Graduate Engineer
Calculations, drawings and supervised site work. Show the systems you helped with and the tools you used, not just the modules you studied.
Job role · Engineering
Electrical Engineer CV writing
An Electrical Engineer CV is filtered first on specialism and voltage level. Power, building services, controls and electronics hire different people, and recruiters decide which one you are before they read your bullets.
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Quick answer
An Electrical Engineer CV should open with your specialism, the voltage levels you work on and the standards you design to, because those are the first filters. Power, building services, controls and electronics roles are recruited separately. After that, show the studies, systems and commissioning you owned, with sizes such as kVA, I/O count or project value, and the safety authorisations you hold.
Overview
Electrical Engineer covers substation and grid engineers, MEP designers working on buildings, controls and automation engineers programming PLCs, and electronics engineers designing boards. The common thread is the physics, and very little else transfers without explanation. A strong CV makes the specialism, the voltage range and the standards obvious in the first few lines.
What employers screen for
What a Electrical Engineer CV has to prove.
- Specialism: power, building services, controls and automation, or electronics
- Voltage levels worked on, LV, MV or HV, and the equipment involved
- Standards and wiring regulations worked to, such as IEC, IEEE, NEC or BS 7671
- Design tools and study software in current use
- Safety authorisation, permit-to-work responsibility and competent person status
- Project values, installed capacity or system size
Positioning
How to position the CV.
Name the specialism and voltage range in the summary, then list the standards. For design roles, show the calculations and studies you owned, such as load flow, short circuit or cable sizing. For site and commissioning roles, show the systems you energised and the safety responsibility you held. An overseas employer reads the standards line to decide how much retraining you would need.
Skills worth naming
- Power system studies: load flow, short circuit and protection coordination
- LV and MV distribution design
- Cable sizing and lighting design in tools like ETAP, DIALux or Amtech
- PLC and SCADA programming
- Testing and commissioning
- AutoCAD Electrical or EPLAN
- Earthing, lightning protection and protection relays
- Electrical safety and permit-to-work systems
Keywords an ATS looks for
Use these where they are true. Keywords carry weight when the experience behind them is visible, and none at all when they are stacked in a list.
- electrical engineer
- power distribution
- AutoCAD Electrical
- ETAP
- PLC
- testing and commissioning
- protection coordination
- MEP
Achievement examples
What a strong bullet looks like.
These are written in the shape a Electrical Engineer bullet should take: the situation, the decision, and what moved. Use them as a pattern, never as text to copy.
- 01
Designed LV distribution for a 180-bed hospital, including standby generation and UPS for critical care areas, to IEC standards and local authority requirements.
- 02
Ran protection coordination studies in ETAP for a 33/11kV substation upgrade, resolving two nuisance-tripping faults that had caused four outages the previous year.
- 03
Programmed and commissioned PLC and SCADA control for a water treatment plant with 140 I/O points, handing over two weeks ahead of programme.
- 04
Replaced fluorescent lighting across three warehouses with an LED and sensor scheme, cutting lighting energy use by 58% with a payback of 2.1 years.
Electrical Engineer Positioning
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Seniority
What changes as you move up.
Electrical Engineer
Owning design packages or commissioning activities, with your name on calculations and test sheets.
Senior Electrical Engineer
Reviewing others' designs, coordinating with other disciplines, and holding safety authorisation on site.
Lead or Principal Engineer
Design authority for a project or asset base, client-facing technical decisions, and responsibility for the standards applied.
Mistakes
What costs Electrical Engineer candidates interviews.
- No voltage levels stated, which is the first thing a power employer checks
- Mixing controls, power and electronics experience without saying which one you are targeting
- Listing standards from memory rather than the ones you actually designed to
- Commissioning described as "involved in testing" with no systems named
- Omitting safety authorisations that the target employer treats as essential
FAQ
Electrical Engineer CV questions
What should an electrical engineer put in a CV summary?
An electrical engineer's CV summary should state your specialism, years of experience, voltage range, sectors and the standards you work to, in three or four lines. A building services engineer, for example, might name hospitals and commercial towers, LV design and BS 7671. Skip adjectives like motivated or detail-oriented, since the recruiter is scanning for scope.
Which software should I list on an electrical engineering CV?
List the software your target specialism actually uses, and say what you did with it. Power engineers usually need ETAP, PowerFactory or similar study tools. Building services designers use AutoCAD, Revit MEP and cable-sizing or lighting tools. Controls engineers name the PLC platforms, such as Siemens or Allen-Bradley. A list without context reads as familiarity rather than competence.
Will employers abroad understand my electrical engineering experience?
They will if you name the standards and systems clearly, because that is how they judge transferability. If you worked to IEC standards, say so, since many countries base their national standards on them. Professional recognition and any licence to carry out electrical work are separate processes run by bodies in each country, so check those on the official source.
How do I show testing and commissioning experience on my CV?
Name the systems, their size and your role in testing them. "Commissioned 11kV switchgear and two 2MVA transformers, including insulation resistance and protection relay testing" tells an employer far more than "involved in commissioning". Add the test documentation you signed, any safety authorisation you held, and whether you handed over on programme.
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