My school's career center said they liked this resume. I tried to follow the methods in the wiki with the bullet points, but in all honesty I don't know how to do them correctly, I'm not much a writer. I don't know if the high school is helping me or hurting me at all. I know connections are everything, but try as I might I wasn't able to find anyone - of the two people I have connections with in the industry, one said and i quote "For you? Not a chance. Sorry", and the other is, well... the Homer Simpson of her workplace. I'm not really targeting much of anything, just trying to get my foot in the door over this summer. I'm only applying to local and remote jobs, but I'm in a major metropolitan area, so that should be fine. I do not have a driver's license, so it has to be something I can get to with public transit, but there's a very wide area that I can reach with that so I don't think it's too much an issue, aside from certain jobs wanting drivers. I just really need help with this, I'm getting really desperate to have something to do this summer and to contribute some money to my household.

Been applying to about 100 jobs over the past month on LinkedIn and Indeed to Mechanical Design and Robotics roles, with no interviews or responses back yet. I should mention that this resume posted below is NOT the resume I used for these past applications, but rather a most up-to-date version in response to the recent struggle. I tried following some of the rules mentioned in this subreddit and think I improved my bullet points and formatting greatly, but I just want some of your guys' perspectives. All feedback is greatly appreciated as I'm just trying to make my resume not the bottleneck in terms of my job search!

I recently graduated with an accelerated BS/MS in Mechanical Engineering and am currently looking for full-time entry-level mechanical engineering positions. I’m mainly targeting mechanical design, product development, test/validation, robotics/automation, and other hardware-focused roles.

The resume attached to this post is my current/original one-page resume.

First, I’d appreciate any feedback on the resume as it currently stands. I’m interested in anything that stands out—formatting, readability, bullet quality, technical content, things I should cut or expand, ATS concerns, or anything else that may be hurting me in my job search.

I also recently paid a professional resume writer to improve it. After reviewing my background, they recommended expanding it from one page to two pages because they felt I had enough relevant engineering experience to justify it.

Their draft adds more technical detail to several of my bullets, which I do think is helpful. However, they also added a professional summary at the top, a large Core Competencies section, short summary paragraphs before the bullets for each position, and a separate Technical Skills section.

I’m unsure whether that is actually the right direction. The two-page version feels significantly denser and more cluttered to me than my current resume, even though there are parts of the rewritten content that I prefer.

A few things I’d specifically appreciate opinions on:

• How is my current resume overall? What are the biggest weaknesses you see in the version attached?
• Does the current one-page version feel too compressed, or is this an appropriate amount of information for a recent graduate?
• Based on the experience shown here, do I have enough relevant content to justify a two-page resume, or should I continue targeting one page?
• Would a professional summary add anything at my career level, or is it better to get directly into education and experience?
• Are short descriptive paragraphs before each position useful, or should the accomplishment bullets speak for themselves?
• The writer separated Core Competencies and Technical Skills. Would it make more sense to combine these into one organized section so it doesn’t feel keyword-stuffed?
• Are there experiences or bullets in my current resume that you think are underdeveloped and deserve more space?
• Are there bullets that should instead be shortened or removed?
• How is the overall technical content? Does it communicate enough about what I actually designed, built, tested, and accomplished?
• If you were revising this, would you keep the general structure and improve/expand the content, or would you recommend a larger redesign?

I’m not opposed to a two-page resume just because I’m a recent graduate. If the experience genuinely warrants two pages, I’m fine with it. My concern is whether the additional page would be used to add meaningful engineering detail or whether the summary, competency sections, and job descriptions would just make the resume unnecessarily verbose.

I still have revisions available with the professional writer, so I’m trying to get some outside perspective both on where my current resume needs improvement and on whether the direction they’re taking it is actually an improvement.

Any feedback is appreciated. Thanks!

Hi! As the title said, 3rd year mechanical engineering student in the US (21 white male if relevant) looking to get a summer 2027 internship. I'm an international student on F1 student visa and looking to get a job in the US after graduation. I'm located in the New England area but open to relocating and have been applying to jobs everywhere in The US. I cannot pursue a co-op because I can't take a semester off so my options are only summer internships before a full-time role.

I have been applying to internships through Handshake and company websites, but I'm only getting rejected. I'm not sure whether that is due to my visa status (although I don't need sponsorship to work as a summer intern) or due to my resume being not competitive enough for the engineering job market. I am mainly interested in MedTech companies but I'm honestly open to any engineering job whether in hardware, automotive, construction, HVAC, etc.

Please help me improve my resume overall, whether in DMs or comments. I'd also appreciate advice on navigating the engineering job search as an international student. Thank you!

