Industry

BME Resume Samples General Resume Samples

Primary Goal

The primary goal of your resume is to get to the interview process!

• Relevant - Demonstrate that you have the skills they are looking for and the capability to do the job or be trained to do the job (especially for entry level positions).

• Tailored - Carefully read the job posting and tailor your resume for that job.  Some people maintain multiple resumes if they are looking for multiple job types.

• Comprehensive - Engineers need to have technical skills at a minimum, but include experiences that show you also have other interpersonal, leadership, and teamwork skills.

Formatting 

Formatting your resume effectively can be key to an employer seeing your value!

• Templates - Do not download templates off the internet!  Use a format that can easily be manipulated as your resume will significantly change over the next few years.  We recommend creating the resume in a document from scratch even if you are copying another format you've seen elsewhere.

• Placement - Readers scan down the left side of the page first.  If you have a high GPA, make sure it appears on the left.  If there are critical skills required and you have them, put them on the left, etc.

• Styles - Format the page so the most important things “pop” off the page. Use your formatting consistently and purposefully, especially when using bold, italics and underlining.

• Fonts - Don’t use the standard MS Word font, Calibri – its not visually appealing and it takes up too much vertical space.  Times New Roman or Garamond are better choices.

• Font Size - Use a font size large enough to read easily.  11 is a good guideline, but it also depends on the font you choose. If using Times New Roman, 10.5 is the minimum!

Sections

The sections you include on your resume depend on your experiences and the skills you want to highlight.  Some possibilities include:

• Name/Contact Information

• Summary/Profile

• Education

• Work Experience

• Research Experience

• Relevant Experience

• Engineering Project Experience

• Leadership Experience

• Activities/Community Involvement (sometimes combined with Leadership)

• Skills (or Skills & Relevant Coursework)

• Honors/Awards (sometimes included in Education section to save space)

Content

How to present your experiences on your Resume:

• Bullet points - Present your experience and position yourself as a professional rather than a student

• Order - Place experiences in reverse chronological order within each section

• Design - Organize sections strategically to make sure most important experiences appear first

• Self-focused - Don’t use your resume and bullet points to talk about the company, the lab or who you worked for. Your resume should focus on what you did and accomplished and how you did it.

• Strong - Each bullet point should start with a strong action verb.  As you are writing, ask yourself:

  • • Am I showing a result or accomplishment?

    • Am I showing how I carried out a task?

    • Can I quantify the task or accomplishment?

    • What skills am I demonstrating in this bullet?

    • Am I organizing my information strategically?
      
      

High Value Experiences to Boost your Resume:

On Campus Activities/Organizations:

• The Helping Hand Club

• CATCH (Carolina Adapts Toys for Children)

• Biomedical Devices Club

• SWE – Society for Women Engineers

• BME Ambassadors

• Engineering Grand Challenges

• Career Fair Assistants

• Maker Space Involvement

• BMES

Research:

• • Abrams and Lucas Fellowship Programs

  • SURF

  • Summer REU Programs

  • Volunteer or Paid Research On or Off campus

Work Experiences:

• • Internships

  • Co-ops

  • Part-time jobs on or off campus

  • Teaching Assistant/Tutoring

  • Other summer jobs

Projects:

• • Design or other Course Projects

  • Individual Engineering-related Projects

Other Academic Experiences:

• • Business/Entrepreneurship courses

  • Study Abroad

Final Tips

• Tailored - Before you send your resume out for any job, read the job posting carefully.  Highlight what they are looking for and review your own resume to see what you might change, edit, and move around strategically to demonstrate you are a great candidate for that particular job.

• Self-made - Do not use AI to create or write your resume.  Use AI to improve descriptions, reduce wordiness, etc... but if you let AI do the hard work, the resume will likely not best represent you, your skills or your experiences.

• Error-free - Proofread your resume.  Do it again.  Then ask your roommate, a parent and/or your most Type A friend.  

• Detail-oriented - Follow exact instructions for resume submission in terms of file format, especially if submitting through an online system.  Unless otherwise instructed, include your name in the filename.

• Adaptable - Your resume, especially at this stage, is a living breathing document that will continue to evolve as you collect more experiences.  Keep updating it and use a format/template that makes it easy to do so

• Network - Meet as many people as you can, talk to them, be able to tell your story and what you want to do. Use LinkedIn.  You never know where the conversation will lead.

Why is networking important?

In today's world of online job and internship applications, it can be very tempting to create a resume, apply to dozens or even hundreds of opportunities and then sit back and wait for someone to respond and reach out with an interview or even a job offer.  But this often doesn't work very well because everyone else is doing the same thing and it's relatively easy.  It is difficult to stand out from the crowd and its very time consuming for employers and hiring managers to go through hundreds and thousands of job applications.  So they often rely on networking.  As you go through your time in college, the more networking and relationship building you engage in, the more opportunities you will become aware of and the more professionals will be aware of you!

What is networking?

So what exactly do we mean by "networking"? Everyone talks about it, but let's break down what it really means:

"Networking, in a professional or social context, refers to the process of building and maintaining relationships with other people to exchange information, advice, or support, and to potentially advance personal or professional goals. It involves connecting with individuals, often outside one's immediate circle, to expand one's knowledge, opportunities, and resources."

