Ultimate Guide for Creating and Using Engineering Resumes
Intro
If you’ve been reading my articles on creating a sales and marketing mindset for going after jobs, which would include writing resumes and cover letters, you would know that the goal of making these documents is to use them as sales and marketing tools for the selling and marketing of multiple products. You would also know that the products you are selling, ultimately, represent your expertise, leadership/management abilities, experiences, etc. If you need to catch up on this philosophy, check out my articles on The Robert Kiyosaki, “Rich Dad Poor Dad,” Sales and Marketing Mindset for Success and The Sales and Marketing Mindset to Job Hunting to get up to speed.
In my article on How to Create Marketable Content for Your Resume, I state that focusing on content creation to capture your audience’s attention is the most important, and easily the hardest, thing you can do in the game of creating a marketable resume designed for success. Once you’ve dedicated the time to generating marketable, attention grabbing content for your resume, you will have a lot more leeway in how you present it, and can really apply mythbusting and stereotype breaking techniques to creating it. Let’s see how you can apply stereotype breaking techniques to busting some of these myths.
The Myth of the Single Page Resume
The single page resume is definitely a myth. Sure, If you have absolutely no experience, it’s your first job, you’re not really sure what to put on there, etc., then it’s definitely a good idea to try and get as much information on a single page as possible; however, what if you are experienced, you’ve been working on multiple projects, you have a ton of leadership experience, or you just have a lot of captivating information that you need to get across? Are you going to truncate your awesomeness because someone told you that your resume has to be one page? Hell no!
Have you ever seen the resume of a PhD or business executive? Their resumes could be 20 pages long! They don’t do this because they have some sort of “special powers;” instead, they do it because they have so much marketable experience to showcase that it assists in their job application endeavors. In other words, their resumes attract consumers so they can make the sale. I’ve heard the responses of hiring managers looking at the single page resumes of candidates with 20+ years of experience, and it’s not great. In the eye’s of the hiring managers, it was automatically assumed that these candidates must not have been doing much over the course of 20+ years to only have a one page resume.
Busting the Myth of the Single Page Resume
Sure, it’s great to have a nice, concise, one page document that highlights your core capabilities, but sometimes, one page is not enough. In reality, expanding your document margins to the edges of a full sheet of paper, and filling that one page with a single spaced, sized 8 point font, is likely not only killing the aesthetics of your resume, but it is also likely making it really difficult to read; both being detrimental to your marketing plan. I will always come back to this: you are creating a sales and marketing pitch to a customer that is looking to buy your skills, expertise, experiences, etc. If you don’t like the sales and marketing analogy to making resumes, then think of yourself as the design engineer of your own product. Would you purposely undersize your product because one person says they want it that way? Absolutely not. Based on market research you should have already done, you will find the right balance of size, weight, and power consumption to meet the needs of your core customer base.
What will happen if you allow yourself to go onto a second, third, or more pages? What will likely happen is you will free up your creative palate, allowing for even more creativity for your content creation. As you move onto more pages, let your creativity fly. One of the biggest things you need to consider when it comes to making your resume is legibility. I recommend keeping between a 10 and 12 font size. What I have seen happen many times, as you add pages to your resume, is that your resume can transform into a portfolio that you can showcase during an interview, which is ideal. You can focus your entire interview around your portfolio, leaving you in full control of the interview, if you know the content like the back of your hand. This is actually an ideal solution for individuals who don’t think they have much experience to offer, like students. If you don’t have much work experience, think about filling in your resume with details about projects you are working on. The idea is to generate interest in the most captivating way possible. This leads to inquiry, which then leads to an interview, which hopefully leads to a job offer.
The Myth of Needing a Special Resume for Every Job You Apply To
Do you really need a separate resume for every job you apply to? If you are going to apply to be a waiter at a restaurant one day, and then apply to be an EE for an aerospace company the next day, then you may want to have two different resumes, as these are completely separate industries. Sure, I probably wouldn’t use the same resume for both places, but let’s be real here: we’re not talking about doing this. I bet that many of the people who are telling you that you need a separate resume for every job are also the same people telling you that landing a job is a numbers game. If you are in the job market, there is a high probability you are sending your resume to thousands of employers. Are you going to create a thousand or more different resumes, or modify one resume a thousand times or more? If it were truly a numbers game, wouldn’t it make sense to have an easily scalable product to send out in mass? With our sales and marketing mindset, we are seeking to control the outcome of the numbers game through focused content creation. Combine this with target marketing, and you are golden. Let’s go over some stereotype breaking tips.
