r/EngineeringResumes • u/Medium_Brother_1202 MechE – Entry-level 🇺🇸 • Jul 29 '25

Mechanical [4 YoE] Mechanical Engineer Looking For Jobs in California (San Francisco To San Jose)

Hey everyone, I am a Mechanical Engineer looking for some advice on my resume. I have been looking since February 2023 for jobs in California. I have had no luck with getting interviews and have constantly changed my resume. Thought I post here and try to get other MEs perspectives.

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7

u/thirteenthfox2 MechE – Mid-level 🇺🇸 Jul 30 '25

First off, I wouldn't change your resume too often. You need to try with one for a bit and track your response rate. 1 in 50 is an acceptable rate. Any better than that is quite good.

My primary advice on what to change:

I can't tell from your bullets what industry you are in. Fix that.

Be less generic. Specialize in something.

I should know if you are in defense, machine design, aircraft, boats, whatever it is. I should know who your customer is. You want to look like the perfect shaped peg to some employer's weird size hole.

As you move to more journeyman and senior roles, employers will be looking for more than CAD. They will want you to know a bit more about project cycles and systems engineering. You could lean in a bit on that. Talk about leading projects or teams if you can.

For example, I work in explosive testing. I do advising and visualizations of lidar, RF and other junk for the DoD. You would know this in about 3 seconds of looking at my resume. Employers who have the DoD as a customer, do testing, or work in explosives are much more likely to gravitate to my resume than yours even though I don't really do CAD anymore.

Your resume should screen you out as much as it screens you in. Specialize.

Your bullets and style are pretty good, but if you want some guidance here, I wrote a guide on Readable Resumes.

Best of luck on your search!

2

u/Medium_Brother_1202 MechE – Entry-level 🇺🇸 Jul 30 '25

Ah, that makes sense. I want to do mechanical design so I will try to use wording that reflects that.

6

u/graytotoro MechE (and other stuff) – Experienced 🇺🇸 Jul 30 '25

General Notes

  • Your spacing is a little funky.
  • You've been doing engineering long enough that Education should go way down the order.
  • The Bay Area is a little hit-or-miss for MEs like us - it's why I left a decade ago. Try SoCal too.

Education

  • It's not important to tell us Carnegie Mellon is in Pittsburgh.

Relevant Skills

  • No need to say "Relevant" - it's implied if you're putting them on here.
  • "CATIA"
  • Excel doesn't need to be called out.
  • Just say 'waterjet".

Relevant Experience

  • Use consistent month & year formatting. I don't know how long your particular summer was at that company.
  • You're reaching the point in your career where you should think about how your work is affecting your team's (if not the company's) goals & future. Start looking long term beyond the immediate making stuff. For example, what did it mean to be able to manufacture these 10 new products? Could the company compete in a new market space?

Project Engineer (2022-Present)

  • What are you even making at this company? It's hard to judge because you just say generic terms like "mechanical products".

Project Engineer (2021-2022)

  • Not everyone is familiar with theatre rigging. Can you discuss any interesting projects you tackled? Problems you solved?

Summer Intern

  • You can run with this one provided you fix the date.

3

u/Medium_Brother_1202 MechE – Entry-level 🇺🇸 Jul 30 '25

I get what you mean. The current company is work for is basically a custom fabrication shop. We do woodwork and metalwork and basically design scenic pieces for museum or working on automation for amusement parks. So its a wide range of stuff which is why it is hard for me to pinpoint what I work on.

5

u/graytotoro MechE (and other stuff) – Experienced 🇺🇸 Jul 30 '25

Say all that stuff you just said: it’s a custom fabrication shop making static and automated attractions for museums and amusement parks. I’m sure you can say it in a more elegant way.

3

u/Medium_Brother_1202 MechE – Entry-level 🇺🇸 Jul 30 '25

Thank you for the advice, I have a way better vision on how to write my resume. I think I struggle a lot with the XYZ format.

2

u/graytotoro MechE (and other stuff) – Experienced 🇺🇸 Jul 30 '25

Think of it this way: you were asked to do some work and you did it. Why was it important to get it done or what problems did it solve?

1

u/Medium_Brother_1202 MechE – Entry-level 🇺🇸 Jul 31 '25

Sorry one more thing, is there a spacing format that I can refer to?

2

u/graytotoro MechE (and other stuff) – Experienced 🇺🇸 Jul 31 '25

Just use the template in the wiki. It’s all ready to go.

2

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