Engineering Resume Workshop

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EngineeringResume Workshop

• - AIAA - Microcosm -
• April 16, 2005

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Why are you in College?
No matter why you came, now you need a job So
put in the time to get it.
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Why are you in College?

• 1 hour a day (at least)
• Be on time responsible
• Spend what is necessary
• Interview documents
• cell phone
• new shirt tie

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Agenda

• Purpose of your Resume
• Anatomy
• Substance
• What to include and why
• Writing (Putting it into words)
• Interviewing
• What recruiters are looking for

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Purpose
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Purpose

• You are a product you are selling to a company
• Your Resume is your marketing tool
• a single page product description
• With a MS, two pages can be appropriate

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Purpose

• Two Questions
• What does your employer want?
• Industry expectations from a graduating engineer
• How do you communicate your qualities to your
  employer?

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Purpose

• Your resume is not built to impress an employer
• Your resume is built to communicate your
  experience.

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Anatomy
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Anatomy

• Personal Info
• Objective / Qualifications (optional)
• Education
• Relative Experience
• Other Experience

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Personal Info

• Make a custom email address
• bryan.gardner_at_byu.edu
• instead of
• bjg3_at_email.byu.edu
• Not
• genius_at_byu.edu

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Process Organization

• Computer Memory is Cheap!!!
• Create a folder for each company
• Save the Resume you send to each company, and
  attach that same resume when corresponding with
  them
• Customize a Cover Letter for Each Company
  (John_Raytheon_Cov)
• Keep a Journal of contacts, emails, interviews,
  etc, with dates, for each company
  (Word Doc NatInst_Contacts)

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Substance
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Substance

• Your resume is not built on paper
• Your resume is built on experience.

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Substance

• Student Fallacies - Industry Realities
• What Recruiters are Looking For
• The Value of Your Experience

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Student Fallacies - Industry Realities

• Highest GPA Wins
• You have to be totally self sufficient

• 3.9 is a yellow flag
• 3.7 -.5 is perfect
• lt 3.0 is concerning
• They want you to know when and how to find help

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Student Fallacies - Industry Realities

• Internships are better than Clubs
• Real Engineering involves complex calculations
  and modeling

• Experience is experience
• It shows what you have done
• About 5 of your first year will use equations
  you learned in college

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Student Fallacies - Industry Realities

• Employers scrutinize recruits, and want only the
  brightest and smartest
• Companies have set and rigid recruiting schedules

• We want somebody who we can reliably work with on
  any project
• Hiring is just another thing that needs to get
  done

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Student Fallacies - Industry Realities

• Submitting your resume on the internet is useless

• Some of the largest companies only hire
  undergrads from internet submissions.

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Substance

• What Kind of Experience
• Internships
• Univ. Projects
• Research Assistant
• Senior Design Project
• Non-Eng. Soft Experience
• Honors, awards, memberships, etc.

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Substance

• The value of mundane experience - Brian Hyatt

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Substance

• The value of University Projects - Derek Wright

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Substance

• The value of non-engineering experience
• (Fitting this into two bullets would be better)

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Writing(putting it into words)
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Writing

• You have built the substance (experience) of
  your resume
• now you need to present it.

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Writing

• Each resume is highly individualized. We use a
  standard format, but there is no standard recipe.
• You may use different resumes for different
  companies.

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Writing

• Putting Words onto Paper
• Organizing as a Resume
• Layout
• Finished Phrasing

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Writing

• Putting Words onto Paper
• Start with a list
• Company Name
• Dates
• Positions
• Projects
• Skills

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Writing

• Putting Words onto Paper
• Stream of Thought Writing
• Dont worry about punctuation, grammar,
  organization, flow, redundancywhatever
• Use Technical Terminology
• Use Layman Terminology

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Writing

• Putting Words onto Paper
• Ramble about The Project
• Everybody and Everything
• What was the project
• Why this project (Objective / Purpose)
• How the project was done

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Writing

• Ramble about The Project
• Mercedes CLK GTR Design Project Part of a
  three-person team that modeled a complete to
  scale Mercedes CLK-GTR using CATIA and created a
  cad-centric tool-kit to analyze and optimize
  aerodynamic flow using CFD methods in Hypermesh
  and Fluent and optimization algorithms and
  processes in iSIGHT to iterate and define an
  optimal design within the design space of the
  mathematical model.

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Writing

• Putting Words onto Paper
• Ramble about Your Experience
• Your Personal Role
• What you did
• How you did it
• Why you did it

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Writing

• Ramble about Your Experience
• Unity IV Rocket Brigham Young University
  September 2004 - Present
• Describe Unity IV Project Bi-University Project
  building and modifying 20 rocket, hybrid fuel
  and so on
• Research efficient/effective fin shape and
  placement
• Model fins with CATIA and build them out of
  fiberglass
• Fin Design/Build Team
• Determine size and shape of fin according to
  center of pressure on the rocket during flight
• Bulid fins from Fiberglass and installing
  (mating, find a better word) on the rocket
• Redesign and Modification of an existing rocket
• Anticipated launch in November
• Designing an entirely new rocket for payload
  competition in April.

