Hi, it's time for a walk time rant. Haven't done a walk time rant in a a long time. Uh, this one comes from the Eev blog forum. You should be on the Ev blog forum because that's where everyone hangs out and chats about all sorts of stuff.

This one comes from Maurice. So good day, Maurice. He's an engineering student junior year or something. whatever that means.

I don't know yankee stuff and he's a bit concerned about being able to get an intern, an engineering, um, internship. and well, it's not surprising because there's a lot of competition when you're A when you graduate, or even before you graduate and you get like you want to go for those work experience jobs or those internships or whatever it is that you want to get. There's a ton of competition out there. how do you stand out? So he wants to know what'll improve the chances of getting that sort of internship.

So he wants to know whether like, uh, you know online courses might be the thing or whether or not, uh, doing your own stuff is a thing. And well, let's go through it. Online courses? Okay, but not really. I mean, no one's going to care.

Engineering's a vocational field and you have to show off like stuff you can do. That's all that matters. No one's going to care that you've done some course on something really that doesn't help you stand out really at all. Um, from anyone else, especially when there's dozens or hundreds of applications.

I've uh, interviewed countless people over the years for various engineering jobs. and like, I've literally had to sort through hundreds of resumes. Yes, they're on the wrong side of the road here in Australia. So anyway, um, yeah, sort through hundreds of resumes just for one job.

so you've got to stand out. And the way you do. that is, of course, by being showing off that you've done your own projects and online courses and things like that. Adding padding your resume with various things like that might be okay, but it's not going to be the killer thing that's going to land you that job.

The first thing is going to be your enthusiasm, of course. So if you show that you're really enthusiastic, then, well, that's going to help a lot, especially when you get to the job interview things like that, but that's hard to come across on your resume, but not impossible to come across if you link to things that you've published. for example. uh, whether it be like a wordpress blog or something, youtube videos, and things like that, if you show that you're actually producing content and stuff like that, then well, that shows that you're super enthusiastic about this sort of stuff and that's going to make you stand out.

Like guaranteed, you'll get top of the pile. So the first thing you got to do is find out what interests you, because if you're not interested in the stuff that you're working on, then there's probably no point because you're not going to be enthusiastic about it. you're probably not going to finish it so you know it's just not going to work out. So find what subjects and areas interest you and don't say oh, I don't know.

Shrug your shoals. I don't know what interests me like what videos do you uh, naturally watch on Youtube or other things? What in the what engineering type stuff do you typically watch? That's what you're going to be naturally interested in. So work on projects like that. And of course, these days it's trivial to do really advanced projects and cheap as well.

Like when I was a graduate when I was a kid. Like doing something like a four-layer board that was mind-blowing like that was so expensive. Now it's nothing you can be doing. eight layer boards.

You can be doing really advanced projects using some of the most advanced chips and and technologies and things like that mind-blowing stuff for bugger all cost. I mean, it's just incredible what you can do these days. Really advanced projects. So should you work on your own project from scratch? Well, that's preferable, but you know it's going to take a lot of effort.

like could take six to nine months to develop your own project and really polish it and things like that. So I'd probably recommend starting off at least by taking an existing open source project for example, in some sort of area of interest for you and then just not not just building it up. That's a bit lame, but it's better than nothing. But then you'll have something to show at your interview.

And number one rule of interviews is bring stuff. If you don't bring stuff, you're not going to get to the top of the pile. So even if you just build up a kit or something like that, at least you can show that you built something soldered that you're enthusiastic. All that sort of stuff.

Don't take an existing, off the shelf open source project and modify it in some way, add something you know, add some new features to it hardware software wise. and a lot of open source hardware projects like they don't come in a nice box. so maybe you can like relay out the board or something to put it in like a nice case and show that you can like do the more, uh, polished engineering type stuff to finish off a project, not just build up prototypes. That's okay, but then you can finish it off and actually build it into a really nice case.

that'll be a winner. So there's absolutely no excuse for not like having your own projects to show off. But as I said, publish them. Don't forget that magazines are still out there.

Get published in the magazines that'll just blow somebody away that you're Oh gee, Look, they're published in, you know, Diode Magazine or something like that. When are we like chicken dinner? It's as true as it was 30 years ago for me, getting published as it would be for you. Now it's exactly the same. So yes, get those projects published.

Uh, whether I highly recommend like youtube videos so people can see what you're on about. But if you're not very good on camera, you're not very good with voiceover or something. Well, just like put a lot of effort into publishing and documenting stuff. Documentation is fantastic.

If you show people that you can document stuff that's a very valuable skill in the industry, A lot of people just like can't do it. They're crap at it. If you can show that, you're really good at documentation, Wow, that's going to be great. So that's how you stand out from everyone else doing your own stuff, showing it off in some way, not just because it's one hurdle already to get to the interview.

So it's great if you build up your projects and stuff like that and you get to the interview, you can show them off. But if you can't even get to the interview because, well, you haven't communicated well on your resume or something like that. But if you put right up the top of your resume links to like your blog to your youtube channel or whatever, I guarantee they're going to check it out. The first thing I look at if I see a resume, they've worked on their own projects.

Wow. Okay, I'm going to go check them out or or if I'm just you know, doing my first pass through the uh, the pile of 100 resumes or whatever right that one goes to the i'll take a second look uh, pile and most of them are just garbage. Most they just you know the uh, well, the Hr droids. That's a different thing.

I've done a video on how to avoid Hr droids. don't go through the Hr organizations, go around them. anyway. I've done a video on that I'll link in where I mentioned that.

So yeah, I've done various uh job interview tips before where I'll link those in as well. but this one is more specifically about uh. Maurice's situation and but you know it's still in still doing their course and they're a bit worried that they won't be able to get their internship and they don't have anything to show for it. They don't have any way to stand out.

It's so easy to stand out these days. Yes, it's going to require effort. It's not easy. You know what? Spend the next three months six months working on just one project.

All you need is like one really good one that you've contributed to. It's good to like contribute to open source hardware projects, but I'd I'd probably you know you can just write down look I contributed or you could do photos document everything. That's the thing about it so that you have a link that you can actually point people to to show off your content and show you this. I don't know what's happening with this building, but uh, geez.

Check it out. They're really gutting that thing. Not sure what's going on there anyway. I hope that's uh.

answered Maurice's question anyway and given others some food for thought about how to stand out from the rest of the pack because you don't just want to graduate with your degree and have nothing else to show for it. Whoopty. Do. Nobody cares if you've got the university medal.

Woohoo! Nobody cares if you've done these other online courses. Really, it might help a little bit. But yeah, no. generally nobody cares.

What have you done. Engineering is about. What have you done. What can you do? What problems can you solve? How can you help them out? That's what it's all about.

So anyway, I hope you found that useful. If you did, please give it a big thumbs up. As always, discuss down below: catch you next time.