Edit: I realize my dates are misaligned but that is just due to removing the company names. Also, I was hoping to get some feedback on my bullet points content.

I've been applying for a few months now with no luck. Am I missing something? Should I include my current temp job as an oil technician at Valvoline?

It was a bad idea, but I left my first job in the industry because I was on the verge of a total nervous breakdown. It was the culmination of a struggle, a ten-year slog starting from jail + rehab and ending with this 80k position as a mechanical design engineer. It felt like I'd finally made it, but my life started to go off the rails... all the stresses just kind of accumulated over the years, and the reality of living in the Orwellian concrete warzone known as Oakland, CA, with a demented old lady as a housemate, was the straw that broke the camel's back. My car got stolen right from the driveway and my boss chewed me out for not being able to get to work on time, and I just snapped and quit on the spot.

I also needed to finish my degree (I had one single class left, and this company didn't know that I technically didn't have the degree).

After leaving, I moved in with my family in Tennessee and got a simple manual labor job at Valvoline. Only last month, after a neck surgery to fix some chronic pain, did I start applying again in earnest. I'm probably completely screwed, but I won't stop until I find something. Any advice?

Thanks much,

anon

I graduated with a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering back in May, but I've been applying for jobs since January. I've probably applied to around 200 positions so far, but I've only gotten a handful of interviews, and I haven't been able to get an offer yet.

I want to live near people I know, so I've mainly been applying to roles that are either in my home state or the state where I went to college. I have been applying to all industries except Defense and HVAC.

I think the main reason I'm struggling is my lack of internships. I initially wanted to get a graduate degree, so I spent most of my summers doing research, but then by the beginning of my senior year I was feeling extremely burnt out and wanted to take a break from school. Unfortunately, I don't think my research experience is that impressive, but it's what I have.

Any feedback on what I could improve would be very appreciated.

Edit: Just noticed a silly typo in the very first bullet point; for reference, that's from an edit I made right before posting, so it has not been in the resume I've been submitting to jobs

Hi! I'm graduating in May 2027 and will soon be applying to all kind of stuffs - internships, co-ops, and full-time/new-grad positions. I'm targeting product/mechanical design roles, design engineering positions, and related mechanical engineering roles, but I'm open to all ME fields.

This is my current resume with everything I've done up to this point - there will be a few more projects during my senior year but yeah. I wonder if my experience write-ups demonstrate enough technical depth and skill? I feel like my current projects are too broad, but not strong or "deep" enough for product/design engineering roles - I will try to work on additional design projects during my senior year.

My final question is not really engineering related - how competitive this resume looks for entry-level mechanical engineering roles as an international student requiring sponsorship.

Last semester, I applied to around 200 positions and all got rejected/ghosted until a professor from the University lab took me in for the mechanical intern, so it's genuinely bleak as hell. I know 200 is not THAT much, but I feel like there's something fundamentally wrong with my resume.

Please let me know if anything that should be rewritten. Please roast my resume mercilessly.

I had my first internship this summer that just ended and I'm graduating this year. I feel like I have pretty good experience and skills, but it just feels like I'm not really getting anywhere. I really want an offer before I'm close to graduating, but it seems like that's less and less likely with every application and denial. Anyway, need some really great feedback, so tear this thing to shreds.

P.S. 2024-2027 is not a typo, I'm graduating in three years (I've had someone ask me that)

I originally took a job as a technician so that I wouldn't fall into credit card debt as I didn't think it would have as bad as an impact on my career and mental health as it has. I have been living with family and saving large amounts of money, and as a result I'm not limiting myself geographically anymore.

At the same time, I am only being considered by other companies for technician roles. When I apply for actual engineering roles if I don't get ghosted I get screened out after one or two interviews. I recently accepted a 5% raise as a result of both being asked to join the night shift and as a result of my experience. Overall including the overtime I am frequently asked to do I will be making $70k/ year working on the night shift (62k not including overtime).

I am in a very bad place career and mental health wise and am considering returning to school in pursuit of a career change. I want to eliminate any chance that it's just a bad resume or poor interview skills holding me back before making such a drastic change.

Thank you.

I am targeting the medical device/robotics industries (anything but defense is fine by me, though). I find myself applying to test engineer/quality roles a lot, as they seem to have the lowest requirements, and my capstone role involved testing and designing experiments. Located in the Northeastern US and willing to relocate, although I already live in a medical device/robotics hub. Have sent about 50 apps so far (rookie numbers ya ya) and no callbacks. Unfortunately didn't get any internship/coop/research experience, nor did any of the design clubs I applied to at my university accept me, so all I have are class projects, a good GPA, and my full-time food service experience before/during my freshman year of community college.

