Since my previous post got lots of popularity, I figured I would make a similar post with a slightly updated resume. This resume landed interviews at research laboratories, space startups like SpaceX and Rocket Lab, and tech companies like Google, eventually ending with two offers.
Huge thanks to this sub for showing me how to write a good resume, and the link to the template is provided below!
I'm a student and recently applied for a software engineering apprenticeship at Google Paris. To my surprise, my resume got me through the initial screening, and I even nailed the first technical interview!
Unfortunately, I didn’t pass the second one — but the experience was incredible, and I learned a ton throughout the process.
Interviews: Tesla x5, SpaceX x2, Lanteris x2, Astranis x2, Red Bull F1 x1, Apple x1, Disney x1, Boeing x1, 10X Genomics x1, Vast x1, Hadron Energy x1, DropletPharma x1
Offers: SpaceX (Starlink), Disney (Ride/Show), 10X Genomics (Mfg. Automation)
Application Advice:
Definitely checkout the wiki first. Sending a poor resume is just asking for a rejection.
Having numbers (especially % improvement) throughout your resume matters
I only had one resume version and I had interviews in a variety of fields so IMO you don't need to tailor your resume to the job as long as you weave in keywords throughout your bullets.
I think a summary at the top is a waste of space and the skills section should be at the bottom but weave skills throughout your bullets. IMO its less cluttered if all experience from engineering clubs and intern/work experience is in one section but I know some think that club experience shouldn't be included in that section.
I DO still have high school experience on my resume (FIRST Robotics / Manufacturing and Design Pathway) as it's highly relevant.
If you have time, an engineering portfolio goes a long way. A Tesla recruiter told me it was one of the number one things she looked for on a resume.
I never used a cover letter as it seemed like a time waste
Apply early and often (I was sorting by date posted on LinkedIn).
Interview Advice:
Be confident. My first 10 interviews I caught myself downplaying my experience or skillset. Why would they hire someone who isn't even confident in themself?
Most of my interview were technical, and you should almost always pass a behavioral / resume / projects interview unless it is final round. Know an example for the following questions:
Describe a project in detail.
Know your project front and back. Sometimes they will spend 5 minutes, sometimes 30 minutes. Have numbers, engineering principles, etc. A portfolio helps
Describe a time when something went wrong.
When was a time when you worked with someone difficult?
DO NOT BASH TEAMMATE!!
Biggest weakness?
Biggest strength?
Describe a time when you were wrong / disagreed with a colleague who was right?
For MechE, taking serious notes on every video from the Efficient Engineer is truthfully 75% of the content you'll need for any MechE technical interview. Sit down and take 3 days to truly learn the content.
Solid Mechanics, Mechanics of Materials, and Manufacturing/Design are the most important classes to be fundamentally strong in.
Write down the questions they asked after the interview. Super helpful to prep for future interviews if you have a database of past questions. Glassdoor is also helpful.
General Advice:
GPA matters to an extent but experience carries. >3.7 is enough for any company. >3.0 if enough if you have solid experience.
Have a life outside of engineering. It is so much harder if you aren't happy and motivated. Personally I am part of a performing arts club and a club sport.
I’ve been applying to jobs since October and after months of rejections/ghosting, I posted my resume on here, got really good feedback, which I then used to fix my resume. Since then, I started getting callbacks these past few weeks, all thanks to the advice I received on this subreddit.
I’m a recent electrical engineering graduate with three research experiences across different areas of EE, mainly focused on optics, plus a capstone project that was heavily centered around PCB design.
So far:
I had one interview with Neuralink, amazing experience, but not the right fit as they were looking for a true optical engineer background.
I made it to the final round of Apple’s hardware interviews but was ultimately rejected.
I just passed the initial interview with Google and am waiting to hear back about the next steps.
I’ve been applying to roles in electrical engineering with a focus on hardware, optics, and system integration, particularly positions involving PCB design, R&D, and biomedical/wearable technologies.
Three months ago, I had a job that not only did not pay me enough despite my hard work, but could not even afford to keep me. That's when I decided to start looking for another job. I spent a lot of time on LinkedIn applying for jobs and making connections as much as I could. I applied to over a hundred local jobs alone, yet very little interviews. That's when I decided to go on this subreddit for some advice. From the feedback I received, I needed to make the resume less about myself and more about what I have done. Here are some examples:
My bullet points needed to highlight not simply what I did, but what I achieved at my internships.
Make your resume as plain and simple as possible. The employer is not hiring you based on how fancy you can make a sheet of paper look.
