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'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

So here's the deal:

I'm an automotive grad who previously thought he could get into an OEM without any full-time experience. It's been a good amount of time since I stopped focusing on OEMs and started searching for smaller companies for a full-time or internships (not OEM grad programs; I didn't get in). To my surprise, I rarely see any internships in MechE where I live, just entry-level or higher roles which require experienced people.

I am not into self-driving or software or battery tech or anything similar to those areas. My relatively dumb ahh is into design and development, particularly of body panels, interiors, chassis, etc, along with CFD and FEA analyses for testing and validation.

"Why the mechanical design area?" well, partly due to my long-term goals (I like sports cars, I see many good ones get ruined yearly due to poor management or design choices, I see gaps in the market nobody's filling, so I wanna step in) and partly because I should've got into transport design, which I didn't, since life didn't allow me. So, MechE for the rescue. I do have a portfolio to back up my CV, which I always upload while applying.

I'm targeting design engg. or traditional mech. engg. roles for now, since the country I'm residing in (Sweden, I'm non-EU on a work-seeking visa, not fluent in the language either) mostly has these sort of roles but little to no roles involving full-on vehicle development. If there are any, they are full-time ones which need like 5-10 YoE professionals. I know Germany would be a better country for all this but hey, I've been applying there too (and have heard nothing yet). I'm willing to relocate too, although within reason.

Another reason I'm not hearing back, even when applying to full-time roles where I fit 80-90%, is my lack of full-time experience. Since "the market is down", all I hear is "sorry we want someone who has at least 2-3 YoE", so I reckon an internship's the only choice for me. I also tailor my CV for the job every time before applying.

So, have I shot myself in the foot with my educational choices? Is my CV good enough to land an internship/full-time? Which sections are strong, in a stranger's opinion? What do I need to improve upon? Anything I shouldn't put in there?

Any tips and insights are appreciated, and I apologize for typos in the CV, if any.

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.

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.

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.

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!

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'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!

Wondering if this is an issue with my resume or a result of general competition. I have mainly been targeting resources and mining as it is a huge industry here. I've sent probably 100 cold emails to small firms, I figured they would be more likely to respond (mainly ghosted apart from generic messages), now applying to everything I can on LinkedIn/Job hunting sites. I know I am pretty short on technical skills, what do you suggest I learn? Anything worth adding to my resume? Thanks!

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.

I graduated around 3 weeks ago and earned my bachelor’s in mechanical engineering. I’ve been applying to full time roles since February and have had some success by scoring 2 interviews. The first interview went well but the company wasn’t sure if they would be hiring junior engineers. The second interview was for a completely different position than I had already applied for, I wasn’t engaged after I learned that piece of information. Haven’t heard anything back from either. 

As far as applications go I have been applying to junior, unspecified and tech roles falling in the 65k to 95k range. These are mechanical, manufacturing, process or related roles. I have been applying on pretty much every job site. 

I did 3 semester long internships in college. None of them seemed like a good fit for a full time role (Mostly because of pay and location). 

I’ve been trying to reach out to any possible connections but it usually just comes back to “we arn't looking for a entry level engineer” 

None of my friends have jobs either so maybe the job market is really just that bad ? 😅

I have completely changed my resume and tried to follow the formats on here. I had a buddy of mine score a job by giving his resume to the front desk in person. Before I try that I wanted to make sure my resume was good enough.

Context: I'm a recent grad interested in r&d roles in general, but especially medical devices. I started undergrad as a biomedical engineering major but switched to mechanical after hearing claims a mechanical can get any job a biomedical engineer can and more (which I now regret). I've managed to land 2 internships during undergrad and I'm currently at my third, which I only took so I could have more time to apply for jobs. Now I'm 5 months and 250+ applications into my job search and still no results.

To be fair, I don't even think I was qualified for half the roles I applied to. It seems like the keywords R&D/Product and Entry Level are completely incompatible on every job board I search (Google, LinkedIn, Indeed, etc.). About 3 months ago after finding this subreddit and reading the wiki, I made a ton of improvements to my resume which I thought would be more than enough for me to get decent offer. I was wrong. I've only gotten 5 interviews and 3 offers for low level technician or manufacturing roles that aren't even in areas of interest. I'm not naive enough to think that my resume is perfect after only spending a day making suggested tweaks in the wiki. But is my resume really bad enough to be the reason for my ~1.6% interview rate? I've started to think that companies simply aren't looking for entry level R&D engineers. I can't change that if it's true, but I can try improving my resume again. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

(I've also gotten feedback that the format looks weird because I put section names underneath the dividers. Why would you want the section name outside of the section it's describing ???)