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Writing

• Organization as a Resume
• Layout starts after putting words onto paper
• Dont fool yourself into thinking youre done
  when youre not

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Writing

• Organization as a Resume
• Anatomy Outline
• Personal Info, Education, Experience, Extra
• Paste in rambled content
• Make Space for finished content

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Writing

• Organization as a Resume
• (Preliminary)
• Anatomy of each experience
• Header
• Company / Position / Project / Dates
• Project / Position Description
• Experience Description

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Writing

• Make Space!!!

Bad Example!!!
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Writing

• Make Space
• Small margins
• Efficient Layout
• Good
• Example!!!

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Writing

• Organization as a Resume
• (Completed)
• Anatomy of each experience
• Header
• Company / Position / Project / Dates
• Project Description (1 bullet)
• Experience Description (1-4 bullets)

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Writing

• Organization as a Resume
• Project Description
• 1 Bullet
• Collect terminology and phases from the rambling
  into a single non-redundant run-on sentence
• Arrange and eliminate segments to create a
  Comprehensive and Concise bullet

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Writing

• Organization as a Resume
• Experience Description
• 1 - 4 Bullets
• Collect terminology and phases from the rambling
  according to logical groups
• Engineering, Reporting, Scheduling, etc
• Arrange and eliminate segments to create
  Comprehensive and Concise bullets

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Writing

• Finished Phrasing
• Polishing and Tailoring

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Writing

• Finished Phrasing
• Tailor content to the company
• Keep the most valuable content
• Eliminate less valuable content

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Writing

• Finished Phrasing
• Fonts and Formatting
• Easy to read, simple font
• Engineers dont care for flair
• Easy to navigate, logical formatting
• Dont stress over looks
• Content is far more important than proper
  balance of white and black space

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Writing

• Details in mundane experience - Brian Hyatt

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Writing

• How to put your experience into words Joey
  Prince

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Writing

• See web site for more examples
• www.bryangardner.com

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Resume

• Things to avoid
• High School honors (unless youre very new and
  looking for an internship)
• Questions

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Resume

• Things to include (if convenient)
• Worked to pay your own way through college
• Questions?

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Interviewing
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What Recruiters are Looking For

• Traits
• Reliable / Predictable
• Smart Enough (Not Genius)
• Engineering Minded
• Approachable / Personable
• Observant (See what needs to be done)
• Intrinsic Interest in Success

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What Recruiters are Looking For

• Initial Projects
• Probably not glamorous
• Enduring Motivation
• Not what youre passionate about
• Intrinsic desire and discipline
• Self Sufficiency
• Reliability
• Know how and when to get help

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Interviewing

• Your experience shows what youve done...
• You need to show what you can do.

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Interviewing

• Bring your Portfolio
• You will probably interview with people who have
  only glanced over your resume
• Illustrate your resume for them.
• Bring out the details not written.

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Interviewing

• Become Conversant in your Experience
• Talk with your friends
• Talk with those you network with
• Talk with yourself
• Go for a drive
• Lock up a room
• Write in stream of conscious

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Interviewing

• Show technical diagrams or calculations, even if
  they look elementary and simple (youre not a
  PhD yet)
• Show Pictures
• Speak Technically, without unnecessary details

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Interviewing

• With each example you introduce, answer these
  questions indirectly
• What was interesting about the project
• How did you apply your Engineering Mind (Design,
  Foresee and Solve Problems, Analysis, Modeling,
  etc)
• Give credit to others for the responsibilities
  they carried (briefly, where relevant)

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Interviewing

• Illustrate your traits abilities with examples
  (not with adjectives)
• Q What is your strongest trait as an Engineer?
• A When I was working on the Asphalt Zipper, I
  did a good job working with a guy on our team for
  the structural analysis of our frame. We modeled
  the forces from

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Interviewing

• Follow-up
• The prompt Thank You is important
• That evening, or the next day
• Reference 1 or 2 skills you have that can be used
  where you interviewed
• Always attach your resume!!!

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Interviewing

• Bryan,
• I would like to thank you for the opportunity to
  interview with you on Friday. It was a pleasure
  to speak with you and find out more about how my
  skills could fit in with the projects that your
  team is working on. I really enjoyed the tour and
  the opportunity to see what your team was
  involved with.
• My work experience, along with knowledge of
  LabView and other software languages and design
  tools, has made me very enthusiastic about the
  possibility of becoming a Systems Engineer at
  Northrop. If I can answer any questions, please
  call me at 707-555-5555.
• Thank you again. Attached is a copy of my resume.
• -Matthew

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Networking
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Networking

• Who are your contacts?
• How do you approach them?
• What can they do for you?

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Networking

• Who
• Friends
• Friends Parents
• Friends Brothers or Sisters
• Contacts from anywhere

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Networking

• What they can do
• Share Industry Experience
• This makes you more conversant, and builds their
  confidence in you
• Relate their experience to yours
• Referrals
• Most people arent in a position to get you a
  job, but they can send you to those who are

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EngineeringResume Workshop

• - AIAA - Microcosm -
• April 16, 2005
• www.bryangardner.com