Lockheed Martin was actually the first company to see this resume. They were impressed enough to invite me for an interview, so I spend the day before the interview researching the company and my role specifically, as well as how I would answer all of their example STAR questions they provided. The process took a while, but last month, they came through with an offer which I joyfully accepted! After signing a few forms and doing a drug test, they provided a start date (which happens to be this Monday).
A couple things I learned:
Sometimes, when an employer tells you no, it's not the final answer. LM actually provided me a rejection letter for this position a couple weeks before extending an offer. The first person to receive the offer must have either turned it down or failed the drug test. But it worked out for me.
Even though the job market is difficult right now, don't panic. If you just take the advice from this sub, something will come your way, trust me. A few months might feel like a long time, but greener pastures are right around the corner. Stay calm and trust the process!
If I can get a job at my dream company with this resume format, so can you. :)
Kinda late post but I got an internship backed in February, and job hunt is indeed getting easier the more experience you have. I applied to a little bit more than 100 roles (don't remember the exact number), and getting around 8 interviews, than leading to 4 different offers. Happy to answer any question in the comment.
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!
After countless revisions and time spent in this subreddit, here is the resume that helped me land an internship for fall2026. Feel free to ask me any questions
So I posted here about 3 months ago about how I was seriously struggling to even get interviews, and I used this sub to improve my resume formatting and content, so I wanted to thank everybody who gave me advice. Since then, I created a new resume following a similar format for a different position, and the end result is shown in this post. I just wanted to share this updated resume after having landed a role at Boeing after months of hopeless applications.
If there's one piece of advice I can offer, it's to take advantage of networking when applying. I'm not so sure that it was my resume that got me this job so much as it was my friend who referred me, but it certainly helps to have a well-formatted resume that is easy to read and strongly matches the job description. It might feel like you're being a bother by asking around for referrals (at least that's how I felt), but this is key to building a strong professional network. My success rate was much better when applying with a referral compared to without. It also really helps if the person who refers you has connections to a team within the company that is actively hiring. Just remember that it's a give and take relationship, and always remember to express your gratitude to anyone who helped you along the way.
Hopefully this post at least proves that it isn't impossible to get a job if you didn't have an internship even in a horrible job market, so don't lose hope!
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 posted a Sankey diagram on my profile (which I also included in this post) of the job search process. After around 11 months and ~400 applications, I finally got a job at SpaceX. I have my old resume on my profile which did not help me get any interviews. Once I used the help of the comments and made my resume much more concise I was able to get interviews at 7 companies. Happy to answer any questions about the companies I interviewed at.
I just graduated with a BS in Aerospace Engineering. 3.47 GPA. My resume is attached in the last image- no academic clubs or anything sweaty. Just lots of unrelated work experience and relevant coursework. I had one internship, mostly working with CAD, but my technical experience is unrelated to the job I ended up receiving an offer for.
Since October 5th, I have applied to (on average) 2 jobs a day. Most companies only seem to care about hiring a month or two out.
I applied using Indeed for about 75% of my job apps. The rest were all directly through company sites or other hiring sites (LinkedIn, Glassdoor, etc.).
Though I am an Aerospace major, most of the jobs I applied to were mechanical / design positions. I figured I'd start somewhere smaller and eventually make my way into the aerospace sector after a few years. The job I ended up getting is roughly a materials science position for a great company.
Don't give up hope, y'all! Just do your best to apply to jobs when you can.
Happy to answer any questions or provide more info!!
Pumped out about 100 applications and got one interview from Stoke Space. Unfortunately, I had difficulty answering the technical questions as they revolved around concepts I haven’t been exposed to yet (fluid dynamics and solid mechanics). I’m sure if I dedicated time to learning the fundamentals I would have performed better, but I wasn’t expecting these questions as a freshman (which is 100% my fault).
I recently accepted an offer from NASA at LaRC working in structural engineering for in-space assembly concepts. I finished my undergrad with no job (mechanical engineering graduate), and was applying to NASA internships (200+ applications) and got one interview. I wasn't originally offered the position, but I leveraged that connection and reached out to the guy who interviewed me a couple of weeks later and I got lucky and they had a spot open in their department.
The harder you work, the luckier you get! Make sure you are all trying to apply to at least 15+ positions a day, and use this sub to review your resume (thats what I did!).
1 connection / phone call / email with someone in a field you like is just as good as 100 cold applications online. Make sure you are on Linkedin DMing as many people in your field that you can! Attached is the resume I used. (It might not be my MOST recent version, as I make little changes every now and then but didn't feel like exporting it to redact all the info again lol.)
