Civil Engineer Resume Sample & Writing Guide

Our Civil Engineer resume sample below is comprehensively constructed to give you that extra edge in creating a resume document.

Civil Engineers are responsible for a wide range of functionalities such as construction, maintenance, planning and designing of infrastructure and building facilities projects. These include bridges, railroads, airports, bridges, harbors, channels, water systems, dams, pipelines, roads, power plants, irrigation sewage systems.

In this write up you will find advice, guidelines and examples to help you create a noteworthy resume filled will all the right information, credentials, accomplishments and job descriptions to grab the attention of hiring managers.

Civil Engineer Resume Sample

(Free sample downloads are at the bottom of this page)

Civil Engineer Resume Writing Guide

Resume Sections

1. Contact Information: First

• First Name
• Last Name
• Address
• Mobile Number
• Email Address
• LinkedIn/Alt channels

2. Profile Summary:
This should be a compelling introduction to your resume in paragraph format (4-6 lines) laying the foundation for the rest of your resume. The profile summary provides a snapshot of your experience, core competencies/strengths, and certifications (See examples below).

3. Qualifications:
Jobs for Civil Engineers typically require Bachelor Degrees in Engineering or Engineering technology with one of the civil engineering disciplines as a major subject.

4. Relevant Civil Engineering Experience:
Provide accurate details regarding your work history in reverse chronological order (most recent first). If you have less than five years’ experience, feel free to include details about your apprenticeship/in-service duration as well. Bullet points are best because they are easier to read and improves the visual format and layout of your resume.

5. Other Employment Experience:
Here, you may want to include projects or work history outside of the formal Civil Engineering Sector field, particularly if you are applying for your first job.

6. Skills Summary/Key Skills:
kills are the impact players of your resume. Make sure that you include technical, physical, and soft skills throughout your resume document for extra report and credibility.

7. Education/Licenses/Certifications/Relevant Coursework/Training:
The Civil Engineering field is regulated stringently, which may entail certain licensing requirements and certifications you need to have. These include firstly taking a Fundamentals of Engineering (FE) Examination to become an Engineer in Training (EIT) and then a CE (Civil Engineer). Civil Engineers who progress into senior management roles need to obtain a Professional Engineering (PE) license.

What to Highlight in a Civil Engineer Resume

Whether you work on commercial construction sites, residential buildings, design railroad infrastructure or plan the schematics around a power plant commissioning, recruiters and hiring managers would like to ‘’see’’ if you are competent for the job at hand, not play assumption games regarding your skills and capabilities.

Firstly, tell them what type of Civil Engineer you are. Civil engineers work on several complex projects, so they usually focus on one specific civil discipline.

• Construction:
  Engineers that manage construction projects, ensuring that they are scheduled and built in accordance with the plans and specifications. They are typically responsible for the design and safety of temporary structures used during construction.
• Geotechnical:
  These Civil Engineers work with the foundations of buildings, tunnels, and bridges to ensure structural soundness and strength. They also design plans that compensate for slopes, retaining walls, and potential shifting in earth ground structures (think landslides).
• Structural:
  Civil Engineers specializing in structural design will assess the ruggedness, flexibility, durability, and holding the capacity of structures such as dams, buildings, bridges, and tunnels and ensure they adhere to relevant compliance standards.
• Transportation:
  The job of a Civil Engineer qualified in the transportation discipline includes planning, designing, operating and maintaining everyday transportation systems for example roads, highways, airports, rail stations, mass transit systems, and harbors.

Now that you have explained which type on Civil Engineer you are, it's time to elaborate on what you do in a typical day. The functional purpose of a Civil Engineer is divided into Analysis and Assessment, Standard Design or Innovation and Problem Solution. Let's unpack these in a bit more detail to help you in showcasing the purpose of your job (and previous positions):

• Analysis and Assessment involve securities and verification of structural soundness, safety adherence, and also to point out problematic areas of concern, subsequently suggesting solutions to address issues. For instance, you may be tasked with inspecting an old bridge and write a recommendation on whether it should be demolished and rebuilt, or if maintenance work is required to increase its longevity.
• Design Work entails drafting plans, creating drawings and crafting scenarios regarding the building and construction of a new highway, storm drainage system retail mall or tunnel pipeline.
• Innovation and Solution activities are probably most exciting (and risky too!). Civil Engineers, in this case, would identify problems and then come up with innovative suggestions to solve these problems, create test proposals, and then implement projects should the test proposals deem to be successful. For example, utilizing a more dexterous design to improve the holding capacity of new bridges being built or use alternative concrete compounds that is more resistant to continuous water flows in, for instance, harbors and ports.

