Resume template · Updated October 2026
Chemical engineer resume template
Short answer
Leslie suits a chemical engineer in a plant role: experience prints before skills, so the units you support and what changed on them come first, under a centred blue header. The fictional sample is a process engineer at a Louisiana specialty chemicals site: a distillation yield gain worth about $1.4M a year, management of change packages, HAZOP actions closed and a solvent recovery startup.
Download the chemical engineer sample
Grace is a fictional process engineer. Replace every detail with your own before you send it.
The files are made in your browser by Resumity's own exporters, from this sample. The builder opens it as your own resume: click any line to replace it. Free plan, no watermark.
Why Leslie suits a chemical engineer resume
Leslie prints work experience straight after the summary, which suits a plant engineer whose units, safety work and yield results matter more than a tool list. The single blue accent keeps the page polished, and the labelled skill rows separate process safety methods from simulation software.
Second choice: Henrietta. Henrietta prints education right after experience; choose it as a new graduate whose degree, co-ops and FE result carry the application.
What goes in each section, in Leslie's order
Leslie prints its sections in a fixed order, the same in the PDF and the Word file. Here is that order for this sample, and what to put in each section.
- Professional Summary. Industry and plant type (refining, specialty chemicals, polymers, pharmaceuticals), years, continuous or batch, and whether the site runs under process safety management. Then the two things you are known for on the unit.
- Work Experience. Name each unit by what it makes and its scale, then one result per bullet: yield, energy, throughput, off-spec batches, a startup. Process safety work deserves its own bullets: hazard analyses, management of change, incident investigations.
- Skills. Process safety and analysis methods first (HAZOP, management of change, mass and energy balances, root cause analysis), then simulation and data tools such as Aspen Plus, HYSYS and the plant historian.
- Education. BS in chemical engineering with school and year. Co-ops and internships go here as a detail line only while they are your main experience.
- Certifications. FE result or EIT status, PE if you hold it, and site safety training a contractor or owner would recognize. Six Sigma belts belong here if you used them on a plant project.
The sample resume as text
The same content as the files above, so you can copy a line or compare it with your own.
Grace Adeyemi
Process Engineer, Chemical Engineering
Baton Rouge, LA | grace.adeyemi@example.com | (225) 555-0138 | linkedin.com/in/sample-grace-adeyemi
Chemical engineer with six years as a process engineer in specialty chemicals, supporting continuous and batch units covered by process safety management. Leads hazard analysis actions and management of change, models units in Aspen Plus and has supported two unit startups.
Experience
Process Engineer, Bayou Ridge Chemicals, Baton Rouge, LA (08/2021 to Present)
- Support a continuous esterification unit and two batch reactors producing about 200 million pounds of product a year.
- Raised distillation column yield by about 2% after an Aspen Plus study of reflux ratio and feed tray location, worth roughly $1.4M a year.
- Own management of change packages for the unit, about 40 a year, from technical review to pre-startup safety review.
- Closed 11 recommendations from the unit's five-year HAZOP revalidation, including two new high-level interlocks.
- Wrote operating procedures and trained operators for a solvent recovery system started up in 2024.
Process Engineer I, Gulf Coast Polymers, Lake Charles, LA (06/2020 to 07/2021)
- Monitored daily unit performance and investigated off-spec batches with quality control.
- Field-verified and updated P&IDs and process flow diagrams for two units.
- Tracked 120 work orders for the unit during a three-week turnaround.
Education
BS, Chemical Engineering, Louisiana Delta University (05/2020)
Certifications
- Fundamentals of Engineering (FE) exam, passed, NCEES (2020)
Skills
Process hazard analysis (HAZOP), Management of change, Mass and energy balances, Distillation and reactor optimization, Root cause analysis, Startup and turnaround support, Aspen Plus, Aspen HYSYS, PI process historian, Excel VBA, Training operators, Shift handover communication
How to make the sample yours
Describe your unit in one line
Replace the esterification unit with yours: what it makes, how much, continuous or batch. A reader from another plant needs that context before any result makes sense.
Put a value on one improvement
Yield, energy or throughput gains in dollars a year, if your site tracked them. Otherwise give the physical change (percent yield, tonnes, steam use).
Show your safety work plainly
Name the hazard analyses, MOCs and pre-startup reviews you led or contributed to, with counts. Plants covered by OSHA's process safety rule care about this as much as yield.
Match the simulation tools
Swap Aspen Plus for ChemCAD, gPROMS or HYSYS if those are what you use, and keep the historian or data tools you analyse with.
Moving to design or consulting?
Lead the summary with the studies and calculations you have done and trim the day-to-day unit support bullets.
Keywords to keep where they are true
Terms this kind of resume is usually searched for. Use the posting's exact wording, and only for work you have done.
- chemical engineering
- process engineering
- process safety management (PSM)
- process hazard analysis
- HAZOP
- management of change (MOC)
- pre-startup safety review
- mass and energy balances
- distillation
- Aspen Plus
- Aspen HYSYS
- yield improvement
- root cause analysis
- startup and turnaround
- P&IDs
Mistakes to avoid
- Leaving out process safety work at a plant where it takes much of the job.
- Listing every unit operation from your degree instead of the ones you have run.
- Quoting dollar savings you cannot explain in an interview.
- Naming proprietary products, recipes or confidential incidents.
How the sample PDF reads in text extractors
We exported this sample with Resumity's PDF exporter in Chrome on 2026-10-29 and read the file back with three open-source text extractors. This shows whether software that turns a PDF into text can recover it; it is not a test of any commercial applicant tracking system. How we test templates.
| Extractor | Name, email, phone | Headings | Bullets intact |
|---|---|---|---|
| pdf.js 4.10.38 | All found | 5 of 5 | 8 of 8 |
| pdftotext (Xpdf) 4.00 | All found | 5 of 5 | 8 of 8 |
| pypdf 6.13.0 | All found | 5 of 5 | 8 of 8 |
Frequently asked questions
How should a chemical engineer show process safety experience?
As bullets with counts and roles: hazard analyses you led or joined, management of change packages you owned, pre-startup reviews, investigations. OSHA's process safety management standard requires process hazard analyses, revalidated at least every five years, and written management of change procedures, so plant hiring managers recognize these terms.
What results should a process engineer put on a resume?
Yield, throughput, energy, off-spec rate, downtime and safety actions closed. Give one per bullet with the period, and a dollar value where your site tracked it.
Should I list Aspen Plus or HYSYS?
List the simulator you have actually built or run models in, and say what you used it for in a bullet. A tool name with no study behind it carries little weight.
How do I write a chemical engineering resume as a new graduate?
Lead with co-ops and internships as jobs, then a capstone or unit operations lab project with a measured result. Add the FE exam if you passed it.
How long should a chemical engineer resume be?
One page early on, two once you have several units, startups or plants to describe.
Will applicant tracking systems read this Leslie PDF?
The sample PDF read back with its contact details, all 5 section headings and all 8 bullets intact in three open-source text extractors (pdf.js, pdftotext and pypdf). Commercial systems such as Workday, Greenhouse or Taleo were not tested, and each employer configures its own.
Guides and templates for this resume
Sources, checked 29 October 2026
We opened every page below on that date. Pay, rules and requirements change, so check the source before you rely on a detail.
- Legal Information Institute, Cornell Law School: 29 CFR § 1910.119, Process safety management of highly hazardous chemicals (paragraph (e) requires process hazard analyses, updated and revalidated at least every five years; paragraph (l) requires written management of change procedures)
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