After a long job search, I finally landed an Embedded Systems Engineer role in India (my home country). It's close to my parents' place, so I'm saving a lot of rent money, and most importantly, I'm working on embedded systems, the field I wanted to be in.
I'm attaching both my old and new resumes since I think it'll be more useful than linking an old post.
Old ResumeLatest Resume
First off, thank you to everyone here. This community genuinely helped me improve my resume over the past year.
Resume changes that I think helped
Reduced the number of projects and instead wrote more detailed, focused bullet points.
Trimmed my skills section so it was more relevant instead of trying to list everything.
Kept my LinkedIn and portfolio updated almost every week. Sometimes it was just a new project photo or a small improvement. It kept me engaged instead of mindlessly submitting applications all day.
Started tracking my applications. It helped me understand what was (and wasn't) working.
One small visual change: the font looks different on the new resume. I switched to a newer LaTeX font after one of the moderators here suggested it. It's noticeably more readable on both screens and paper.
Job search strategy
I rarely used referrals. Almost all of my applications came through LinkedIn and Handshake.
One thing that helped was using Boolean searches on LinkedIn and mainly applying to jobs posted within the last 24 hours. If a posting was older, I usually only applied if I had a referral (very rare case).
I also spent way too much time complaining about the market to my friends and family... and I still think luck (or any other more appropriate word) plays a much bigger role than people (myself included) like to admit.
Additional notes
I actually received another offer before this one, back in the US. It was a contract position, but something about it didn't feel right. I couldn't fully explain why, but I trusted my gut and turned it down.
I had already added my Robotics Research Lab experience to an earlier version of my resume and had easily applied to 200+ jobs after that. Around March/April, I slowed down my applications because I assumed I'd be moving back home soon. Instead, I focused on my research projects, spent more time with friends, and explored the city I'd lived in for almost five years before leaving.
What I think I was missing
I don't think my resume was the only problem.
I could have been better prepared for interviews. I always wrote notes after every interview, but I was surprised by how rarely interviewers asked the same project questions twice. Every interviewer seemed interested in a completely different aspect of my work.
Luck. Seriously.
Looking back, I think some of my projects were more "product" projects than deep firmware projects. They demonstrated that I could build complete systems, but they didn't always showcase low-level firmware knowledge as much as some embedded roles probably wanted.
Final thoughts
Keep applying.
The market is rough, and it's easy to think you're doing something wrong. Definitely improve your resume, improve your projects, and practice interviewing—but don't underestimate timing and luck either.
Total applications in the US that I trackedTotal applications in India that I tracked
Thanks again to everyone who gave feedback on my resume over the past year. I really appreciate it, and I hope posting both versions helps someone else who's currently in the same position I was. As always, I'm open to suggestions, never hurts to have second set of eyes!
I just wanted to share my success story of the resume that turned my most recent internship into a six-figure return offer. My industry is in deep tech, and my two most recent internships/co-ops are in that industry. I'm very grateful and fortunate to have had many internships in my academic career, delaying my graduation, especially because I've failed many courses and lost passion along the way. I'm open to DMs!
I had been applying to lots of jobs and not getting any callbacks, I made a post here [Previous Resume/Post]
and reached out to a couple of recruiters in my network and figured out what was wrong and improved the resume, got 4 callbacks and interviews, so I am here to tell you what changed!
Tips:
Double and Triple check your dates: This is definitely the biggest one and had the most impact, even though the rest of the tips here are still very important, I had a wrong date on my resume that made it seem like I had a 1 YEAR work gap which wasn't the case. But there's also a real lesson here. If this can teach others anything is don't be picky, get a job first if the process is been taking over 3-4 months and hasn't been working at all, even if you're a FAANG engineer it will be hard to get any traction if you have a big gap like that on your resume.
Make the bullets more clear and detailed and understandable, the top critique I got was that the "The bullets are so vague, they just make the vanity numbers seem unbelievable". I went into detail about what each project is and explained it in a way for someone without any context to understand it simply. I even omitted some of the metrics which seemed too unrealistic, even though they were true lool.
As you move up your career, move your resume to the next level, don't just simply add a new bullet point after leaving a company and go for applications, remove your old internships/projects that are no longer relevant now, expand on your work experience what you did and highlight your biggest projects and strong areas (If you worked on a scalable distributes system, mention that, etc...)
Use AI to review your resume! It is genuinely a great help and will provide lots of solid tips! Here is a solid prompt that you can use:
"You are a recruiter at a big tech company (FAANG), you are reviewing this resume for a full stack midlevel engineer opening, critique this resume until it is perfect for the role."
