The aerospace engineer’s guide to writing an excellent resume

As an aerospace engineer, your primary responsibilities will include duties such as designing various aircraft, conducting prototype testing, managing manufacturing processes, and more. To earn a position in this field, you will need an optimized resume that showcases your experience, talents, and accomplishments.

In this guide, we will teach you how to write an effective resume as an aerospace engineer. keep reading to learn how to:

• Choose the correct resume format for the position
• Write a compelling and eye-catching resume summary
• Include a variety of key aerospace engineering skills
• Describe past work experience using concise bullet points
• List aerospace engineering educational credentials accurately

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1. Choose the correct resume format for your aerospace engineer resume

The first big decision to make before you even start writing your aerospace engineering resume is what type of resume format will be best.

Generally, to earn this position you will need a format that focuses on work experience, known as the reverse-chronological resume. This format heavily emphasizes formal work experience, listing your most recent job first and working backward from there.

However, if you lack formal work experience in the field of aerospace engineering, you may need to consider one of the following alternative formats:

• Functional Resumes: Functional resumes do not focus on work experience – instead, they emphasize education, skills, and unpaid experience. This format works well for current students or recent graduates with an extensive educational history but limited professional work history.
• Hybrid Resumes: Hybrid resumes do not focus on any section in particular, but rather spread the focus of the document out between all sections. This format is well-suited for engineers who are changing career paths or disciplines, or applicants who are returning from a gap in their career.

Choose your preferred template and make your resume shine.

2. Write a compelling and eye-catching resume summary

A resume summary is a short introductory statement that showcases your best professional attributes and accomplishments. By including a summary at the top of your resume, you can better stand out from the competition and make your resume memorable to employers.

As your write your summary, it is important to consider what the most impressive details of your career are and include them in this statement.

To illustrate how to write an effective summary, below is a weak example followed by a correction and explanation:

Why is this incorrect?

While the information presented in this summary is not necessarily bad, it needs more contextualization to be compelling and effective. To improve this summary, the applicant should provide greater detail about their internship experience and how they won their university’s competition.

Why is this correct?

In this corrected example, the applicant includes the same base information but with a lot more detail, context, and specificity. By doing so, the employer reading this summary gains a better overview of the applicant’s experience, specializations, and passions within the field.

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3. Include a variety of key aerospace engineering skills

Including a skills section on your resume is crucial, as it gives you the opportunity to include abilities that your work experience section or resume summary may have overlooked.

When selecting which aerospace engineering skills to include on your resume, it is important to choose a mix of both technical and interpersonal skills. Technical skills are the more complex, learned abilities gained through education and training, while interpersonal skills deal with your emotional intelligence and ability to understand the people and world around you.

Keeping this in mind, here are 10 examples of both technical and interpersonal skills for aerospace engineers:

4. Describe your aerospace engineer work experience using concise bullet points

The work experience section of your resume is where you will have the best opportunity to provide in-depth descriptions of your past work experiences. Although it is important to provide adequate detail, you should also aim to keep these descriptions short and sweet.

To do this, use bullet points and one-sentence statements to structure your work experience descriptions. This will help to keep them concise and legible for employers, who will likely skim over the section rather than reading it word-for-word.

5. List aerospace engineering educational credentials accurately

To become an entry-level aerospace engineer, you will need a minimum of a bachelor’s degree in aerospace engineering. However, to earn a higher-level – and higher-paying – position you will likely need a master’s degree.

No matter what educational credentials you have, always list your highest and most recent degree first, followed by the others in reverse-chronological order. Additionally, make sure to include the formal name of the degree, the university you attended, and your date of graduation.