Writing a professional resume takes a little bit of knowledge of industry standards, industry state and industry trends. And by industry, we mean the corporate culture as well as particular industry of your profession that consists of salary range, role and designation, potential employers and so on.
With the knowledge of all of this, you can write an efficient and job winning professional project engineer resume. Now, one way to acquire this knowledge is to explore on the internet, spend hours going through various articles and what not.
To make this easier and very much less time consuming, we have curated this article for you! We will discuss every single aspect of a professional resume from the layout and format to how to write each section of your project engineer resume. We will also discuss some of the bonus tips that will help you immensely in your job searching process.
We will begin by talking about professional resumes and how you can make your resume professional! Let's dive right in!
Professional resume guidelines
Professional resume guidelines are simple rules or rather unsaid suggestions that make your resume a professional resume. What makes a resume professional though? In a broader sense, a professional resume is a resume that is formal, perfect in terms of accuracy and effective resume in terms of the desired impact it has and achieves eventually.
So how can you do all of these things for your project engineer resume? Here's how:
- A project engineer resume should reflect professionalism and the easiest as well as efficient way to do that is to use the language that is formal and professional. This means, you should always use past tense and third person in your descriptions of every information on your resume in each section. Such language give it the formal tone that you would want to reflect throughout your resume. You should also avoid using pronouns as they give the language the informal tone that we need to avoid on your professional project engineer resume.
- A project engineer resume should be accurate as any inaccuracy is regarded as lack of professionalism in the corporate culture. You need to ensure that every single part of your project engineer resume is accurate that means you should ensure accuracy in the details as well as the visual appearance of your project engineer resume. For this, you need to proofread your resume twice and remove any spelling errors as well as any grammatical mistakes. You should also double check that there are no factual mistakes as any false information that is detected during verification later can lead to your termination (in case you have already secured the job) or rejection of job application. To ensure the visual appearance is perfect you should fix all the margins, white space and font size etc. in order to achieve symmetrical and visually appealing look for your project engineer resume. For more on that, keep reading because we will discuss this again at length in the "template" topic. Make sure that you do not miss out on this aspect of professional resume as it is of utmost importance.
- Your professional project engineer resume should be labeled properly so that the hiring managers and any other reader of your resume can figure out what they are looking at. The resume document should be labeled simply yet clearly so that it reflects simple professionalism. You can use your first name and your last name along with the term 'resume' or 'CV'.
- The project engineer resume should be saved appropriately so that the document is compatible with any and every applicant tracking systems and/or document viewing platform that the hiring manager or any other reader of your resume is using. People do not use the same mobile phone or laptop and various professionals might use different mediums of viewing documents, in case your resume format is not compatible with those mediums, they will not be able to view your resume.Your resume will also go through a number of applicant tracking systems and if your resume format is not compatible with them, your resume will get rejected without getting processed-scanned and filtered. So what can you do to ensure that none of this becomes an obstacle for your journey of job search? Well, you can choose the formats that are compatible with most systems and mediums of viewing documents. The preferred document formats in this case, for your project engineer resume are the PDF format and the Microsoft Word format.
- Apart from the above guidelines, you should make sure that you use maximum relevant keywords and relevant action verbs/power words. This will help you make the language of your resume powerful and achieve better impact on the hiring manager and reader of your resume. You should use numbers to quantify the details on your resume to give the hiring managers the clear idea of your work experience and achievements as well as your capacity and capabilities. This will also help you impress the hiring managers easily.
Research
Before you do anything, you do the research, right? Whether you are going to watch a movie or a play planning a vacation trip or tour or even going for grocery shopping, you go on the internet and spend some hours there just exploring various aspects such as good places for any purposes, various options you can avail and best ways to ensure that your energy, time and money are well spent when you go out do what you want to do.
Similarly, you need to research a little when you get down to writing your project engineer resume. You can explore various job openings and job posting on platforms such as LinkedIn, Glassdoor, Indeed, AmbitionBox and many more that are available on the internet. You can explore the job description that is given with those job postings. You can also explore various job titles and figure out which job title is the best for you. Along with this, you can read some latest news that are related to your industry and get updated with the latest trends, industry's state from financial, legal and more such perspectives. You should also look up the potential employers that you want to work with and the employers that have the openings for the position that you are looking for.
All of this research will help you figure out how you can present yourself efficiently on your project engineer resume. You will figure out the salary range that you can expect and negotiate for at the last step of hiring process. You will learn what do professionals in your position do as part of their job duties. You will also learn how you can stand out through your project engineer resume. You will know what extra you can offer to impress the hiring manager and most importantly you will learn about all that the hiring managers expect from you.