Busting the Myth of Needing a Special Resume for Every Job You Apply To
In order to bust this myth, we should focus on creating one or two scalable products that can be handed out in many different situations; otherwise, you will be focusing your efforts on the wrong things. Remember, you should be focused on content creation for a target market. You really shouldn’t have to tailor your resume based on every word that a job description says. So many jobs have such a broad range of responsibilities that it’s almost impossible to tailor your resume to meet every single requirement. I personally don’t know anyone who has the time to do this, and I certainly don’t know anyone who would actually want to do this. Most people hate the idea of having to apply for jobs and hate writing about themselves. Why create even more work for yourself in this area? Also, as an engineer who has created job descriptions, and has been part of the interviewing and hiring process, when it comes to job descriptions, I know for a fact that hiring managers list as many responsibilities as possible, just to see what sticks in terms of the people applying to the job. Hiring managers will even cross reference responsibilities between different levels of positions as well. Most people have a wide range of skills, and most companies have a wide range of money that they can offer new employees.
All of the reasons above are why it’s so important to focus on content creation for your target market. My recommendations for busting this myth are as follows: focus on one or two easily scalable products, have a target market, and tailor your resume to focus on your product…YOU! Instead of designing a document that regurgitates the same words on a job description, create a showcase of you that represents a solid mixture of technical skills, leadership abilities, accomplishments, experiences, etc. For examples and further guidance, I highly recommend checking out my very own personal resumes, and my article on How to Create Marketable Content for Your Resume.
The Myth of the Standard Resume
Fundamentally, this is another great myth. Although I don’t discredit a standard black and white resume that uses Arial or Times New Roman font, I do discredit the proliferation of the myth that you have to abide by this practice when creating your own resume. In the “old days,” it was likely the standard practice to use a black and white, single font resume because typewriters couldn’t provide the document editing power that is available to us on all of today’s computers. Technological advances have paved the way for increased flexibility in how creative we can be with our resumes.
Something else of great importance to consider when making your resume is what companies are expecting to see. I would say that most companies expect to see the standard, single page, black and white resume; however, many modern day tech companies, especially the giants in Silicon Valley, are possibly expecting the exact opposite. This is why it’s extra important to know your target audience in order to manage expectations and outcomes. To provide some context, I have friends who have interviewed, and have eventually gone and worked for big tech companies like SpaceX, Google, and Amazon, where they were explicitly instructed to create an out of the box resume using different colors, fonts, pictures, multiple pages, etc. How would you respond if given this requirement?
In this situation, the best way to respond is by fulfilling the requirement of your customer, of which there is a much larger takeaway than just being instructed to make a unique resume. You see, there are things that these companies value more than just pure intellect. What these companies place a high value on are pure creativity and a sales and marketing mindset. In essence, these companies are telling you to be as creative as possible, in order to market and sell your product to them. They are telling you that a simple black and white resume is not going to attract them to buy the products you are selling. As I’ve quoted multiple times from Robert Kiyosaki’s “Rich Dad Poor Dad” book on financial education, “Most people are just one skill away from great wealth.” In this case, they may be one or two skills away from a phenomenal job that could eventually lead them to great wealth, where those skills are sales and marketing.
Now, most people will think that these companies set a resume requirement like this because of the free spirited and liberal characterizations these companies have based on their location: California. Instead, I really think they have requirements like this for their potential future employees because of what I mentioned in the previous paragraph. These companies value creativity. Silicon Valley is the mecca of thinking outside of the box. Their, at times unorthodox, customs are what allow their creativity to thrive in order to develop solutions to incredible problems. I also think they set this type of requirement because of the other skills they highly value: sales and marketing.
When it comes right down to it, in the eyes of these companies, math and science are easy, and sales and marketing are hard, especially technical sales and marketing. I think the majority of these companies know that most of their potential future employees will naturally be sufficient at the technical aspects of their jobs, which is why they challenge their potential new hires to market and sell their own brand: themselves! It is the fusion of creativity, engineering, and sales and marketing that make a company successful. No one skill alone will build great wealth or success. For the scope of this myth, let’s take a look at how we can stray away from the stereotypical black and white resume, and create something a little bit more creative.
Busting the Myth of the Standard Resume
The goal in busting this myth, regardless of what kind of resume you create, is to deliver a resume that flows and that is aesthetically pleasing. Your resume needs to be legible, and easy on the eyes. Personally, I would stay away from using extremely bright colors, using too many colors, using illegible fonts, and using too many fonts. Colors, fonts, and general formatting tools should be used to enhance the content of your resume, and not detract from it.
Since we are considering showcasing ourselves and making a product that people want to buy, one of the best tools I’ve found for doing formatting and for showcasing anything is to use a tool like Microsoft Powerpoint or Google Slides. In this scenario, you have complete freedom in how you present your content, and can include professional photos, pictures, logos, projects, links to social media like LinkedIn or other professional websites, etc. This would be a great product to have, in addition to a PDF/Word resume, especially if you are a job seeking student on the verge of graduating.
