The following article first appeared on March 15, 2013, in the blog of Thomas Edison State College (http://www.tesc.edu/blog/7110).
My brother (Todd Siben, Assistant Director, Prior Learning/Portfolio Assessment, Thomas Edison State College) sent me an email with a resume attached.
“XXXX is the son of my colleague. He has not yet found an engineering position but has a job, so he’s not in a rush. Would you look at the resume and comment? Also, because you deal with engineers all over the country, do you have any thoughts about who is hiring, or where engineers are being sought? He’s open to a move anywhere in the country.”
Because my brother is a very good brother, I took more than just “a look” at the resume. I sent him the following response:
I have looked at XXXX’s resume. While it is not bad, I believe it reflects what schools think is important and not what the business world thinks is important. So here are my thoughts.
- I already know what my firm can offer an applicant. The applicant has to show me what he can do for my company. He has to tell me things about himself that will be important to ME.
- Profile – Nothing in this section is relevant to an entry-level civil engineering position. In fact, this is more of a “goals” section, and industry doesn’t care about a person’s goals except as they help that company. If XXXX wants to discuss goals, this section has to address civil engineering and be specific to the recipient company. Otherwise, this section should be deleted.
- Since XXXX has not yet found an engineering position, his “experience” is all non-engineering experience. This is great if he wants a job in property leasing (Jones Lang LaSalle, one of the world’s largest commercial real estate consultants, might need engineers). He must have worked on an actual engineering project as a student, perhaps a class project, even if it was hypothetical. Perhaps his professor had students help on a real project as a learning experience. If XXXX participated in activities like “CAN-do” (where a team builds things out of cans), the concrete canoe race (an annual event at many engineering schools), or an “Engineer’s Week program, these are more relevant than what he did as a leasing agent, and should come first. The extraneous job descriptions should be much shorter.
- Move the “honors & awards” line to the “education” section; it is education-related.
- Move the “Credentials” section right under “education;” these are engineering-related skills.
I don’t really have a feel for who is hiring engineers, but here is my suggestion for job leads:
- XXXX should make a list, in order of preference, of the 10 cities where he would most like to live.
- Go to www.bizjournals.com and see if any of these cities have business journals.
- Every week, these business journals publish a listing of the “top 25” of something in that city, and every year includes a listing of the top 25 engineering firms.
- These listings will identify these firms by name, and he can then go to their websites, read about them, check their career pages and see if they are hiring entry-level engineers who do the kind of engineering he wants to do.
- Use the information in each website – “About Us,” “Services,” “Projects” – to determine if any firm is a place where he would be comfortable. If so, he can send a cover letter and resume specific to that firm and information on what he brings to the table that THEY would value. If the firm prefers to have applicants apply online, there should be a place to upload a cover letter as well as a resume.
What I forgot to include in the job leads list was that XXXX should join (if he hadn’t already) the local chapter of the American Society of Civil Engineers. The chapter will have monthly meetings (at least), at a nominal cost. At these meetings, there will be educational programs, which he can add to his resume, as well as networking opportunities that might turn up lob leads that have not yet been published.
I also forgot to say the following:
Your resume is your academic and professional biography. Since neither your academic experience nor your professional experience is the same as anyone else’s, your story shouldn’t be the same as anyone else’s. Use your resume to DISCUSS your experience rather than just LISTING names, dates and places. In your high school history class, you learned that a recitation of details was boring. It is no less boring for the HR or technical person reviewing your resume.
Write your cover letter as if you were writing your biography. After an introductory paragraph in which you identify yourself as a recent graduate and your interest in the position for which you are applying, talk about what made you embark on an engineering education. Talk about the specific engineering classes you really liked and why. Talk about the project you worked on during a summer internship, even if you hated it and it made you rethink your engineering specialty. Tell the reader things that will make him or her want to speak with you on the phone or, better still, in person.
Unfortunately, many engineering schools don’t think an engineer needs to know how to write well. But engineers write often: they write engineering reports to describe the components and challenges of a project, they write letters to clients and jurisdictional agencies, they write text for permit applications, and they write hand-out materials for public meetings, hearings and other uses.
However, while a resume is in large part about the details of your academic and professional history, and details are where engineers generally excel, telling the story in an engaging and compelling manner is equally as important as the details you are relating.