How to Get A Job as An Engineer - The Resume

[Music] this is the first video in a series where I'm going to be talking about how to get a job working with FPGAs VHDL and paralog this video is about how to write a resume to get you in the door I'm also going to be talking about how to interview well giving you some example questions and once you have that job offer how to negotiate for a great job offer so first things first the resume now what is the purpose of the resume you think about a resume or a CV it gets you in the door so it's the first interaction that you've had with the company you're trying to interview with and get a job with and you really you need to put your best foot forward and emphasize all your strengths why you're a great an asset to the to the company and why it's going to be a great relationship to work there so I have a few tips things that I've learned over the years I've interviewed a few times and created a few different versions of a resume and seen a lot of resumes come across my desk for potential candidates to bring on and a few things that I've learned over the years first thing if you have less than two years experience keep your resume to one page and if you have more than two years experience you have a few jobs under your belt you can start to creep onto two pages I won't be too offended if you give me a three page resume I'm probably just gonna throw it away it's too long unless you have four hundred patents and you really need to have that third page just dedicated all your patents then you should not have a three page resume ever in general try to keep your resume to one page and you think about from the perspective of the employer you know they have dozens of resumes coming across their desk and they need to quickly filter through and figure out what what's important what who's the good candidates in this pile so trim it make it focused make it clear show your strengths don't try to use too many words and embellishment it's not necessary in a technical interview perhaps that's useful for other jobs but in engineering focus on the on your technical talents so that's one next custom tailor your resume for the open position so if you were interviewing for an FPGA job highlight all the interactions you've had with FPGAs if you're interviewing for a software job and you start talking about FPGAs and they're expecting a JavaScript developer they're not gonna care if you've had if you've worked in VHDL and Verilog at all so maybe create a couple different versions of your resume if you're not sure which field specifically you want to work in and then send those companies that are interested in you know your software skills the software version of you and the people who are interested in the hardware skills the hardware version of you you can have a little bit of both but you want to emphasize you want to make it tell a story that you're a really strong FPGA engineer or a really strong software engineer and by highlighting the those parts of your resume that's gonna really make you stand out and it'll be easier for them to tell that you're a focused and you're gonna be good at your job when you when you walk in you know just gonna be a jack of all trades master of none next tip I have and this sounds fluffy but add lots of technical keywords so acronyms I actually really like acronyms on a resume especially when it's talking about technologies so I'll give you some examples spi I - C MATLAB Surtees PCI Express LCD Xilinx altaira USB you are good you know all these things mara log VHDL key words that let pop off the page that when I see you are I know what that is I know that you have some experience with that I know that in an interview I'm gonna be able to ask you about you are and what your experiences are and I'm probably going to make you explain it to me that's the other thing if you put it on your resume make sure you can talk about it because nothing more embarrassing than having some class that you took in college show up on your resume and someone asks you about it and you're like yeah I don't actually remember what I would I learned in that class so if it's on your resume make sure you can talk to it if you can't talk to it take it off it shouldn't be there and like yeah so technical keywords I don't think you should use technical keywords like synergy your fluffy keywords I'm talking like acronyms and technologies and companies and physical chips that you've worked with what development boards have you been have you work done have you worked on an msp430 have you worked on an app bag 30 to whatever it is that's the kind of stuff than that I personally made their sittings there's something I'm going to talk to you about during an interview this is a relatively new one I didn't see this a lot when I when I was first getting a job you know putting a link to a github repository on your resume awesome I really like to see that personally and usually when I see it it's it's from you know younger younger applicants and they put it like email and then github repo right right below it and so if you if you have that absolutely put it on your resume if you don't have it consider you know creating a github repository for yourself and uploading whatever uploading your homework assignments or any hobby projects you've been working on you know even if they're not done something just to showcase your skills your ability to write code is really useful from the perspective of an employer you know that's one thing that you often can't see in an interview is a code sample unless you analyst the interviewer asks you to bring a code sample but if you put a link to github right on your resume then I'll just if I'm interested in you I'll probably log on to your github and just poke around a little bit and just see what you're doing become a little bit more interested