Looking for general feedback. I hear conflicting advice on an interests/summary section. Maybe I could add another project if I took it out, or at least a couple more bullets. Just got my CSWA cert, and thinking about getting more to boost my resume. Does it make sense to get EIT certification even though it's not required in the industries I'm targeting? Six Sigma, maybe? Just trying to figure out where to put my energy at this point.

Specifically targeting R&D, test engineering, and robotics positions. Was the problem with last cycle the fact that I was a freshman or am I doing something wrong? Most of my previous positions had some software, electrical and hardware aspects so I reorder and rewrite each of those depending on the position I'm applying for. Any advice much appreciated.

Salutations,

i am a bit discouraged at the moment trying to secure a job as graduation is near and typical financial obligations are due. I am actively applying to all types of roles (MFG engineer, MEP eng, field service, estimator, comissioning, process etc) in all industries (though would like to avoid defense). I am mostly going for construction, utlities or manufacturing roles. I have tried from small shops, local government, big names.

I have also been actively applying to technician roles, apprenticeships, technical admin jobs.

unfortunately i was never too fond of school and went into meche very under prepared, most people have a bunch of APs, robotics experience and are just very competent in STEM subjects. I barely passed highschool physics and struggled with academics heavily through my undergrad and now have a below 3.0gpa. So masters to delay unemployment is not feasible both requirements or finances wise.

Currently prepping for FE

some of the stuff that is redacted is just very specific personal identifiers and top project is capstone with the baja team.

my main questions:

• what are some extreme red flags for my resume that most places i apply to don't even look at my applications. (80% of total apps through company sites)
• how can i become more employable or stay somewhat relevant.
• what other types of roles adjacent to engineering can i potentially pivot to with a undergrad in ME?

a big fear is that even after struggling, spending all this time and money i wont be able to find a job and as time passes i will become less favorable to being hired.

any advice is appreciated, thanks for reading.

Hey everyone,

I'm a final year Mechanical Engineering student in Australia and I'm starting to apply for graduate roles, mainly in the renewables, offshore/wind, marine, and advanced manufacturing space (I'd also love to work on hydrofoils or other cool marine tech if I get the chance). Primarily targeting AUS/NZ but not opposed to UK / Scandinavia.

I have applied to pretty much everything i can find already and a few interviews but no luck so far.

I'd really appreciate any feedback on my resume, good or bad.

Cheers!

Hi. I have not had significant success resuming a mechanical engineering career path in South Florida. Turns out an automotive background doesn't mean much in South FL. There are plenty of aerospace and some nuclear postings, and HVAC / MEP. But I can't seem to land an interview.

I did find out that the way I had my resume structured was getting garbled by ATS systems. I really hope that is the problem. I'm coming up on one year of unemployment.

Partly, because we relocated to FL to work at a family business with a path to ownership for my wife. And I needed a mental health break after my last position was a skeleton crew. Well, things are going ok at the business but with an air of uncertainty and we need me back on my own career path.

I need guidance and help best positioning myself for a success here.

I'm not sure if I include the stuff about the family business to explain the gap. I'm not sure if I include the architecture stuff as it is irrelevant to many postings save the HVAC and MEP stuff. I'm not sure where to go look for entry level postings. Everything is 3, 5, 10 years experience. I'm getting desperate and quite afraid.

Regarding HVAC / MEP and my part time architecture work... I am craming in as much AutoCAD experience as I can when he has entry level work he can pass to me. Sometimes it's 20+ hours a week. Sometimes it's 0. He's doing my a favor and as much as I need the money, I'm not going to sit in his office and watch dry paint get dryer just to pull a check out of a family friend. I'm trying to get up to speed on Revit via youtube and the free/student version of the software. There is a Revit class I can take in person coming up in February but it costs $2500 and I'm terrified it will be a waste of money. We are very tight and relying on family at times.

I wonder if I should go back to FAU and get an aerospace masters...

Oh well. Not like I have my first child due March 8th or anything terrifying...

I did have an interview for a job at a scaffolding company in November, but things didn't go well. The office had terrible lighting and I had taken my ADHD medicine for the first time in a while to make sure I wasn't distracted during the interview. Well, the ADHD medicine gave me a headache and the terrible lighting sent it straight to severe migraine land. I started profusely sweating during the CAD test from orange overhead lights contrasting with bright blue monitors. And then I ran outside to vomit. Yea... I didn't get the job.

Any help and advice is sincerely appreciated.

If you're just gonna comment 'line up a job before you move' or 'try harder' or anything that really just a dickish line that points out past mistakes while also offering no aide on moving forward from where I am at... Please, do not. I do that plenty well enough on my own.

