PCB Designing Software

[M.Zohaib Usman]

I was wondering which one of the PCB designing software is a must in professional field. I myself am a 3rd Year student and am fully aware of EasyEDA and a little bit of KiCAD. Should I Learn altium to make my Resume look better or anything? or does it even matter which software a person uses to design circuits as long as they know what theyre doing?

Thank you for Your time.

[james_s]

Altium is probably the best for your resume. KiCad is arguably the best choice for hobby/semi-pro use.

[Benta]

If this is just for your resume, forget it. No one is going to care.
Put "experience with CAD/CAM for design, simulation, schematics, PCB layout etc." That'll suffice.

Bloating a resume will put you in the paper bin. Do you really think someone is going to read a resume down to the last detail? HR and engineering heads have better things to do.

[Bassman59]

I was wondering which one of the PCB designing software is a must in professional field. I myself am a 3rd Year student and am fully aware of EasyEDA and a little bit of KiCAD. Should I Learn altium to make my Resume look better or anything? or does it even matter which software a person uses to design circuits as long as they know what theyre doing?

Thank you for Your time.

Just bring the bare PCB you designed to the interview.

[NorthernWing]

I was wondering which one of the PCB designing software is a must in professional field. I myself am a 3rd Year student and am fully aware of EasyEDA and a little bit of KiCAD. Should I Learn altium to make my Resume look better or anything? or does it even matter which software a person uses to design circuits as long as they know what theyre doing?

Thank you for Your time.

Just bring the bare PCB you designed to the interview.

This one's worked twice for me so far, stuffed one of the prettier looking boards from JLCPCB in the small folder of stuff I take along (resume, notepad, personal card) and have been asked about it every time.  Point is that the hiring managers are just other humans, and your projects/etc are probably going to be a lot more interesting to them than specific software on a resume.  People are different, your mileage may vary.

You'll probably get a lot of different answers to this one.  My opinion would be to call out what you already have experience with.  On one hand, I've seen Altium and Mentor Graphics PADS/DxDesigner used professionally; KiCAD/Eagle/DipTrace are essentially hobbyist packages unless it's a small startup.  On the other hand if you're competing with other graduates for an entry-level engineering position, I can see the value in listing what you've used specifically, because in my experience you'll often get something like "So I see you've used X for board design, what did you do with it?" and can take it from there.  You (probably) won't have professional experience to take up space, so anything that makes you stand out is good.

</thoughts>

[Benta]

Yeah, but the main hurdle is getting the interview. And a bloated resume will not get you there.

[voltsandjolts]

In the UK, the majority of EE jobs I have seen advertised that speciifically mention a CAD package, are mostly looking for Altium skills.
Is it essential - no. Plenty of other factors will be in play. If you can demonstrate skills in <whatever> package its a good start.
But if you are up against other folks with Altium experience, for a job at an Altium desk, then it's bonus points for them.

You could consider CircuitStudio (check the 30 day demo) as its very similar feel to Altium (with good stuff taken out).
Not sure I recommend to purchase it though, support for it from Altium seems poor for some reason.

[tooki]

If this is just for your resume, forget it. No one is going to care.
Put "experience with CAD/CAM for design, simulation, schematics, PCB layout etc." That'll suffice.

Bloating a resume will put you in the paper bin. Do you really think someone is going to read a resume down to the last detail? HR and engineering heads have better things to do.

I completely disagree. It is very common to see Altium experience required specifically.

With modern recruiting using a) recruiters who know nothing about the field and thus do simple keyword matching and/or b) software to do keyword matching before a resume ever reaches a human, it is spectacularly stupid to NOT include a list of software you are experienced with.

[tooki]

I was wondering which one of the PCB designing software is a must in professional field. I myself am a 3rd Year student and am fully aware of EasyEDA and a little bit of KiCAD. Should I Learn altium to make my Resume look better or anything? or does it even matter which software a person uses to design circuits as long as they know what theyre doing?

