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This is the second post in a series on getting your first engineering job, you can find part one here.

I wanted to cover a couple of things related to that first job; things that I learned along the way, both when I was looking for work and in the last couple years looking at resumes.

There are lots of places on the internet to get advice on all aspects of the job search, from resumes, to cover letters, to interviews, and follow up. The things mentioned here are what I noticed, and more specific to job searches that I have experienced rather than the basics covered elsewhere.

For job openings you could scour the classifieds (or the latest equivalent, craigslist), but online job searches seem pretty efficient. Networking is also very productive, people that belong to the professional organizations where you are a student member, some of the “non-traditional” students that have jobs, previous places where you worked as an intern (and enjoyed it).

For the resume preparation, I have a few tips that I don’t often see in other resume writing articles. But first there is something I want to emphasize, that is oft repeated elsewhere: The purpose of the resume isn’t to get you a job. The purpose of the resume is to get you an interview. So for resumes, here’s the advice I have:

• Customize it: For every job you apply for or every time you forward your resume, you need to tailor it to the job.
• Layout for 5 seconds: With a stack of resumes to go through, the first screening pass ignores the header info, and scans down the left side for important things. If you don’t make the 5 second cut, it doesn’t matter if you are the perfect candidate.
• Include unique or applicable classes: If you have an mechanical engineering degree, you shouldn’t take up space listing Thermodynamics or Dynamics as a class you took. Put the electives that demonstrate your training or classes that will be a direct benefit to the job you are applying for.
• Include software packages: Often the key attributes for filling an entry level position includes familiarity with a specific software package, so list those that you are familiar with. “I need someone that knows LabView” or “If they knew MATLAB, that would be nice!” are phrases often heard, just subsitute software applicable to the job.

There is a relatively new aspect to resume submittal that I don’t see covered very often. When applying to some of the larger companies around, it is often necessary to submit your information through their website. If they don’t have a way to attach a file like a word document or a pdf, then you are going to have to submit it through the text box. The problem? Well the text box strips out the formatting. Just try taking that nicely formatted Microsoft Word resume (the one that you have slaved over for hours if not days) and cutting and pasting it into the text box. It isn’t exactly the clean, easy to read presentation that you need to get past the initial screening process.

So what can you do about this? Well the answer is another version of your resume. One that you write in a text editor without tabs, bullets, or other formatting. A plain text editor like Notepad in Windows or TextEdit in OS X.

One other thing related to electronic submissions. Searchable keywords are being included as a part of the resume submittal process. Now, in and of itself this isn’t a bad thing. Unless the search that is used to find candidates that match particular requirements isn’t very sophisticated. Consider the wording. If you have experience in solid modeling, and used PTC’s Pro/Engineer software, you might want to use that as a keyword. So you add “Pro/Engineer”. But the engineering manager that is looking for a new hire was in a hurry when they wrote the job description and the human resources person doesn’t know anything about solid modeling. So they searched the term “ProE”, or “ProEngineer”, or “Pro/E”. Actually the last one might bring up a hit, since it is a subset of “Pro/Engineer”. So if there are options for the way a skill will be searched, try to include as many of these as possible in your keyword list.

With all of the ways that your information can get lost, never looked at, or just ignored, it becomes more important than ever to get around the HR hurdle and get your resume in front of those managers that are looking for someone like you. This might be unwelcome news for the introverts in engineering, but the networking is very important.

I think there will be one final installment to this series, with a few tips and observations about the interview.