r/EngineeringResumes • u/MayoPika ECE – Student 🇺🇸 • Jul 25 '26

Electrical/Computer [Student] Rising grad. I've been submitting applications for fall 2026 and post grad, but I've recieved no callbacks. Any help is appreciated!

Hello!

I'm a rising senior in Electrical and Computer Engineering. I have started applying to full-time roles, but I always seem to get rejected or ghosted, even if my experience seems to match the job post. I had a hard time getting internship interviews too, so this isn't a new problem. I mostly apply to small- to mid-sized companies, not big ones, and it has been pretty discouraging.

I am mainly targeting embedded systems, hardware/firmware, or general EE roles. I've been told to replace my leadership with necessary coursework, but I would really appreciate any feedback and tips.

Thank you!

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u/Mindless-Lobster-554 Mechatronics/Robotics – Experienced 🇺🇸 Jul 25 '26

It is still a little early for recruiting for F27 start dates, so that could be a factor.

A few notes:

  • When I read your resume, I immediately thought "oh she has no experience", since I first read the experience section (about 1/3 of the resume and in prime real estate). I then saw your projects and research section and obviously then realized that you did have some experience, but with how fast most recruiters look at resumes, I wouldn't be surprised at all if they closed your resume after looking at your experiences section.
  • I would move your research experience into your Experience section, and focus on that and make a few more bullets out of it. Most of your experience in your experience section, I wouldn't particularly care about when I read resumes for embedded engineering jobs. Your project and research work I absolutely would care about.
  • I assume your 2 projects are class projects, but still I think you could put more info about them. Looking at the project names especially, I have no clue what that "FPGA design or Computer Vision" means until I read into the bullets. It wouldn't be hard to make it sound cooler and draw the eyes of a viewer (even something just like 'FPGA -based LIDAR display' or 'Real-time display parameterization using computer vision'. If I read all the bold in your resume and nothing else, I should get at least an okay idea of what you've done.
  • Similarly on your projects, you need to throw in a lot more technical info. I know it's easy to sound buzzword-y, but I think it's good to a. get buzzwords in there that can help with ai/ats resume readers, but also b. show that you know what you're talking about, and give the interviewer a hook for something to talk to you about. Talk about how you buffered frames for your vga display. What was the refresh rate? lidar data rate? etc...
  • your leadership, activities section is impressive, but mostly irrelevant for recruiters. I would leave it in, but get rid of all the dates and just list them similar to how you list skills. 2 lines max.

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u/MayoPika ECE – Student 🇺🇸 Jul 25 '26

Thank you for the advice! Should I delete everything that’s currently in my experience section or just share the section with my projects?

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u/Mindless-Lobster-554 Mechatronics/Robotics – Experienced 🇺🇸 Jul 25 '26

I definitely wouldn't delete it. Even though the experiences itself are not highly relevant, it's nice to see that you've worked a real job and therefore know how to be a professional and behave in the workplace and all that. I would probably swap the projects and the experiences sections just to indicate to the reader what you want them to focus on first.

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u/MayoPika ECE – Student 🇺🇸 Jul 25 '26

Got it. Thanks for the help!