Next to follow is the scope of the projects you have worked on. Think facts and figures here and provide project dollar values, time frames, sizing (square meters) and environment (underwater, underground, feet above ground). Also mention if you were part of groundbreaking/pioneering innovation projects (first high rise to exceed 200 meters, first high-speed train system in Africa.)

Lastly, Civil Engineers work irregular hours and in adverse conditions, often accumulating numerous hours of overtime too. Standing on your feet for long periods, climbing into shafts 1 mile below ground or being elevated midair is often part of the job. Potential employers would like to see that you have the grit, endurance, and physical stamina to withstand environmental pressures and well as the physical demands (climbing, hoisting, lifting, pulling, maneuvering) of the job.

Tools & Tech

Civil Engineers in the 4^th Industrial Revolution are subjected to numerous challenges regarding complexities from the drafting table and also at the ground sites of the projects they are responsible for. “Tech savviness” is a must-have feature in the skills arsenal of a civil engineer. Potential employers would place a high emphasis on the technologies you are familiar with. Use a skills matrix to highlight them:

Civil Engineer Career Summary & Examples

A resume summary or objective can be quite tedious to write….too much detail, and you may bore the reader, too little, and they may form the wrong perception regarding your fit for the role. A resume summary serves a specific purpose: to quickly and effectively communicate your proven and potential value add to an employer. See this as your own personal branding statement.

Considering that you are a Civil Engineer lets tackle your summary script by using a staged approach:

• Stage 1: Spearhead with a strong personal trait/verb and then job title
• Stage 2: Indicate years of experience by the number
• Stage 3: Main purpose of your job intertwined with two pertinent competencies (or outstanding qualities)
• Stage 4: Mention highest degree, certification or qualification attained
• Stage 5: Read out loud and make sure it takes less than 30 seconds

Examples of Civil Engineer Career Summaries:

Career Summary 1

Highly meticulous Civil Engineer with proven physics and mathematics background and proven experience in design projects. An AutoCAD connoisseur with ten years of experience in multi-million dollar infrastructure projects. Currently completing a Doctorate in Structural Engineering.

Career Summary 2

Innovation inspired Civil Engineer with five years of experience in creating green environmental solutions for new residential building projects. Number conscientious and driven by a desire to improve quality, cost, and time metrics across all projects under management. Completed a Bachelor of Science in Geotechnical Engineering and currently in the process of completing the Professional Engineering (PE) exam.

Career Summary 3

Licensed Civil Engineer with more than a decade of experience in solution design for railroad infrastructure projects. Fully adept in AutoCAD 3D, Civil 3D, Revit, Bluebeam and Reality Capture. Well versed in scheduling and project management software. Recently acquired Autodesk Certified Professional accreditation.

Civil Engineer Job Descriptions, Responsibilities and Duties

The career progression of a civil engineer is quantified by specific stages which provides standardization to job titles and experience levels

Examples

A Civil Engineer Stage I (0-2 Years Experience) may:

• Upgrade annual, quarterly and monthly project schedules on Suretrak and distribute to Project Manager
• Write memos and appraise monthly expenditure bill before submitting to a government office for approval
• Assist with feasibility studies and draft schematic planning of excavation sites
• Assist with civil design work for commercial infrastructure projects
• Check calculations of structural design for concrete material requirements relating to beams, columns, and foundations
• Coordinate construction activities between Senior Civil Engineers and Site Managers

A Civil Engineer Stage II (2-4 Years Experience) may:

• Assisting construction manager on mainly sewage rehabilitation and bridge widening projects over 50 million dollars
• Responsible for initial valuations of 10 project sites per month with accompanied damage survey reporting
• Evaluate flow impairment to waterways in the new metropolitan area and conduct risk reporting and projected damage control expenditure in case of extensive flooding or hurricanes
• Produce draft cost estimation reports for each site area using detailed location maps using ArcGIS
• Act as a community liaison to inform public and municipal agencies of upcoming projects that may affect access to roads in the area

A Civil Engineer Stage III (4-7 Years Experience) may:

• Focus on designing solutions for monitoring water usage for rehabilitation projects conducted by mines in the area
• Responsible for surge analysis and mitigation designs
• Conduct required validation studies by building models to perform calibration and comparison activities simultaneously
• Create master plans for all stormwater infrastructure upgrades by collating draft plans from the junior engineers of the various project sites
• Design environmental efficient (green) water and sewer mains for six new gated estates