Thank you for Your time.

Since you can get free student licenses of Altium (and others) while you’re in school, IMHO you’d be stupid not to at least get some basic experience with it. One more thing you can list.

[perieanuo]

If this is just for your resume, forget it. No one is going to care.
Put "experience with CAD/CAM for design, simulation, schematics, PCB layout etc." That'll suffice.

Bloating a resume will put you in the paper bin. Do you really think someone is going to read a resume down to the last detail? HR and engineering heads have better things to do.

those days every rh has parsing tools for keyworgs like "altium"
there are rh's contacting me from france and telling me "we found you are experienced with mysql and mssql", you think this comes from your assumption
stupid rh don't read cv's, smart ones use those type of searching, you need to rethink your approach
half-page resume is for bill gates...

[NorthernWing]

Yeah, but the main hurdle is getting the interview. And a bloated resume will not get you there.

Sorry but I don't agree at all.  I don't see how listing CAD packages you have experience with as a graduate is 'bloat' - it's an applicable skill that other competing applicants may not have, and replacing that with a generic line that says "Yes, I can use software" is pointless.  It doesn't say anything meaningful, and is going to hurt you by removing keywords that might help you in the initial recruiter/software filter step.

Altium does give out free 4-year student licenses, or at least they used to... it's definitely worth the time to get one while you still can.  Even if you decide you don't want to list it anywhere, it's a good piece of software to have and understand since the workflow is pretty similar across all the enterprise CAD software.

[rsjsouza]

I fully agree with others about specifying the packages you have experience with - search and filtering automation is all the rage these days.

It is just like stating that you have experience with "software programming languages" or "software IDEs" instead of "experience with C/C++, Assembly, Java, Python, Visual Studio, Eclipse, blah, blah, blah..."

Also, as others have said: if you have access to licenses or stations at a university's lab, take the opportunity to learn the tool and make some projects with it. You won't regret it.

[Bassman59]

Since you can get free student licenses of Altium (and others) while you’re in school, IMHO you’d be stupid not to at least get some basic experience with it. One more thing you can list.

Are the "free student licenses" available directly from Altium or through the institution?

My wife works for the local Land Grant Research University and I had her check to see if Altium was on the list of software for which a school-wide site license is available, and she said, "nope!"

[Cerebus]

I fully agree with others about specifying the packages you have experience with - search and filtering automation is all the rage these days.

It is just like stating that you have experience with "software programming languages" or "software IDEs" instead of "experience with C/C++, Assembly, Java, Python, Visual Studio, Eclipse, blah, blah, blah..."

Also, as others have said: if you have access to licenses or stations at a university's lab, take the opportunity to learn the tool and make some projects with it. You won't regret it.

Yeah, you just put all the "keyword" type stuff in a neatly formatted list at the very end of your CV where humans don't have to read it, and HR droids keyword scanning software can.

[tooki]

Since you can get free student licenses of Altium (and others) while you’re in school, IMHO you’d be stupid not to at least get some basic experience with it. One more thing you can list.

Are the "free student licenses" available directly from Altium or through the institution?

My wife works for the local Land Grant Research University and I had her check to see if Altium was on the list of software for which a school-wide site license is available, and she said, "nope!"

Directly from Altium.

https://www.altium.com/solutions/academic-programs/student-licenses

[M.Zohaib Usman]

I fully agree with others about specifying the packages you have experience with - search and filtering automation is all the rage these days.

It is just like stating that you have experience with "software programming languages" or "software IDEs" instead of "experience with C/C++, Assembly, Java, Python, Visual Studio, Eclipse, blah, blah, blah..."

Also, as others have said: if you have access to licenses or stations at a university's lab, take the opportunity to learn the tool and make some projects with it. You won't regret it.

I have my own lab at home. I have alot of Mid Level projects. What should I take with me, exactly? any ideas that might impress you as an interviewer? let me know, would be a big help

Thanks