Electrical Engineer
Resume Example

Electrical engineering is a broad category, encompassing many different sub-disciplines, including:

Because the general practice of electrical engineering requires you to be a “jack of all trades”, the resume tips on this page will be relevant regardless of what your specialization is.Utilizing these tips correctly should increase your chances of landing an engineering job earning an annual average of $87,920.

In the above resume, the candidate has experience doing general electrician and electrical improvement work. Here’s why this electrical resume is especially effective:

Quantified Bullet Points

You can improve your resume by quantifying your job responsibilities. Here are three areas where the candidate used quantification to make their electrical engineer resume more effective and impressive to a hiring manager.

The quantified parts have been bolded:

1. Budgeting

• …execute equipment maintenance strategies and perform other duties or projects as assigned within budgets averaging $90,000

2. Training

• Trained and managed five employees, ensuring adherence to safety procedures and maintenance of high quality service standards expected by management

3. Supervision/Management

• Supervised a team of two electricians responsible for cable pulling, tray installation, high level wiring of lights, small power and lighting, making off circuits in dis boards…

Quantification is especially effective if you can demonstrate the amount of money you saved via negotiation skills, smart use of resources, discovering a new source of cheap materials, or developing new strategies to improve labor efficiency.

Bullet Points are Achievement Oriented

Target your bullet points at the job you’re applying for. Do not write them as general, everyday job duties.

What do we mean by this? When you read the job description for the electrical job you’re applying for, that is simply a list of generic job duties. Your resume must show the hiring manger that you can not only do those jobs, but that you’ve achieved important milestones while doing them in your previous work experience.

For instance, the job description might say that you should have the ability to diagnose malfunctioning systems and fix them. The candidate in the sample resume not only includes this as a bullet point in his/her resume, but also writes:

• …fix the problems and connect wires to circuit breakers, transformers and other components within designated schedules

Promptness, efficiency, and a sense of time urgency are important qualities to convey in a resume, and are considered achievements.

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Skills Section is Keyword Rich

Electrical engineers need to know a lot of technology and software to accomplish various tasks. These are known as hard skills, because they require knowledge and training. “Soft skills” such as communication and management abilities are also important to include on a resume, but should be communicated through your achievements in your Professional Experience section.

Because the electrical engineering profession requires such a heavy amount of technical and software knowledge, it’s smart to list the tools and software you know how to use in your Skills section at the end of you resume.

Companies that hire electrical engineers often use Applicant Tracking Systems to filter out candidates. These pieces of software can actually read your resume, and will judge your merit based on the number of keywords and key phrases that your resume contains. Therefore, the more skill keywords that you include in your resume, the higher the chances that you will get interviewed.

Don’t be tempted to lie, however. If you don’t know how to do what you claim you can, you’ll eventually be found out.

Action Verbs for an Electrical Engineer Resume

Discover all of the action verbs in the universe.