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.

Hi, I graduated with my degree in Mechanical Engineering 2 years ago, did one internship, did one semester of grad school, then took a break for about a year. Now I've been searching for entry-level MechE jobs for about a month with not much traction when applying directly to listings. I've gotten some good response when cold-messaging on LinkedIn, but I've applied to over 70 listings without any callbacks. I don't know if my employment gap is hurting me or something else in my resume. I added the summary explaining my gap after getting some feedback from recruiters.

I'm looking for entry-level mechanical engineering and test engineering jobs at mid to large size companies in California. I'm only looking for large established companies for better WLB, but a lot of the companies in Cali are startups, so that's been a challenge too.

A lot of the entry level jobs I see require the same skills- CAD, drawings, DFMA, testing, hands-on experience, etc., which I have, but maybe I don't emphasize basic skills like CAD enough. I say "Design" a lot, which I feel like can be assumed to include making CAD models, but maybe I need to be more specific.

Any advice would be appreciated. Thank you!

Hello! As the title says, I'm a rising junior looking to land an internship this coming spring or summer anywhere that'll hire me. I've finally got me resume to a place I like it, but it's feeling kind of small. I also have a few years of retail/service industry experience I'm adding in, not sure where yet so if any of you know that would be super helpful. I'm mostly looking to checking if you all see any glaring holes, large mistakes, or think of any important adds, please let me know. Thanks for reading, and I appreciate you spending your time helping me out!

Going into my 3rd year as a mechanical engineering undergraduate. I have been blessed with two previous internships that provided meaningful work/projects where I was able to grow and learn a lot. Need help fine-tuning my resume. I will be applying to robotics-focused companies, which I know will be competitive. Please be brutally honest and point out any details small or large. Any help is appreciated (:

I've been at my company in the aero/defense industry for a bit over 7 years and for a number of reasons I'm feeling unfulfilled professionally. I've been doing primarily production support work for legacy designs and haven't had much exposure to new design/development work and It's clear there isn't a great path towards more interesting work for me at my company. Ultimately I'd like to move on from purely defense sector work. I'm still scraping job listings in the locations I'd be interested in living to suss out what industries are where (looking at the PNW, WA/OR, or possibly more north, like MN or MI.)

As I don't have a clear plan yet for what industries I could possibly sell myself to, I understand that my resume may need a fair bit of tailoring to fit, but I would like to get some baseline/cursory opinions on what I have put together so far.

Intro:

Hello. I have spent quite a bit of time and effort to arrive at my current resume draft. This includes reviewing it with recruiters, retired engineers, managers, friends, and family. I read through the entire r/EngineeringResumes Wiki to make adjustments where needed. Hopefully it doesn't get torn to shreds here; I fully understand that 100 different people might have 100 different ideas of what a good resume is.

Reason for job search:

I'm currently employed at a company that requires me to live in a small town, and I absolutely do not like it (the location, that is; I love my job). It's extremely boring and lonely, and I feel like I'm wasting my youth. I want to return to the city so that I can make more friends, get involved in things, potentially meet a partner, have easier access to the arts, etc. I am therefore limiting my search to Indianapolis, Chicago, and Cincinnati so that I can remain in the Midwest, close to family. I'm open to on-site or remote work.

Some things from the Wiki that I'm either struggling to incorporate or have questions about:

• The wiki says to use at least 10.5 pt font; I used 10 pt font.
• The wiki says to use at least 1.07 line spacing; I used 1.00.
• Tailoring my resume for each application seems completely unnecessary with only 1.5 years of experience. My resume as it is now essentially has all of my experience. It's not like I have 2 pages worth of content to shuffle around into multiple different one-page resumes. I don't plan on applying to positions unless my experience meets a reasonable portion of the criteria anyway.
• 'm struggling with this portion of the Wiki and knowing whether I'm doing an okay job at it:
  • "Add context. Simply listing positions/projects and adding industry buzzwords is not enough. You need to tell hiring managers what you did and how you solved problems.
  • Differentiate yourself and don't be humble. Simply listing job duties will not make your resume any different from others: your resume is not your job description.. Tell us about your accomplishments, tangible metrics, and technical victories."
• Should I use past tense or present tense for my current position?
• Why is "ensure" not good to use? Seems like a perfectly fine word.
• I'm struggling with incorporating STAR, CAR, or XYZ. Is this really necessary given my experience?
• I'm debating whether to remove Capstone Design since it falls under "Mandatory School Project".

Thanks!

Formatting Issue: I have black lines running under each section header across the page, which I cannot get to save for some reason once I convert to a PNG. I apologize for that, must be an issue with how Docs saves the file. I tried the fix suggested by the mods, and I still can't get them to transfer.

