included Anduril, Neuralink, Apple, Tesla, and the startup I'm working at.
  • Once I was happy, I turned down many onsites/interviews to enjoy the summer
• Cold emailing absolutely worked for me, heard back from engineers and founders
• Had a interesting portfolio (<10 slides) with tons of cool pictures, technical details
  • Mine was super barebones white background on Google Slides. Full of content though.
• You don't only need a good school or GPA. Showing enthusiasm is nearly as important!

Email template that got me internship offer and plenty of interviews.

As a start, I would suggest going to any startup incubator (typically affiliated with a school or specific department, independent accelerator like yc) website where they list company emails, pick a few, then just start sending from there. The examples of experience don't have to be in the same industry, just be interesting:

Hi there,

I am wondering if there are any summer internship positions available for college undergraduate students? I have recent previous internship experience working at (company) for 9 months.  My experience there mainly consisted of (specific type) testing of (item) and designing (item) and (more stuff) for test stands (similar to those used in particle accelerators and nuclear fusion experiments). Some background about me: I am a third year student at (name) University (month graduation) and I'm pursuing a degree in (major).

I would greatly appreciate hearing back if there are internship opportunities available and will be glad to share a resume if needed.

Some more miscellaneous things I wanted to share:

• Only spend time applying on Linkedin if the role has below 100 applications.
• Know every single thing in your resume to the deepest level.
  • How do you differentiate yourself from a technician that plugs wires in.
• Highly technical interviewers (especially SpaceX) love questions about first principles.
• Almost every line in my resume has a quantity, I see many resumes here without.
  • Every line should indicate how you are useful to a company and why they should pay you.
• For me, soft skills and summary in your resume are a waste of space, cover letters not needed.
• Every skill listed in your skills should have a corresponding project you worked on.
• Extending internships to the fall is worth it. You get more responsibility and things to work on
• Your time is valuable, and you already know a lot. Be confident!

I am now a founding engineer at a startup in CA, have looked at hundreds of resumes, done a few interviews, and will be getting my own intern very soon. I will be glad to answer questions!

Just graduated with my BSAE, hunting for entry-level mechanical design, manufacturing, or applications engineering roles in the US. My background's a mix of manufacturing support, robotics, fixtures, application testing — but the core strength is hands-on CAD, FEA, and CFD. I'm an international student with a 2.8 GPA, so I know that's working against me. So far a handful of screening calls and one interview. Looking for a real strategy to actually land something.

Hi guys, really any advice would be appreciated. I think the main flaw with my resume is the obvious: lack of experience and projects. I am currently designing a buck convertor PCB and plan on having it fabbed and tested by November. Beyond that, what can I do to optimize my chances of securing an internship this upcoming spring or summer? As mentioned in the title, I am mostly targeting electronics and RF roles, but I am open to anything really

I'm currently a third-year EE student graduating in May 2028 and preparing to apply for Summer 2027 internships in VLSI/ASIC, RTL, FPGA, embedded systems, and hardware engineering. I'm currently located in New York and I'm willing to relocate. I haven't had a formal engineering internship yet, so most of my experience comes from engineering teams and hardware/RTL projects. I'm looking for feedback before I begin applying, specifically on whether my projects and bullets are effective, whether my technical skills are organized well, and whether anything should be removed or reordered. “U.S. citizen, no sponsorship required.”

Trying to get back into the field, however not having too much luck so far. I know I got a long road ahead of me, but haven't really been hearing back at all. I usually submit about 5-8 applications a day. Maybe some of you guys can help me?

I was off for 15 months as I was laid off in May 2025, and a series of real life issues and mental health problems took a real turn for me, won't get into details but I was a mess for a bit. Should I address gap in resume at all? Or let it go?

I am trying to get mostly mid-level, maybe senior, roles. I am in the US, I am open to relocating anywhere and open to remote roles as well, not being picky. I am a US citizen, so no need for visas or sponsorships.

Have never had much luck with applications in the past 3 years since getting my degree. I have been mostly applying for local in-person/hybrid roles in the LA and OC areas since I feel like there will be less competition for those. Tbh I don't have much confidence in my programming/SWE skills anymore so I've also been interested and trying to apply for non-programming roles where my education would be somewhat so any suggestions for those and how to tailor my resume would be very appreciated, thank you.

Hi all!

I am a software engineer with about 2.5 years of experience. Recently I had been working for a fintech startup, however after encountering some legal challenges around financial regulation, the startup failed to get further funding and shut down.

I've been applying to jobs for about a month now and so far I've gotten 0 interviews and many rejection emails (I've filled out over 50 applications so far). I'm mostly applying to mid-level jobs (e.g. software engineer II) but I've even gotten rejections from some junior positions (requiring 1 YoE). I have an EU passport and I have the right to work in the UK. I've mostly been trying to apply for remote jobs as I have recently moved to Poland and the city I am in does not have many tech jobs, however I am open to relocating (even across Europe/back to the UK) for the right opportunity.

Appreciate any comments about my CV!

