October 2006

An Engineer's Guide to Résumé Writing

By Elizabeth Lions

A Google search for "résumé writing" will return thousands of links to articles on how to construct a résumé, each promising a fulfilling and rewarding new job. In fact, the Web holds so many articles about résumé writing it’s hard not to become overwhelmed by the sheer volume. The purpose of this article is to help a technical person construct a résumé with a marketing slant.

The résumé is a one-page, brief synopsis of you and your skill set. It should be eye catching, but not lengthy. Most importantly, it is a marketing piece, not a biography. And there is only one golden rule of marketing any product: know thy audience.

Jeffrey J. Fox, author of Don’t Send a Résumé, uses a cereal box analogy to illustrate the challenge of marketing yourself to a specific audience. If you walked into your local grocery store, you’d find dozens and dozens of cereal boxes, each claiming to be the most delicious and nutritious on the market. So, if you imagine yourself to be a cereal box, who is your audience? If you're trying to attract kids age five to 14, you might develop a colorful package with smiling cartoon characters on the front and a prize in the bottom of the box. Or if your market group is age 35 to 50, your packaging would likely be very different. That box might feature simple lettering declaring the cereal's nutritional value as well as taste — a serious, adult cereal.

Like a box of cereal, when it comes to your résumé, different audiences require different information to compel them to buy you. Your goal is to create a one-page document that will stand out to employers and entice them enough to pick up the phone and ask you to share a little bit more about yourself.

For the first time in your career, what you’ve accomplished is not as important as how you package the information. It’s not about content; it’s more about the format. Ever been to a Japanese restaurant? It’s the placement of the food on the plate, the very presentation of the delicacies that is important, not just the food. Résumé writing is similar — it’s an art form. White space between sections is a good thing. You want balance. You want symmetry. You want the feeling of spaciousness. Bold and italicized print is fine, if done in a way that is complementary.

Because they are often detail-oriented people, some engineers worry that if they omit anything about themselves on their résumé, they will be disqualified from consideration. To the contrary, many employers have told me that too much information either confuses them or allows them to draw more conclusions about what the candidate has accomplished (or not accomplished) in the workplace. That’s the danger for you as a candidate: you want to draw them in, but you don’t want potential employers drawing premature or inaccurate conclusions about your skill set.

Spelling and grammatical errors on a résumé are a big no-no. If you know other engineers or technical writers, ask them to take another peek at it after you’ve run spell check. Years ago, I recruited a top engineering candidate who had a minor spelling error on his résumé. It nearly cost him the interview. After some cajoling on my part, the employer agreed to interview the candidate, and he did end up getting the job. But it would have been a shame if a misplaced “e” had cost him the job.

Some of the most enjoyable résumés to read are the ones that are formatted in block style with bullet points detailing what candidates did at a previous job. I can glean from a short snippet what they did with their skills and how they impacted the organization. Long paragraphs can become cumbersome to read and can go into too much detail. The rule of thumb here is: if you must put information in paragraph format, keep it to six short sentences or less.

Dummy proof the document as best you can by putting your skill sets in a short paragraph at the top portion of the page. This is a paragraph full of one-word skills followed by a comma. So, if you are a software engineer, you’d write a paragraph that would read “Experience with C++, Linux, Java,” and so on. This paragraph saves the reader from having to dig too far into the paperwork to assess what you actually did at your last job and to determine if it matches their needs.

Action words are the key to every bullet point on the résumé. You’ll sound like a super hero (as well as a word smith) if you begin the bulleted sentences with verbs such as accelerated, achieved, advised, edited, and created.

Jobs listed should include the name of former employers, their city and state, and the dates the employment was held. Ah, the dreaded date discussion. If you are a person who has held many jobs for short periods of time, you may be concerned that you appear to be a job hopper. Some résumé writing services will tell you to write the résumé in a skill set format, as opposed to a historical format, thus not disclosing the dates that you worked. The reasoning behind that little piece of advice is that it emphasizes what is really important: the skills that you bring to the table. Frankly, either way, it’s a gamble. If you don’t disclose the dates, an employer may think you are hiding something. I recommend honesty. If an employer wants you, they will call. Be prepared to divulge why you left each position and reiterate that you are currently looking for full-time employment.

Highlight your strengths and downplay your limitations, but stay within your integrity. Typically, what you aren’t good at, you don’t enjoy doing. For example, if you don’t care for administrative tasks and project management, it’s not a good idea to list dozens of bullet points on your administrative and project management skills on your résumé. Instead, highlight what you are exceptional at, balanced by including some of the administrative functions.

And lastly, tie your accomplishments to a business perspective. It’s great that you have skills, but what was the end result of your work for a previous employer? Certainly, the organization did something with the work you produced in your cube day after day. Show a perspective employer that you understand the big picture and the impact of your work.

Three final words on résumé writing: placement, format, simplicity.

Elizabeth Lions is a technical recruiter in Wilsonville, Ore. Comments may be submitted to todaysengineer@ieee.org.