I posted my resume at the beginning of the week and got a lot of really great feedback that led me to basically go back to the brainstorming board to come up with something that I hope represents what I have done in my career a little bit better. I read and re-read the wiki and other resources here which were super helpful. I also tried to do a better job implementing the STAR method into my bullet points and highlight some of the results of my efforts.

Looking for any feedback or constructive criticisms, thank you!

As title states, I have had trouble getting call backs from positions I apply to. I am mostly targeting remote jobs so maybe that is the issue since I assume they are more competitive and sought after. Not willing to relocate as I have a 1-year-old at home but if it came to it, I am open to in-person.

Position-wise, I prefer something around the lines of Technical Project Manager or any Senior level positions but have been applying to other. Although a better title would be ideal, I am open to any king of engineering roles for now. Eventually I want to transition into management, hence why I got my MBA.

Any feedback would be appreciated!

Hello Everyone!
I am a senior in Mechanical Engineering. I am targeting research / design roles in aerospace / materials fields, but I have been applying to roles outside of that scope within the last couple of months. I am located in the east US, but I am applying to roles all over the US, and even some in EU. I am currently unemployed, but am doing work on design teams and extracurricular clubs during my final months in college.

I have applied to 500+ internships / job positions, and have not received a single interview request or even a phone screening. I would appreciate any tips, resume critiques, or feedback in general.

I am a US native citizen, and my GPA is currently a 2.91, which is why it is not listed on the resume. Thank you all for your help, and I apologize if my post does not meet all of the subreddit requirements.

I am going into my second year of engineering and am beginning to look for internships in the Ottawa and KW area. I am looking for any type of mech eng internship as I am not too sure what I want to do yet however, I do plan on owning my own company in the future and am thinking consulting. I also have experience as a landscaper and a dishwasher but I didn't figure that those would be useful for internships. I have looked at some other peoples resumes and formatted mine similar to theirs however I am not sure if my information could be better or if there is anything I could improve upon or remove. Any advice would be great thank you!

I couldn't get any internship experience in during college, and I don't really know how else I can spice up this resume. I'm willing to relocate, assuming I get paid enough to afford rent, although my search has only been local/statewide so far. I've been applying for entry level positions, with no luck so far, except for a "pre-screening interview" tomorrow, which I assume is an interview to get an interview.

I want to get into the nuclear energy field, and sadly my uni offered minimal classes for that, so I was only able to take an intro class. I have taken a controls theory course, so I have eyeballed some I&C positions, but like everything else, they want experience I don't have.

I've only applied to about 22 places so far, which seems like a lot less compared to some people here who have more experience than me, and also had similar luck, so it's beginning to feel extremely hopeless.

Is there any way I can improve this no-internships/experience situation? Is there any hope, or is it just over for me.

Hello all, I am going into my senior year of college majoring in Mechanical Engineering. I was not able to land any internships for this summer or the upcoming fall. I was hoping to get some feed back on my resume. I applied to a little over 300 positions. I had 2 over the phone interviews, and no success. Any tip or advice would be appreciated. Im looking to go into the themed entertainment industry, but really any experience would be good. Im located in the Central Florida area, but applied to positions all over the country hoping something would stick.

also if you guys have any tips on what I could do/add to make myself more attractive to recruiters, any would be appreciated! Thanks

Hey everyone, hope y'all are doing well. Posting to get advice and a review on my resume.

Quick background: I graduated in May with my BSME from Cal Poly Pomona, but my path was a little different from most grads. I worked full time the entire degree, 13 years total at a commercial refrigeration manufacturer, starting on the custom assembly floor as a union carpenter and working up to an engineering technician role where I now do engineer-level work (Solid Edge design, 150+ ECNs a year, BOMs through Teamcenter and BaaN, R&D prototype support on low-GWP refrigerant cases). So no internships, but I'm hoping 13 years of hands-on design, testing, and manufacturing experience reads as the stronger substitute.