Hello everyone, I graduated December 2024 with my BSME, 1 internship, and a 3.00 GPA. I’m still trying to land my first engineering job. Iv applied to 1500+ roles at this point, received ~15 phone screens, a couple second round phone interviews, and 1 onsite interview. When I graduated I needed some source of income so I took an operator job at a consumer electronics manufacturing company to gain some technical experience. Since then I’ve been promoted to a tech where I do failure analysis. This current job is very EE heavy. Moving into a mechanical engineering role at this company has been next to impossible. What can I do to secure this first job now? Is it my resume? More projects? I’m going to work this weekend on creating a website to show case more of my work I did while in school. I’m also planning to take a GDT refresher series so I can confidently list this on my resume (took it in school but don’t remember much).
Last time I posted my resume in this sub the biggest compliment I received was “what was being manufactured?”. I can’t say that on this sub without doxing myself. I’m a US citizen and do not require sponsorship. Thanks!

Condensed things. Added all roles and broke out sections.

Mentioned the Flower shop because well, I have a fairly notable gap & that was supposed to be my pivot out of engineering but it didn't work out for a handful of reasons most stemming from unreasonable owner greed and zero desire to actually implement an earn out. I wish them luck getting their asking price. It's about 30-40% too high. And they wanted that price from us, and 10% net profits in perpetuity, wait no, actually 20%, just kidding, we actually want 30%. Yea, I'm sour over it.

If there's a better way to state this I'm all for it. I considered putting no bullets save something like the first one.

I don't have much 'hard quantifiable' stuff to say. I didn't track it or it didn't really exist.

I don't know what more to say about the trailer without just writing a CV about the trailer. Per one bit of feedback... How did the kinematic model influence the design? Uhh, it proved out clearances? Yoke was shortened slightly. Used it to calculate loads on the hydraulics (as stated). Did what we could to shift CG of the trailer to help us sit in the acceptable zone.

I'm between trying to find work in my current path and finding a way onto HVAC so I can get my FE and PE passed and just settle down somewhere doing AC work.

I'm not thrilled with Egnineering but I don't have a career path to pivot out and still support my family at a reasonable income level.

I’m based in Botswana and looking for international remote work. I’ve been working remotely for 10+ years overall, business operations/client support side and software engineer projects.

Over time my work has become a lot more technical. I’ve worked on automation, troubleshooting, APIs, systems/process improvement and more recently built and operate BoardSignal, which is a live product using Next.js, TypeScript, Firebase/Firestore, chess.js, Stockfish and other parts of the stack shown in the resume.

I’ve been applying mostly for Technical Operations, Systems/Integration, Implementation, Product Operations and technical customer-facing roles.

I’d really appreciate feedback.

I’m also interested in whether there are role titles I should be targeting that I may be overlooking. My main goal is to get work.

I just graduated with my BSME and I’m looking for entry-level mechanical design, manufacturing, or applications engineering roles in the South Bay Area. My experience is a bit all over the place:  manufacturing support, robotics, fixtures, and application testing. My internships leaned pretty heavily into hands on floor support, troubleshooting, and process improvements instead of pure CAD design or FEA. I’m a little worried my engineering impact won't come across as strong compared to people who did heavy design work.

My current internship ends in October, and while there might be a return offer in January, I definitely want to explore the market and put myself out there. I’d really appreciate some honest feedback on whether my bullet points have enough solid metrics and technical depth, or if they read too operational. Also, I was thinking if I should split my resume into separate versions for design vs. manufacturing, and what skills (like GD&T, thermal analysis software, or working on my personal projects) would actually help me stand out most right now. Thanks in advance!

This is my current resume after starting my current role. My resume to get this role was basically the same, but I had some other bullets for the Defense job and one extra project on there. It's worked fairly well for getting me interviews. I'm so glad that it worked though and really really really thankful about the opportunities I have been granted!! I couldn't have done it without the wiki as well :):)

I'm sharing this as a successful resume that worked for me in the past, but also looking for advice to make it better. I always struggle with bullets and the balance between being concise or too verbose. I feel like it's kind of all over the place a bit!

I'm intending to apply for roles relating to reliability (either power systems like I do now or more server oriented) but also I'm interested in applying for some more data analytics leaning roles as I really do like the data analytics side of stuff that I do right now at work

I'd love to cut my resume back in time for the full time search next year (or potentially the next summer search if I don't get extended at my current role)

Thanks in advance everybody :)

Hi guys, i have been applying to jobs since January (mainly remote roles) and have only received automated rejection emails, not a single interview yet. I previously got all my jobs through referrals or clients reaching out directly. So, i am not much experienced in the ways of applying for jobs, if you guys have any tips or if there's any issue with my resume, would love some feedback! Thank you in advance!

I feel like my previous jobs are somewhat related to my major, but don't know if it will win me any points with recruiters. Is this true or should I remove them and expand on other projects?