in you and see you know see you some of the code that you spend your time on and probably ask you about it during an interview so I'm a big fan of that I think it's something worth doing should I include my GPA this is a question that a lot of people ask especially when they're young they're just beginning their careers of fresh out of college in general if you have above a 3.0 yes absolutely wait for the tractor rabbi if you have above a 3.0 put your GPA on your resume absolutely if you don't put your GPA on your resume it's going and you're like you know fresh out of college or only have a little bit of experience that's a bit of a red flag to me I wonder why you didn't put your GPA in your resume and a lot of the time I'll figure it out you know if it's sometimes it's just the people just didn't want to put it on there for whatever reason and they're pretty confident capable people but a lot of the time I'll interview somebody who doesn't have GP on their resume and I'll poke technically at some of the you know some of the technical questions and it's clear they just don't have the really strong technical background so it's it's a bit of a red flag if I don't see that there it's not a reason to not interview somebody but if you have above three I think you should always have it there and if you have below three you better brush up on your technical skills because you're going to probably get hammered in a technical interview a little bit harder than somebody else let's see so there's two sections of a resume there's the at least two sections you usually have like an education section showing where you went to school what GPA you have what classes you've taken what projects you've worked on and then there's the experience section so if you have any coops or internships or any jobs that you've worked at and in general as you gain more experience your education section should shrink the education section should just mind at this point just shows I went to college but other than that I have my experience that I've had in the field is more important to a prospective employer than the education that I had ten years ago so I would in general highlight the education when you're fresh out of school and it should shrink as you as you gain more experience if you never went to college I haven't seen what if you never went to college that's a question I haven't seen a ton of resumes with people who don't have an undergrad degree at least however if one came across my desk and it was a really great resume with an awesome github page and tons of projects and contributions and things and clearly the person could demonstrate to me that they knew what they were talking about just by showing me some example code and showing describing some projects and showing some good technical keywords I'd absolutely interview that person yeah I think that engineering in general is very um merit-based so if you're technically capable even if you don't have the education necessarily or the degrees to back up but show that you've gone through all these classes and have all this education under your belt you can convince me that you're a great worker that you're going to be an asset to a company just by in an interview so I you know I think that engineering is relatively unique in that field where you know you don't have to have necessarily these great degrees just to to get you in the door so if you don't have an undergrad degree make sure you have a great github page you got some code samples and you're able to crush a technical interview because that would be I would love to interview somebody I could do that that'd be really fun similarly question does it matter which college or university I went to I'm similar to the last question and I don't think so from my perspective again engineering is very merit-based so if you went to you know does your college that's cool if you went to UMass that's cool if you went to MIT that's cool if you have an engineering degree from any from any place you have pretty much put your own level foot on equal footing when I look at your resume I'm not gonna like see that somebody went to MIT and give them a gold star in my head or anything like that it's more about what else do you have on your resume that's gonna convince MIT you're going to be a strong worker and an asset to the team so again if you well did you say if you spent a lot of money on an undergrad degree expecting that it was going to give you a leg up maybe it did from a technic technically you were more driven and you had great teachers and things like that but when your resume comes across the desk all things are equal so unfortunately you're not going to get much of an advantage there from my perspective that's it and I hope that's helpful for people who are putting together their resume in general keep it short keep it focused and keep in mind who's who's gonna be reading it they're gonna be reading a dozen to a dozen two dozen in resumes trying to figure out who they should bring in for an interview so how can you make your standout how can you show that you're technically capable engineering is a technical discipline so show things you've worked in show your projects and make sure you can talk to all of it in an interview because you will be poked down on things on your resume hope that's helpful if it's helpful for you to get yourself in the door and you found this video helpful and you found content on nambwe it helpful consider becoming a patreon I created a patreon page recently and for some support there so I really appreciate it if you check that out it's on the link to this video and become a supporter for me thanks very much

Channel: nandland

Views: 11,093

Keywords: resume, job, interview, fpga, tips, tricks, cv, engineer

Id: EIvU4-MYFaE

Length: 11min 16sec (676 seconds)

Published: Sun Jan 20 2019