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Writing an engineering CV that gets shortlisted
Projects over adjectives: how to turn coursework, placements and society work into evidence employers actually score.
Engineering recruiters skim hundreds of near-identical CVs. The ones that get shortlisted share a habit: they show evidence, not adjectives.
Lead with projects
Your most persuasive material is what you've built. For each significant project — final-year project, placement, society build, hackathon — give:
- What it was and your specific role
- The technical challenge and how you approached it
- The outcome, quantified where possible ("reduced weight by 18%", "cut cycle time from 40s to 25s")
One well-described project beats a paragraph of "strong problem-solving skills".
Make the technical real
List tools, methods and standards you've genuinely used — CAD packages, MATLAB, FEA, specific manufacturing processes — but only ones you can discuss in an interview. A skills list you can't back up is a liability.
Tailor to the discipline
A CV for a mechanical design role and one for a controls role should foreground different projects. Read the job description, mirror its language where it's honest to, and put the most relevant evidence first.
The fundamentals still count
- One to two pages, clean and scannable.
- A 2:1 or relevant module grades visible if they're strong (some schemes accept a 2:2 with an accredited degree).
- No typos — in engineering, attention to detail is part of the assessment.
Treat the CV as a small engineering problem: known constraints, a clear objective, and evidence-led decisions. That mindset shows.