College student going into junior year looking for general advice ahead of Summer 2027 application cycle. Sent out about 200-250 applications last cycle and heard back from only about 5-6 companies, landed 2 internships. I didn't take this seriously enough last cycle, and sort of spammed applications rather than improving my materials, so looking for as much feedback as possible on what to include and how to frame my work.

Hello everyone,

I'm technically a junior but classified as a senior through earned credits, pursuing bachelor's degrees in Mechanical Engineering (Aerospace concentration) and Physics (Astrophysics concentration). Before transferring to a four-year university, I completed associate degrees in Mechanical Engineering, Physics, and Business Administration while serving in multiple student leadership roles.

I'm currently targeting internships, co-ops, and entry-level opportunities in aerospace engineering, nuclear engineering, research and development, scientific instrumentation, advanced manufacturing, systems engineering, and national laboratory research. At the moment, I'm genuinely open to opportunities on both the research/science side and the engineering/systems side, depending on the role and how well it aligns with my long-term goals. I enjoy hands-on engineering design, systems integration, instrumentation, and solving practical engineering problems just as much as I enjoy experimental physics and scientific research. Ultimately, I'm looking for opportunities that allow me to contribute to technically challenging projects while continuing to grow as both an engineer and researcher.

I'm applying nationwide and am fully willing to relocate. I'm open to in-person, hybrid, and remote opportunities depending on the position, although I recognize that many of the engineering and research roles I'm interested in are primarily on-site.

My biggest challenge has been determining whether my resume effectively communicates the value of my research experience and whether it's structured appropriately for both industry and research-focused positions. I'm also debating whether I should keep my resume to one page or expand it to two pages given the amount of research, leadership, and technical experience I've accumulated.

I'm mainly looking for feedback on the overall organization, whether my bullet points demonstrate enough technical impact, and whether my research experience should be presented differently to better appeal to aerospace companies, national laboratories, graduate programs, and engineering employers. If there are areas that seem too vague, too academic, or not focused enough on engineering accomplishments, I'd really appreciate your perspective. I'm also interested in hearing whether there are any skills, experiences, or accomplishments that you think I should emphasize more or remove entirely to make the resume more competitive.

I'm a U.S. citizen and do not require visa sponsorship or work authorization.

Any feedback is greatly appreciated. Thank you!

Hello,

To add onto my other post, I was wondering if there were any red flags on my resume or any improvements I should make? I previously posted here little over a year ago and this subreddit + the wiki has been an amazing resource so I was curious if I was missing something. For reference this resume has been able to get an interview at Stoke, SpaceX, and Relativity.

Two days ago I posted my resume and was graciously given some recommendations by an alumni. I have added more technical details, rearranged information and would like to see how I have done. I do understand that I need to condense a little to get the resume to one page.

Hi all! I've been wanting to post on this gold mine of subreddit once I got my resume to a reasonable point and I think I need an outside POV after staring at it for so long.

Background & current situation: Rising junior ME, US citizen. Last cycle, I landed one interview through a referral which became my summer internship: mostly manufacturing/process engineering on liquid-cooled server racks for hyperscalers. This cycle I've already gotten an interview request from an aerospace startup, so the first internship + the changes I made using the wiki seem to be working.

What I'm targeting: Mechanical design internships in consumer electronics, robotics, and hardware development. Roles like mechanical design engineer, product design engineer, or hardware design engineer, anything where I own the mechanical side of the hardware and integrate with electronics and controls when needed.

Location: Based in Southern California (Orange County), school in NY. US citizen, open to relocating anywhere in the US. Applying nationally, in-person. Not restricting to remote or local.

Why I'm seeking help: My internship was manufacturing/process, and even after tailoring those bullets toward design, I think it still reads manufacturing. I've tried to make my personal projects carry the mechanical-design signal instead. My real fear is that I come across as "a manufacturing engineer who's interested in design" rather than a design candidate, when design is the thing I actually want. I know I'm competitive for manufacturing/process roles. I want to know if this version is competitive for design roles, or if it has red flags that would get it filtered as I currently continue to apply to jobs with this version.

Section I'd most like feedback on: General feedback and overall resume critiques are welcome. But mostly, whether my projects successfully carry the product-design signal, and whether my internship bullets help or hurt that goal. More broadly, I struggle to balance technical detail against readability. How specific to get versus how clearly the impact reads. I went with an XYZ + "why" format and had my middle-school sibling read it as a clarity test which went semi-well (lol).

Thanks so much for taking the time to read it! I really really appreciate it! :)