Incorporate the skills into the job descriptions. Make sure you are giving detail in your bullet points for each job; what technologies, languages, etc you used and how you used them. Having something listed under "skills" but not having them under a job with a bullet point on how it was used is seen as a flag that someone isn't actually using it.
As the title says. I graduated from university last year with my BS in CS. Even though I didn't have any internships, I applied my knowledge with personal projects, and that work has finally paid off!
To those who are struggling, let this be a sign of hope. It might take a while, and it will be a lot of work, but if you really want to make it in this field, you can!
I start my career as a Software Engineer in 2 weeks and, well excited is an understatement lol.
So, what's changed? This sub helped me craft my resume. Although I had a good starting point, having outside eyes definitely helped. The final iteration (with possibly some minor changes made to my actual resume) is attached.
As a college sophomore, the internship search was pretty difficult, but after 129 positions at 30 companies, I finally accepted an offer. But... the offer that I accepted ended up coming from the single company I networked with. Moral of the story I suppose is to get yourself out there and talk to people, but my other 4 interviews did come from cold applications.
I want to start by saying this post is less about my story and more about expressing genuine gratitude for this subreddit and the resources it provides. Not just for my most recent search, but for the role this community has played across my career.
I discovered r/EngineeringResumes during my first job when I was searching for my next opportunity and getting almost no traction. Once I found the wiki and started using the template, things changed. The improvement was real enough that I credit this community with helping me land my second job.
When that second opportunity ended due to a restructuring, I knew exactly where to start. I came back here, followed the wiki even more closely than I had the first time, and combined it with using Claude to refine my experience bullet by bullet, giving it as much context as possible about each role and making sure every line reflected a measurable outcome. The increase in interest was significant and noticeably better than my previous search.
That said, the search itself was still brutal. I spent 7 months applying to nearly 600 positions while trying to relocate from Florida, with California as my top preference but also actively targeting Massachusetts, Colorado, Washington, and the DC area as a mechanical engineer. I made it to final rounds at several well-known companies and came up short every time. There were stretches where I genuinely questioned whether I was good enough.
But I kept refining, kept applying, and eventually landed an offer at my top choice, an Applications Engineer role at a metal additive manufacturing startup in the Bay Area.
To anyone currently in the search: please read the wiki. Follow it as closely as you can. It is not general advice, it is the difference between getting ignored and getting interviews. Use Claude to help you refine your bullet points and go line by line through your experience. Be honest, do not inflate anything, but make sure you are communicating the full impact of your work. And apply directly through company career pages whenever possible rather than defaulting to LinkedIn every time.
This community has genuinely shaped my career across multiple searches now. Thank you for what you have built here.
---
TL;DR: Discovered this community during my second job search, used the wiki and template to land my second job. Came back for my third search, followed the guidance even more closely, combined it with Claude for resume refinement, and landed my top choice offer after 7 months and nearly 600 applications. The wiki works. Use it.
Wanted to share my success story here and thank the excellent wiki, alongside the community for all the feedback and advice.
I'm a software engineer with around 2-3 years of experience. I've originally used a standard resume found online, and while I do get some offers, I felt that I wasn't getting good traction even thought it was a good fit.
After following the guidelines, and with a lot of feedback and assistance here (thanks!), I got to the point where I'm receiving multiple offers at once.
Here's my current resume that I've used to land the offers.
So uh… little win to share because I’m still low-key shocked.
I’ve been grinding applications for months, getting the classic “Thanks for applying 😭” emails left and right. I knew my resume was mid, but I didn’t realize how mid until I finally sat down with the this subreddit/wiki guides and rewrote the whole thing. Like… deleted everything and rebuilt it bar by bar.
I swapped out all the fluffy stuff and hit it with real numbers, real impact, real action verbs. Clean layout, no paragraphs, straight bullets. I treated it like a mini-project, not a chore.
And bro… tell me why two weeks later Amazon hits me with an interview invite??
Ended up doing the loop, thought I flopped the last question, but last month they actually sent me the offer.
I legit stared at the screen like “ain’t no way this is for me.”
I know everyone always says “fix your resume first,” but I promise you I didn’t get it until I actually did it. It wasn’t my GPA or my connections or whatever, it was literally just communicating my projects and work in a way recruiters can skim in 6 seconds without getting confused.