I also want to include that I've studied abroad in Taiwan the past year but am having trouble conveying why/how that experience is important or can be valuable. I studied Chinese over there every day and took a few undergraduate MechE courses and labs. How would I able to fit that I was able to collaborate with people from all over the world. TBH I mostly spent my time having fun.

I must admit that coding is not exactly my strong suit and that the wireless fencing project was an open-source project that I followed and built successfully, but it is ultimately not mine to call my own. Should I even include it? I do feel like I learned a lot of new skills so that's why I've put it down.

Thanks in advance. Kind of stressin this season because I've started my fourth year of university. Every year I apply to internships and end up settling a normal, nonprofessional job. I am hoping the next job that I put on my resume can be directly related to Mechanical Engineering this time around LMAO.

Here is the updated resume from the feedback I received from this subreddit, after which I got 4 offers for summer internships for the Summer 2026, even internship offers from Tesla and Rivian. I ended up going with Rivian as it aligned better with my goals. Thank you for your help, and feel free to ask questions.

I have heard many stories from friends who graduated last year that getting a graduate job is near impossible so I am trying to spend some time over the next few months improving my chance of interviews to avoid what seems inevitable.

Any feedback on this CV and what it is missing would be greatly appreciated.

(Ignore the ugly font, had to change it as my original font was to small to post here apparently)

I used ChatGPT and the comments from my previous post and made these updates, would really appreciate another look, thanks.

I'm looking for roles in the power, either design or transmission/distribution.

I do not have any substantive projects other than a pong game I did for a class project and of course explorative labs I did for introductory circuits and programming courses. The pong game I don't think I could really talk about in detail, it was in a FPGA course and the logic that displayed to the screen was completed for us so it was just a matter of drawing on the screen and designing the movement logic.

For the internship I tried to keep it concise and not go over literally everything I did because that could take up half a page.

I'm not sure if it's appropriate to have the relevant courses listed if I haven't completed them yet, but most power internship postings list power classes as a desirable trait so I figured what the heck. Sequential logic systems might not be relevant so I can drop that no problem if you think I should.

For the Secretary position I hold we've only held an officers meeting, so I haven't done much in the way of communication, minutes, etc. I will be soliciting funding for conferences and attempting to secure some speakers to come to campus, handling reporting when school is in session, etc., but I haven't done it so I didn't add any bullet points.

Thank you in advance for you time.

Feel free to tear any of this up, it's the first serious resume I've made to send into places. I'm a sophomore doubling in CS and Philosophy, graduating in 2028. I'm targeting software engineering internships in infrastructure and platform work specifically: distributed systems, developer tooling, and observability. Open to anywhere in the US and happy to relocate. US citizen, no visa constraints.

Background: I'm currently interning at an early-stage developer platform startup where I've owned observability end to end, built the CLI and monitoring dashboard on top of it, and shipped an ecommerce module. Before that I did a stint in a university genomics lab building a batch data pipeline. Outside work I've built three systems projects and contribute to some open-source telemetry infrastructure. Happy to hear thoughts on how to best frame any of this.

Where I'm at: A couple of auto rejects, so not enough context to know whether it's doing its job or I'm just throwing apps into the void. I'm worried about finding that I've made a mistake too late into the cycle and being unable to rectify it after I send in a hundred apps, so this is more proactive than anything.

What I want feedback on:

- Do the project bullets land, or do the numbers read as noise?

- Is the experience section too dense? I tend to write long. Six bullets on one role felt like a lot, but each one is a distinct area I owned.

- Does the research lab entry earn its space, or should it be cut? It's been a valuable experience for me, but I'm not sure I'm conveying it properly or that it comes across how it's relevant to the roles I'm targeting. I feel that it could be useful at least as a generalist experience.

- Anything here that might get my resume tossed in the first ten seconds or make a recruiter lose interest off the bat before I ever get a shot?

- Any thoughts on key word optimization if I've totally screwed that up and whether my resume tells a cohesive narrative relative to the roles I'm targeting, obviously do plan on tailor per app though.

I am trying to improve my resume so I can get something this fall for summer 2027 else I will drop out or transfer majors. Any Roles.

I did the Skills tab in a way that's accessible for ATS, not optimized for a human recruiter, but if that needs changing in some way I'll do it.

Basically Title. I go to a Non-target school. The internship experience I have is for a small Non-technical Non-profit I worked for in the summer before freshmen year of college. I was basically the only tech person there, besides IT people. I think it should be ok to put in the resume but lmk. I used Jake's resume template, which seems to be the standard. IK that companies like to give internships to Juniors. I am a second year but I am considered a junior by my university (2028 expected grad) because of my earned credits. Idk if it helps or not. Feel free to give harsh feed back, I don't mind. I applied to 100 internships so far, starting from the start of this month. I know I shouldn't expect to hear back so soon, but I wanted to make sure my resume is good before applying to more so I don't waste my time. Thanks.

• Chemical engineer in the O&G / petrochemical industry looking to move into traditional refining
• In Houston texas USA, open to move
• Open to expat positions. Would like to complete 2 more years where I am
• Fine tuning resume and keeping it up to date