Formats
The type of format you will have to decide for when you are creating your project engineer resume will essentially come from three types. One being, Functional format type where the people who are creating their resume are not very experienced. Secondly, the Reverse Chronological type where the order of all the things falling under the sections of the resume are in reverse order or from the freshest to the oldest. The last type or the third type is called the Combinational format type. As the name suggests it is the combination of the Functional format type and Reverse Chronological order type.
Functional Format Type:
The functional format type as explained earlier is for people who are starting out as project engineer resume and haven't had any formal experience in the field or any related fields. Secondly, If you're starting out your career, the person will tend to put everything that one has done in life professionally in their resume. That's exactly what you have to do as well. You have to put any and all internships you have done, any course you took, your university accomplishments, or any co-curricular and extra curricular activities that have earned you any recognition can be put in.
Reverse Chronological Format Type:
The reverse chronological format type is basically where all your experience and all your education is listed from the newest or the most fresh to the oldest. If you have worked at five firms in your career you list the most recent one as your first experience and then trickle down to your oldest experience at the last.
You also would like to focus more on your recent most experience in this resume, where you shall talk about your achievements in detail mention metrics and numbers that have added value to your time at that firm and if you have done over and above your ob description. Be more proactive about your last experience than the other four. In the following experience focus more on direct accomplishments and achievements or what you had done that added value to the firm, be more direct about those things than you are in your first experience that is coming on top. The reader of the of resume or the hiring managers expect to have more details in the recent more experience than the following and won't spend too much time reading the following experience as well. They will focus on finding key words that fir the role of project engineer and that of their company.
Mention your education if you are in the reverse chronological order as well. Do no forget to mention your university masters/ bachelor's degree first and then your high school diploma last. If you have done any online courses don't mention them over here but in another section of Certifications and courses, where if you have done several or a few of them then list them also in the reverse chronological order too.
Combination Format Type:
The last but not the least is the combination format type which is the combination of the pervious two format discusses aka. the Functional format type and the reverse chronological type. Although there is no fixed recipe for this format type but it essentially takes characteristics from both the format types and merges them into one. It takes the reverse chronological order characteristic from the reverse chronological format type and merges it with the few experiences and internships one might have if they are relatively new in their career.
For example someone who has only had one to two years of experience then they can still mention their Master's in Business Administration (MBA) degree summer internship in their resume, or mention in any position that they held in the engineering college they went to as a way to show the project engineer role hiring manager that you are a capable, responsible person who is willing to take more responsibilities and you are also a leader and someday you can expect that position. These things make sense when the combination type format is being used
For the role of Project engineer at any firm if you are relatively less experienced which means you have experience of two or three years to four to five years of experience then you shall use you the combination format type. However, if you have had experience of more than five years, and had multiple jobs in the past and you have significant experience you would want to share than you shall obviously opt for the reverse chronological format type, that is the most widely used and accepted format and its makes perfect logical sense to even use it.
Templates
Templates is the overall look and feel of your resume, and what section should be positioned where and why is the the job of the template. Most of the templates will not focus accurately on your experiences, and will have a lot of white spaces and empty regions and unwanted sections. You should use a template where the white spaces in the resume are being used and secondly it should not be so fancy, with colors and bright colors especially, since you are applying for the role of project engineer then a formal template which has your personal information at top, then your educational background, then your experiences, then your skills, and lastly, if you have done any relevant certifications and then your hobbies.
The template need not have 5 sections with section dividers that take humungous space, and the skills section being represented in an informal manner, rather a simple format shall be used which showcases your experience and the background you have had.
Resume header
Resume header should include below described information:
- your full name with accurate spelling (first name and last name)
- your contact number with area code and country code
- your professional Email address that is formal and used for professional communications
- your LinkedIn profile link
- your professional headshot in formal attire (not mandatory)
- your brief home address (not mandatory)
Resume summary
The project engineer resume summary should be crisp, short and concise, it should include 3 to 5 bullet points and not more than that. The resume summary should include maximum action verbs and details that are quantified with numbers.
Resume summary should include the details such as:
- your total years of experience and the background
- your achievements and recognitions, impressive details from your profile such as impressive numbers, exceptional performances at notable instances and so on, you should also include your relevant skills for a project engineer
- your goal going forward-the kind of opportunity you are seeking and how you will perform well with your experience, skills and knowledge
Make sure that you do not include every detail of your resume in the resume summary, this section is more of the resume introduction and not the overview of your resume. Its purpose is to compel the reader to go through the rest of your resume carefully.