As a quick aside, I had an interview at Texas Instruments (TI) in Dallas, Texas my final semester of college, and had to give a presentation in front of a few engineers during the interview. This interview occurred back in 2013. In the last section of this article, I go into further detail regarding my most recent interviews that occurred during 2020 Covid times, where I had multiple interviews. Although I didn’t have to present anything during these interviews, they all occurred online, with some via Skype or Zoom. The first point I’m trying to make in telling this story is that presentations can and do occur during interviews, whether you request it or not. The second point I’m trying to make is that, especially with Covid, more interviews are occurring remotely rather than face to face. Lastly, you can easily spicy up the overall delivery of your resume or set of products that you’re trying to sell, by thinking outside of the box. A Powerpoint detailing all of your experience, projects you’ve worked on, etc., would be a great tool to use, and keep in your toolbox, during the job submission process, as they usually ask if you have extra supporting information to attach with your resume anyways. From the interview perspective, this would also be a great tool to use and keep around, as you could be running the interview like a customer meeting, showcasing not only technical expertise, but also leadership and speaking capabilities.
If you don’t want to make Powerpoint slides, you could always consider making a website. In addition to consulting, I have leveraged this website to showcase some of the projects I’ve been working on outside of work, and through the articles I’ve written, also use it as a means to showcase some of my personal and professional experiences as well.
The last thing I would like to point out in this section is that, for any kind of resume you make, one of the best formatting tools available is the table. If you look at my latest resume, you will see that I’ve used tables for almost everything, where I’ve removed the border lines for aesthetic purposes. Using tables is a great way to create a professional looking resume by keeping all of your content in perfect alignment.
The Myth of Only Applying to Jobs You Think You are Qualified For
This may be the biggest myth of them all. Just because you are a junior level engineer, it doesn’t mean that you can’t, or shouldn’t, apply to higher level jobs. If you fit many of the requirements of what the company is looking for, and show that you have potential, then it is very likely they would bring you in at the appropriate level, and change the requirements/expectations as necessary. The opposite of this is also true: you can be a higher level engineer, and apply to lower level positions. As a matter of fact, I did this THREE TIMES in 2020, and guess what…I used my three page resume to land all three jobs. Continue on to the next section to find out how I did this.
Busting the Myth of Only Applying to Jobs You Think You are Qualified For
To give you some background on the previous section, I was looking for a slight career change in 2020, and put myself in the job market to find my ideal job. I was then, and at the time of writing this article, am still a level 3 engineer at Northrop Grumman Corporation (NGC); however, on multiple occasions in 2020, I applied to jobs that would likely be considered a level 1 or level 2 position. Why did I do this? To clarify, I also applied to my current level (3) and higher positions, but because I was very focused on a specific target market, I applied to all jobs in that market, which included positions at a lower level than my current level.
Throughout 2020, I ended up interviewing for multiple positions, and I received multiple offers. Three of the offers I received were for jobs I applied to that were at the level 1 or level 2 position. On all three of those occasions, I was offered to be brought in at the level 3 or level 4 position, along with appropriate pay and responsibilities. The best part about this is that there was no hesitation from the managers that this would occur, and this is one of the reasons for telling you this story. You never really know what a company actually needs, what else they might be looking for despite what their external job site says, what they can do in terms of making jobs for individuals they want to bring in, if they are in a desperate position, etc. The opportunity I ended up taking happened to be an internal position I applied to within NGC. The other reason for telling you this story is to show you shouldn’t consider yourself to be “over or underqualified” for a position that you really want.
I was looking for a very specific position with very specific requirements, and was not willing to settle. Although I had a certain salary threshold that I was looking to meet/surpass, the pay was ultimately secondary to getting the kind of job I really wanted, working with a team I felt I would enjoy working with and learning from; I ended up getting exactly what I wanted from all of these perspectives. If you don’t go after what you want, you will never get it, especially if you never try. As the famous Wayne Gretzky quote goes, “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.” Everything is a negotiation, and the worst thing that the other end of the negotiating table can say is “no.” Bottom line…go for what you want!
In closing, there are many sales and marketing focused techniques for not only creating your resume, but also for using it. Successfully applying the techniques in this article definitely requires creativity and lots of patience; however, it most importantly requires a potential change in your overall thinking and mindset. You have to develop a sales and marketing mindset!
At first, developing a sales and marketing mindset and applying the techniques in this article to creating and developing resumes may be difficult; however, always remember that practice makes perfect. The more you write about yourself, the better you will become at doing it. I like to relate this situation to the analogy of the student who tutors his classmates on whatever subjects they are studying. Although the tutoring student may not be an expert in the subject, he/she will quickly master the subject through the repetition of teaching his/her fellow classmates. As Tony Robbins says, “Repetition is the mother of skill.”
Lastly, using another great Tony Robbins’ quote, “People will do more to avoid pain than to gain pleasure.” It’s easy and safe to get by doing the status quo, but it’s not much harder to be unique, and to separate yourself from the rest of the crowd, in order to be rewarded with even greater success.
I broke each of these sections down into individual articles that can be found on the Mythbusting Techniques for Creating and Using Engineering Resumes section of my website.