A Civil Engineer Stage IV (7 years and beyond) may:

• Chief Civil Engineer in charge of design projects for breakwaters, beach restoration, harbor refurbishment, and other coastal structures detailed design of harbors, breakwaters, revetments, beach restoration projects, confined disposal facilities, and various coastal structures
• Utilize overtopping, wave diffraction transformation and refraction modeling to assist with beach restoration
• Implemented an automation system in several coastal design engineering procedures and subsequent application of segmented offshore breakwaters along the west coast
• Responsible for managing a team of 9 Civil Engineers, four engineering technicians and two drafters executing structural design solutions for industrial infrastructure projects

Highlight Your Accomplishments

Under your accomplishment section, you may be tempted to merely a list of your most important functions performed. There is a drawback to this – mediocrity. Your accomplishment section should be written in such a way that a tired recruiter immediately sits upright and a hiring manager re-reads through your accomplishments two times over. Pack a punch and get their attention. How to do it? Think facts, numbers quantification.

Examples:

• Project lead on excavation consulting projects of between 400 million and 900 million
• Instrumental in excavation and backfill activities generating 30% more contaminated material in half the estimated time frame which decreased rehabilitation time frame by 40% and slashed costs by 23%
• Consulting Engineer on more than 400 complex building projects including sports stadiums, apartment complexes, industrial buildings, and luxury hotels
• Replaced Excel scheduling with Snap Schedule which generated a 30% uptick in work output and decreased third-party labor costs by 25% during the last six months

What happened here is that we transformed flat simple generic duties into action-packed, unique statements pitching benefits in the form of money, improvements, and reliability (critical terms in the mind of a hiring manager)

Civil Engineer Education Section

There are numerous educational career paths for Civil Engineers as we have discussed at the beginning of our resume guide, but regardless of the field chosen, all aspiring civil engineers need to jump through the same hoops about education, accreditation and licensing.

• Bachelors from an ABET-accredited engineering program
• Completing the Fundamentals of Engineering (FE) exam
• At least four years of working experience under a licensed engineer
• Passing the Professional Engineering (PE) exam

List your Engineering Education as follows:

Start and completion date of qualification, then qualification name, institution, and city, followed by abbreviated state name, with commencement date and completion date for diplomas, associate degrees, and bachelor degrees.

Here are some examples of education for a Civil Engineer’s Resume:

2019 – Professional Engineering (PE) Exam, National Council of Examiners for Engineering and Surveying (NCEES), Seneca, South Carolina

2018 – AutoCAD Level II, CAD Masters Inc., Walnut Creek, CA

2016 – Advanced Civil 3D and Reality Capture, CAD Masters Inc., Sacramento, CA

2016 – AutoCAD, Civil 3D, Revit, Beamworks and Navisworks, Applied Software Training Center, Atlanta, GA

2015, Masters of Science in Civil Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA
Achieved Summa Cum Laude
Majors: Geotechnical Engineering, Soil Composition, Geology

2011 – 2014 Bachelor of Science in Civil Engineering, California State University, Los Angeles, CA
GPA of 3.75
Curriculum: Construction Planning, Engineering of Earth Structures, Advanced Construction Methods, and Techniques
Overall Top performer in Construction Planning

 

Civil Engineer Resume Skills

The Construction field requires specific technical skills, physical abilities, and personal traits. A skills matrix is a great tool to provide prospective hiring managers with an instant view of your capabilities and ‘’value add”. Go for a 10/10/10 spread as per the example below:

Incorporate these skills into your summary, or profile, and your accomplishment statements to set a professional tone throughout.

Qualifications/Certifications associated with Civil Engineers

Action Verbs for your Civil Engineer Resume

Professional Information on Civil Engineers

Sectors: Construction, Building, Engineering, Infrastructure, Transportation, Water & Sewage, Environmental
Career Type:  Engineering, Planning, Design & Programming, Evaluating, Evaluation & Assessment, Building & Construction, Project Implementation & Execution, Product Development, Research
Person type:  Leader, Designer, Planner, Executor, Implementer, Analyzer, Inspector
Education levels: Bachelor Degrees to Doctorate Degrees
Salary Indication:

Labor market: Estimated 11% between 2016 – 2026 (USA Bureau of Labor Statistics)
Organizations: Various

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