Mechanical Engineer Skills for a Resume
Companies hire mechanical engineers who design parts and products that work, can be made and stand up to testing. Show your design tools, analysis and methods, and results in cost, weight, reliability or time to market.
Updated
13 skills at a glance
Hard skills
What the work takes, how a hiring manager judges each skill, and a bullet point that shows it.
CAD (SolidWorks, Creo, CATIA, Inventor)
Name the software and what you designed in it.
Example bullet pointDesigned injection-molded housings and sheet-metal brackets in SolidWorks for a consumer product.
Finite element analysis
Show analyses that changed a design.
Example bullet pointUsed FEA to remove material from a bracket, cutting its weight by 30% while keeping its safety factor.
GD&T
Show drawings whose tolerances reduced cost or problems in production.
Example bullet pointApplied GD&T to critical features, reducing parts rejected at the supplier.
Design for manufacturing and assembly
Show the part counts or costs you reduced.
Example bullet pointRedesigned an assembly from 14 parts to 8, cutting assembly time by 40%.
FMEA
Show risks you found and fixed before launch.
Example bullet pointLed a design FMEA for a pump and added a feature that prevented its highest-risk failure.
Prototyping and testing
Show your test plans and what they proved.
Example bullet pointBuilt 3D-printed prototypes and ran drop and thermal tests before ordering tooling.
Materials selection
Show choices that improved cost, weight or durability.
Example bullet pointSwitched a part from aluminum to glass-filled nylon, saving $2 a unit without losing strength.
MATLAB or Python
Show the calculations or tools you built.
Example bullet pointWrote a Python tool to size springs and check stresses, used by the whole design team.
Soft skills
Shown through what you did, never claimed as adjectives.
Problem solving
Describe a technical problem you solved, and how.
Example bullet pointFound the cause of field failures in a hinge by testing returned units, and fixed it with a new material.
Clear technical writing
Show reports, specifications or instructions people used.
Example bullet pointWrote test reports and assembly instructions used by suppliers and the factory.
Teamwork across functions
Show work with manufacturing, suppliers or quality.
Example bullet pointWorked with the factory and suppliers to take a new product from prototype to production in nine months.
Attention to detail
Show errors you caught in drawings or tests.
Example bullet pointCaught a tolerance stack-up error in a drawing review before tooling was ordered.
Curiosity
Show something you investigated or learned that improved a design.
Example bullet pointStudied competitors' products to find cheaper ways to seal an enclosure.
Licenses and certifications
Give them a section of their own, with who issued each one and the year or expiry date.
- Professional Engineer (PE)
- Engineer in Training (EIT) or Fundamentals of Engineering (FE)
- Certified SolidWorks Professional (CSWP)
- Lean Six Sigma Green Belt
Keywords from mechanical engineer job postings
Use the ones that are true for you, in your bullet points as well as your skills list.
- SolidWorks
- finite element analysis
- GD&T
- prototypes
- cost
- design reviews
- production
- suppliers
- fixtures
Each posting has its own words. Our guide to tailoring your resume to a job description shows how to find them and where to put them.
Where to put your skills
- In a skills section: a short list of the hard skills the posting names, in its words.
- In your bullet points: every skill that matters should show up in something you did, with a result. That is where a hiring manager believes it.
- In your summary: two or three of the skills the job asks for most.
More on choosing them in how to choose and prove the skills on your resume.
Questions
What skills should a mechanical engineer put on a resume?
CAD, FEA, GD&T, design for manufacturing, FMEA, prototyping and testing, materials selection and MATLAB or Python, plus problem solving and clear technical writing.
How do I show engineering results?
Use numbers: weight or cost saved, parts removed, failures prevented and time to production.
Should I list a PE license or EIT?
Yes, in a licenses section. It matters most in consulting, energy and public-sector work.
Put them to work
Start from a mechanical engineer resume that already uses these skills, for an invented person, and make it yours in the builder.