Networking Examples:

• Attend Career fair and other corporate events and talk to employers

• Get to know graduate students and post-docs in your research lab

• Use LinkedIn to connect with your peers and professors or contact alumni working at a company in a role that interests you

• Go to an academic conference and talk to people at the event

The Importance of Following Up:

One of the key aspects of any networking opportunity is to follow up!  In each of these scenarios, the critical step is to reconnect with the people you meet afterwards.  The easiest way to do this is to send them a connection on LinkedIn.  If you can recall a detail from your conversation with the person, mention that in your note to strategically remind them who you are and how they met you.

Top Networking Tips:

1. Become a regular user of LinkedIn.  

   • Set up your profile to "introduce" yourself to the professional world

   • Connect with your peers, professors, internship colleagues, research lab colleagues, family friends, etc...

   • Follow Companies, Industry Groups, Professional Groups, Academic Departments, Field Experts, etc... on Linked In so that their posts and activity populate your feed 

   • Reallocate some time to use LinkedIn on a daily basis so that you are staying on top of company and industry news as well as any announcements by your professional and personal connections.  (Including Job and Internship postings!)

   • Set up an internship or job search on LinkedIn to alert you to newly posted opportunities

   • Use the LinkedIn Alumni Tool to connect to BME/NC State/UNC Alumni.  This article walks you through it!
     
     

2. Attend in-person networking events.  This could be a local industry event, a career fair, a company presentation on campus, an academic conference, a research symposium, etc...and talk to people when you are there!  See the EVENTS & WORKSHOPS page with some local suggestions.
   
   

3. If you find the idea of in person networking intimidating, start small with low stakes situations.  Try starting conversations with strangers at Starbucks or the library, and see how it goes!  

Congratulations!  You've been offered an interview for an internship or job.  Now what?!?

Interviewing can be nerve-wracking, especially for those new to the process.  To quiet those nerves, go into the interview well prepared.  Here are our top tips:

1. When you are initially invited for an interview, ask who you will be interviewing with and whether the focus of the interview will be more behavioral or technical (unless it is clear from the invitation.). This will help you focus your preparation accordingly.
   
   

2. Research the company and the role you are interviewing for.  If possible, talk to someone (ideally an alum working in a similar role) who works at the company to get a feel for the culture and what you can expect.
   
   

3. Research YOURSELF!  That may sound silly, but knowing yourself, your experiences, your skills and what is on your resume and being able to talk about it with ease will help you answer questions authentically and turn an interview from a question-answer session into more of a professional conversation.  Understand exactly why you are a good fit for the job and be able to articulate that.
   
   

4. Be able to answer the question - "Tell me about yourself."  While this can feel like an opportunity to tell your life story, your answer should stay focused on the opportunity you are interviewing for and how your experience and skills align with it.  For example, focus on:

   • Why you are studying biomedical engineering 

   • What you like the most about it 

   • Why you're excited about this particular role; and 

   • The key skills or relevant experiences you have that make you a great fit.
     
     

5. If you are asked about your greatest weakness, choose something real that you can talk about authentically, but not something that is critical to the role you are interviewing for.  And try not to pick something that is obviously a strength ("I just work too hard").
   
   

6. When asked for an example of a conflict you had to manage, pick something from a professional or academic experience, not personal.
   
   

7. For video interviews, make sure your camera and audio are working and that you have a clean and organized background (or use a virtual one).  Test out any ear buds or headphones in advance as well.  Practice looking directly at the camera.
   
   

8. Its not often asked in university recruiting interviews, but be prepared for questions about your expected salary range.  If you are comfortable with what you would accept, you can share that with the interviewer.  You can also ask what they have budgeted for the role and go from there.

Job and Internship Search:

• ePack and Handshake

• NC Biotechnology Center Jobs Board

• Check out This List of COMPANIES that have hired our BME students in the past!

• Internship Postings 

• Full-Time Job Postings

Learn about Co-ops through the NC State Co-op Office

NC State Career Guide and Engineering Career Job Search Resources

• The NC State Career Guide is a 72-page document that covers every topic related to career planning for college students

Check out The Two Hour Job Search (2nd Ed.) by Steve Dalton

• This book lays out a specific process for how to identify opportunities, reach out to contacts, form productive connections and use networking and informational interviewing to get your foot in the door.

Below are a few more resources we recommend, depending on your needs and interests!

Want to learn more about BME Career Paths, Graduate School Programs, Professional Development topics and more?

• Listen to the BME Grad Podcast for insight and information on various career paths, engineering roles, BME related companies, BME graduate programs, professional development and much more!

• Attend workshops through the Pack Pros Series at the NCSU Career Development Center.

• Check out the Blog articles at Career Path Writing Solutions.

Still have questions or need help with your Resume, Cover Letter or Linked In Profile? Or have questions related to your Job Search?

• Meet with Colleen McGowan, BME Industry Advisor. 

• Schedule a meeting with Glenda Darrell, College of Engineering Career Counselor, and her team in the NCSU Career Development Center using the appointment tool in ePack

• Schedule an appointment with the UNC Career Center, including for mock interviews!

Want to meet other BME students and talk about Career Options and Job Search Strategies? 

• Attend a Coffee with Preston and Colleen.  Sign up at the link - additional dates are added throughout the semester!

Looking for additional ways to enhance your Educational Experience?

• Take BME 481 "Quality Management Systems for Engineers" as a senior

• Take E 490 "Fundamentals of Engineering (FE) Exam Preparation" if pursing a Professional Engineering license is of interest.