Professional experience
The professional experience of a project engineer resume should talk about everything! Your job description, your job duties, your performances, achievements, instances where you performed well, completed projects, project management experience, other areas that you contributed to, various project engineering job aspects such as mechanical engineering, project manager tasks, soft skills, your team work experience with other project managers and much more.
You should make sure that each experience includes the details of your job title, full name of your employer and the employment period. Make sure you include all the relevant skills in the description of your experience.
Education section
All the project engineer resumes should include a well written education section. Even if your education was not very relevant for your role of project engineer professional, you should still include it on your project engineer resumes.
You can talk about your high school diploma, your bachelor's degree, your master's degree and any online/offline courses or programs or certificates. These details will also help you reflect a strong foundation of theoretical knowledge apart from the knowledge you have acquired from practical field experiences.
Skills section
A good resume example has an efficient skills section in which you have include all your top strengths that are relevant and most important for the role of project engineers.
- project management techniques
- project engineering
- mechanical engineering projects
- soft skills
- monitoring project progress
- hard skills
- technical skills
- project schedule
- project elements
- safety procedures
- setting project objectives
- both engineering
- complete projects
- business management
- communication skills
- manufacturing processes
- technical support
- engineering drawings
- engineering projects
- large scale projects
- personal projects
- process improvements
- interpersonal skills
- construction procedures
- electrical systems
- project plans
- project requirements
- design engineers (working with)
- knowledge of engineering field
- wastewater systems
- social media page update
- construction procedures
- conducting tests
- data collection
- construction plans
- safety protocols
- problem solving
Bonus Tips
Now that you know all about writing an effective resume, let's talk about some bonus tips that will help you increase your chances of getting hired! All you need to do is modify your resume a little bit and/or add some more information on your project engineers resume.
References
When you are applying for a role such as project engineer, you may not be able to provide a portfolio to prove your competency. So how can you give the recruiter a chance to scrutinize and still come through?
The way to do that is to include references on your project engineers resume. You should include 3 references on your resume. You need to mention their name and their contact number and/or their Email ID. You can choose anyone as your references from your past colleagues who may have worked with you as your co-worker or your manager or supervisor or superior in any capacity.
Keywords
Your project engineer resume will go through many software and systems that recruiters use to scan and filter the resumes and to beat them you need to know how they work. They operate on the basis of parameters-the presence of relevant keywords on your project engineer resume. Ideal project engineer resume examples include sensible and meaningful use of such keywords throughout the project engineer resume.
- project engineer
- project engineers
- project management
- project engineering
- project managers
- mechanical engineering
- soft skills
- project progress
- resume summary
- project engineer jobs
- project objectives
- hard skills
- project engineer experience
- project manager
- safety procedures
- setting project objectives
- complete projects
- business management
- relevant skills
- software engineer
- work history
- technical support
- engineering drawings
- personal projects
- large scale projects
- interpersonal skills
- construction plans
- electrical systems
- project plans
- project requirements
- design engineers
- engineering field
- wastewater systems
- conducting tests
- education section
- bachelor's degree
- problem solving
Conclusion
In conclusion, writing a resume is not that difficult- once you know how it is written and have a better knowledge of what do recruiters expect from your resumes. In addition to reading this article, you may want to explore some project engineers resume examples as well.
We have an extensive collection of resume examples and templates that you should check out. You can also use our resume builder feature that offers AI prompts similar to ChatGPT! It will definitely save you a lot of time and help you write your project engineers resume within minutes!
Good luck with the job search!
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Do I need a portfolio for this role on my project engineer resume?
It might be a bit difficult to provide a portfolio for a role such as project engineer that is concerned with comprehensive task such as project engineering. What you may want to do is include references instead. Recruiters will be able to seek reassurance of your skills and experience through the references that you mention on your resume.
Should I include my project management experience on my project engineer resume?
Absolutely, project management is highly relevant for the role of project engineer and your past experience with the same can earn you many credits with the recruiters. You should include any and every relevant experience and information on your resume to ensure the maximum positive impact on the recruiter which may lead to your resume getting shortlisted.
Which project engineer skills should I include on my project engineer resume?
As a project engineer, there are many skills that are important for your project engineer resume. Make sure that you pick up the key skills from the job descriptions of your project engineer role.
Ideally, most project engineer resume examples would include these skills:
- project management
- mechanical engineering
- project engineering
- monitoring project progress
- project schedule
- setting project objectives
- software engineer skills
- soft skills
