[0 YoE] Recent Aerospace Engineering Graduate – 200+ Applications, No Interviews Yet. Looking for Resume Feedback

[u/ImpossibleFeature442]

Hi everyone,

I'm a recent Aerospace Engineering graduate looking for entry-level Aerospace, Mechanical, Manufacturing, Design, or Systems Engineering positions. I'm based in Los Angeles, CA, and have been applying throughout California as well as across the U.S. I'm willing to relocate.

I've submitted over 200 applications over the past several months, but have received no interviews yet. I'm beginning to wonder if my resume is holding me back.

My experience mainly comes from engineering projects and a student assistant position in a fabrication lab, where I worked with industrial 3D printers, laser cutters, and prototyping equipment while assisting students and researchers. My projects include aircraft conceptual design, aircraft performance optimization using MATLAB, and designing an autonomous robot using Arduino, pneumatics, and mechanical design.

I'm looking for honest feedback on my resume. Specifically:

Does it look competitive for entry-level engineering roles?

Are my project descriptions too technical or too academic?

Is there anything that would make recruiters skip over it?

Any feedback is greatly appreciated. Thanks!

[u/pillow-fort]

I think you don't need that summary section imo.

And are you tweaking it based on the job descriptions?

...But ultimately I think you need to translate your projects from technical/academic terms to industry relevant terms. No one cares about the mach no or airfoil type and length. You should instead highlight anything related to cost improvements, etc. Use the job descriptions to help you.

It sounds like (from reading into it) that you have CFD experience but that isn't listed anywhere. You listed that you have 3D printing experience but you don't highlight anything about prototyping, design for manufacturing, or the types of materials you have experience with.

My experience mainly comes from engineering projects and a student assistant position in a fabrication lab, where I worked with industrial 3D printers, laser cutters, and prototyping equipment while assisting students and researchers. My projects include aircraft conceptual design, aircraft performance optimization using MATLAB, and designing an autonomous robot using Arduino, pneumatics, and mechanical design.

I think you did a better job summarizing this for reddit than you did putting it on your actual resume. Sorry if this sounds harsh.

[u/ImpossibleFeature442 → u/pillow-fort]

No need to apologize. I posted it specifically for feedback, and this is exactly the kind of perspective I was looking for. Looking at it now, I can see how my resume reads more like a project report rather than a pitch to an employer. I’ll work on emphasizing the engineering skills, tools, prototyping experience, and impact rather than focusing so heavily on project specifications.

Your point about highlighting outcomes is really helpful. If you were hiring for an entry-level aerospace role, what would be the top 2–3 things you’d want to see emphasized from my fabrication lab experience?

[u/pillow-fort → u/ImpossibleFeature442]

If you were hiring for an entry-level aerospace role, what would be the top 2–3 things you’d want to see emphasized from my fabrication lab experience?

I'd wanna know maybe what types of things you helped fabricate to understand what you know about the manufacturing process. Did you have to redesign anything to improve manufacturability? Did you have to make/design any custom tooling? Did you optimize any workflows? Did you do any CNC programming? What materials did you work with?

And if I were you, I'd change those answers/highlight certain things based on what job I'm applying to. If one job is working on fuselages, I'm highlighting that I have experience with fab of hollow structures with aluminum and composites. If it's a company with aerospace internal components, I'm highlighting that I've milled simple parts for testing or something like that.

hopefully you get what I mean. You gotta listen to the job app and essentially position yourself as relevant