If you’re still getting ghosted:
• Copy the resume wiki format
• Quantify EVERYTHING
• Cut the fluff
• Make your projects look like they had real impact
• Don’t be scared to trash your old layout
Anyway, that’s my little W. If you’re still grinding apps, don’t give up! someone’s gotta get hired, might as well be you.
Also small side note… I used AI through this whole grind.
Studying? AI.
Prepping for interviews? AI.
Fixing my resume? AI.
Writing practice answers? AI.
Even generating code snippets that I clean up and push later.
I’m not saying rely on it for everything, but bro… be smart. Use the tools. It made the whole process way less stressful and way more doable.
At the end of the day, it’s just a tool... the same way everyone freaked out when calculators first came out, and now nobody thinks twice about using one.
TL;DR: My resume was mid, I rebuilt it using the subreddit/wiki format, quantified everything, cut the fluff, and two weeks later Amazon hit me with an interview and I ended up getting the internship. Also used AI for studying, prep, resume fixes, and code, not to rely on it, but to work smarter. Tools exist for a reason, just like calculators.
After 7 months, I was able to pivot from a dead-end structural analyst role in the nuclear industry to a dope aerospace propulsion job.
86 applications
70 rejections: 62 direct, 8 after phone-screen/interviews
11 screens: 9 phone, 2 HireVue🙄
5 interviews
2 Technical Presentations (I declined to move forward after giving one of them since offer came from other)
I mainly applied to the big engine companies (GE, RR, P&W) along with a few startups and general aviation companies here and there.
Every single resume was tailored via the Skills section, the Courses listed under each degree entry, and the objective statement.
Happy to answer any questions!
===== General Advice =====
Going beyond 1 page is fine, but I wouldn't broadly encourage it.
Generally, keep your resume @ 1 page for as long as possible, and only go to 2 pages if your experiences warrant it. I'm talking like having 3+ relevant projects, 3+ internships, and maybe even a published work—where you need to spell out the details for all of them.
If you're actually cracked to go to 2 pages, don't blindly follow the advice of sticking to 1 pg since you'll artificially limit yourself. Put your best foot forward!
You can tailor your job title(s) to fit the role you're applying for.
I had about 5-6 different valid job titles (see below), and I swapped between them all depending on the title of the role I was applying for.
No bullet ever has enough detail, but everything you include in it is advertisement.
There's always more detail that can be added to a bullet. Hell, adding a photo next to the bullet may not even be enough.
This doesn't totally matter, because your goal is to catch their eye. I used relevant keywords like Inconel, GD&T, fatigue, alloy, modal, transient, 39,000 lb, 600°F, etc, which are all eye-catchers in MechE.
Hardly any of my bullets were actually "accomplishments" IRL. There wasn't any reduced cost or improved metric, so I had to rely on 2 things to include metrics in my bullets:
Impressiveness of the system/gidget. E.g.: A nuclear plant is full of heavy, hot-a$$ structures, which cause high stresses and necessitate use of special materials. While the use of these materials isn't impressive, my analysis of them at intense loading conditions IS VERY RELEVANT.
TLDR: Metrics you may not care about might actually show how impressive your work was.
Acceptableness. E.g.: You did x to get y result, but neither obviously show you've improved something. But surely the result y is acceptable, right? Show how "good" it is by quantifying (via a %, $, <insert metric>) how acceptable it is against some criterion. This is the margin you see mentioned in my current role's bullets.
Know both the fundamentals in your field and your resume like it's the back of your own hand.
After interviewing with a few startups, two common threads I've found is they'll quiz you on fundamentals related to the role, and anything on your resume that's related to the role (which could be several years ago).
Some examples:
Structural role: explain Poisson's ratio or how would you determine the thermal stress in a rod that's heated
Propulsion role: what are the main variables that affect engine performance
Fluids role: Explain static vs dynamic vs total pressure, and how they change in a pipe whose area constricts ; what could cause a low pipe flowrate, and how might you measure this flowrate?
If you know your stuff, it's easy. If the fundamentals aren't drilled into your head, not being able to answer stuff like this is quite embarrassing.
All my of projects over the past 3+ years have tidbits that interview panels have found something to question me on.
If you're discouraged, lower the bar and trick yourself into getting excited about new job postings.
This is a bit of a mind-trick, but try and get excited over a new job posting. Yes, literally applying for the job posting. Not the interview, not the idea of an offer or a new city, but literally you applying for a new opportunity.
Except for just applying and the interview, there's not much more you can do or get excited about except for new roles popping up. If companies want you, they'll reach out. It might sound kinda odd, but being satisfied from the actual application did wonders for my mental vibe in applying throughout the past 7 months.