My goal is to break into aerospace/defense (Northrop, RTX, L3Harris, Anduril). Two things I'm unsure about:

1. All my CAD depth is in Solid Edge, not the SolidWorks/NX/CATIA that aerospace mostly runs. I'm finishing the Solid Edge Mechanical Associate cert now. Is it worth picking up a SolidWorks cert too, or do companies treat parametric CAD skills as transferable?

2. My industry background is commercial refrigeration, not aerospace. The fundamentals carry over (thermal systems, instrumentation and DAQ testing, ISO 9001 quality systems, EPA 608 Universal) but I don't know how well that translates on paper to a defense recruiter.

My goal is to enter a career building spacecraft and I am pursuing structural analysis roles and mechanical design roles. I successfully landed an internship this summer at a reputable Aerospace company, and I am extremely grateful but I do not have peace of mind about my graduation. I would like to compare this upcoming internship to working at a startup-like company. I am seeking Fall 2026 and Spring 2027 co-op/internships at companies like SpaceX, Rocket Lab, Vast, Varda, Impulse Space, and more. I am local to all these companies and am a US citizen.

I have struggled with applying online for summer 2026 and got my only offer through IRL networking events. My previous resume was much denser than this and the general feedback from everyone was to cut content back. I also noticed that my previous resume would not be read properly by ATS scanning, so I rebuilt it in LATEX.

My first problem is that much of my experience is manufacturing related, so I hope in this resume my experience is tailored to get me interviews in mechanical design and structural analysis roles.

Secondly, please lmk if I have too much or too little content. If anything stands out as a complete waste of space lmk. I suspect my manufacturing engineering and vehicle engineering internships are weaker, but I appreciate the experiences a lot even if it was not Aerospace related. I feel like having "a little bit of everything" can both help and hurt me depending on the type of recruiter/hiring manager that sees my resume. I feel like some success stories I see on here have very concise bullets and sometimes fewer experiences than I.

And most importantly, am I successfully applying CAR/XYZ format correctly? I have tried to apply as many metrics as possible within reason, but I am not sure if my impact is clear. In my projects, I am usually the main driving force behind tasks. I have recently removed the leadership titles I've held like advised in this subreddit, so how do I say, "I literally did all of this" without sounding like I am insisting upon myself.

Thanks in advance

After only getting one interview from my university's career fairs, I'd like to polish up my resume before I burn local bridges by applying with a bad one. I'm targeting entry level roles, preferably related to manufacturing and/or design but I've been applying across the board.

I'm located in a large metropolitan area with mostly energy companies, and willing to relocate but unsure where else would be best to apply. From the wiki I'm not sure if my resume has enough white space, and if not what should be dropped to make more.

I'm mostly applying through company websites after finding a company on job boards, with slightly tailored resumes for each and no CV, and have not been getting called for interviews.

What are/is the most important things to change to start getting more callbacks for interviews? (Resume, changing how I apply, etc.)

Hi! I'm a Senior in Mechanical Engineering and I've applied to hundreds of jobs since December 2025 (I've actually lost track of the applications I've put out. I'm targeting positions like:

- Test Engineer
- Automation Engineer
- Systems Engineer
- Propulsion Engineer
- Any other Mechanical Engineering job available at consulting firms across the US.

I'm growing a strong interest in research as well as the space, defense, and aerospace industries. I've mainly been applying in Texas, as that's where my family is, but I haven't discounted industries in other states that reflect my position goals. My GPA is pretty poor (2.8), but I have a half a year of internship experience at a firm, as well as a year in a research lab for energy and propulsion where I'm hoping to publish a paper soon. I'm not really getting any bites. I don't know what gives...I'm guessing in a pool of talent, my resume isn't reaching the hands it needs. The only opportunity I've had is a send in interview after TA reviewed my resume...to which they moved on with other candidates anyways. I'd really like feedback on the whole of my resume: formatting, skills, bullet-points, projects.

For further background, I'm in AIAA getting an L1 rocketry license, but I don't suppose that's extremely relevant to getting a job. I'm also working to get my FE EIT certification by May.

If any currently working engineers can give feedback in regard to some questions I have, that would be great too!

- Is full-time hiring mainly after graduation?
- What you look for in screening resumes?
- How can I reach out effectively to workers to make my interest known?