As an engineer working in the construction sector, you’ll use your skills and experience to evaluate many aspects of the construction workflow. For example, you’ll need to be able to assess the structural and electrical plans of a project, manage the budget, and decide which contractors or subcontractors are needed and when. With such a broad role scope, it can be difficult to arrange all of your skills and qualifications into a successful CV. Here are several tips to help you get started, but you may also benefit from reading through some construction engineer CV examples as well.
Begin With a Strong Personal Profile
Start your CV with a personal profile that highlights all the key points of your CV in a few sentences. This section should be placed just below your header, and it should include your current job title as well as the job title and the name of the company that you are applying to. Use your personal profile to highlight your most impressive experience, skills, education details, and accomplishments.
The goal of a personal profile is to capture the attention of the hiring manager and convince them to continue reading the rest of your CV. It allows the hiring manager to quickly get an idea of what you have to offer—it’s your first and most important opportunity to impress them.
Highlight Your Specific Construction Engineer Experience
There are many different types of engineering work, so it’s important to highlight experience that you have within the construction industry specifically when you are listing work experience on your CV. Within your work experience section, be sure to include bullet points for each relevant past or current role. In the bullet points, focus on your achievements in addition to your job duties. Show how well you handle your responsibilities and the positive outcomes created by your work. Use action verbs to breathe life into your accomplishments and present your career as something that you have created rather than something that has happened passively to you.
Include Hard and Soft Skills
List both your relevant hard and soft skills on your CV. Hard skills are more technical, job-specific skills while soft skills are often intangible, more difficult to teach and assess, and not specific to any one job. For example, your hard skills might include expertise with design and rendering software, map and schematic creation, autoCAD expertise, and so forth. Pertinent soft skills might include management expertise, the ability to multitask, communication skills, etc. Both types of skills are important to hiring managers and listing your strengths in this way helps show that you are well-rounded.
Showcase Your Certifications
Finally, be sure to prominently list any relevant certifications that speak to your expertise as an engineer, your qualifications to work in the construction industry, and so forth. Hiring managers will see that you’ve taken the initiative to earn these types of certifications, and they lend credence to your experience.
