Resume tips for freshers and experienced job seekers

What a recruiter checks in the first 20 seconds

In a busy hiring season, a recruiter may look at a fresher resume for well under a minute before deciding whether to read it properly. In that time they are not reading your hobbies. They are checking a few things in a fixed order:

1. Role match. Do the skills near the top match the job they are hiring for?
2. Eligibility. Degree, graduation year and, for many fresher roles, a minimum CGPA.
3. Proof. Is there a project, internship or job that shows you have used those skills?
4. Reachability. A working phone number and email, and the city you are in.

If those four things are easy to find, you usually get a proper read. If they are buried under an objective paragraph and a list of soft skills, the resume often goes to the “no” pile even when you are a good fit.

A one-page layout that works

You do not need a designer template. A clean, single-column page with clear headings is easier for people and for software to read. For most software, testing, data and support roles in India, this order works well:

Use one font (Calibri, Arial or similar) at 10.5 to 11 points for text and slightly larger for headings. Keep margins of about 1.5 cm. White space is not wasted space. It is what makes the page quick to scan.

A sample fresher resume

Here is a complete example for a fresher applying to Java backend roles. The person is made up, but the structure is exactly what we recommend. Notice how every line tells the reader something specific.

Name and contact details that work

Put your name at the top in slightly larger text, then one line with your city, phone number, email and one useful link such as GitHub, a portfolio or LinkedIn. Check that the link opens. A broken link is worse than no link at all.

• Use a professional email, ideally your name. Avoid old nicknames and your college email, which you may lose.
• Write your current city. Recruiters often filter by location.
• Leave out your full postal address, date of birth, father’s name and marital status unless a form asks.
• If you do not pick up unknown numbers, change that during your job search. Missed calls from HR are a common silent rejection.

Write the skills line like a job post

Recruiters search their database by skills. If a job post says “Spring Boot” and your resume says “Spring framework knowledge”, you may not show up in their search. Write skills the same way job posts write them: short names, not sentences.

Only list a skill if you can answer basic questions on it for five minutes. If an interviewer picks a tool from your list and you say you only watched one video, the rest of the interview becomes difficult. It is fine to group skills, for example “Strong: Java, SQL. Familiar: React, Docker”.

Projects that hold up in an interview

For freshers, projects are the evidence. Two projects you understand deeply are better than six you copied. Describe each one in two or three lines: what it does, what you used, and one result or problem you solved.

If you link a GitHub repository, make sure it has a README that explains what the project does and how to run it. Interviewers do open these links, and an empty repository or a folder of certificates does more harm than good.

Work experience: verbs and results

If you have worked, even as an intern, this section matters most. The common mistake is writing duties instead of results. “Responsible for development of modules” says nothing that another candidate could not also write. Start each line with a verb and end with what changed.

Use month and year for dates. If you cannot name a client, describe the domain instead, such as “a US retail bank”. Keep the numbers honest. An interviewer who asks how you measured “improved performance by 300%” will notice if there is no real answer.

Education, certifications and extras

For freshers, write your degree, branch, college, years and CGPA or percentage. Many companies have a cut-off, so leaving it out can look like you are hiding it. After two years of work, one line is enough.

Add certifications only if they are relevant to the role and you can talk about what you learned. A cloud or testing certificate supported by a small project helps. A list of ten short online course certificates usually does not. “Participated in a workshop” is not worth a line.

Languages you can speak can matter for customer-facing and support roles, so list them there. Hobbies are optional. If you include one, make it something you could talk about for a minute.

Getting past ATS (applicant tracking systems)

Many companies use software to store and search resumes. It is not magic, but it does read some layouts badly. Follow these rules and your resume will be read correctly almost everywhere:

• Use a single column. Two-column templates can be read in the wrong order.
• Avoid text boxes, tables for the whole page, and important text inside images or icons.
• Use normal section headings such as Skills, Projects, Experience, Education.
• Save as PDF from Word or Google Docs, not a scanned image.
• Use the same words as the job post for skills you really have.
• Never hide keywords in white text. Recruiters see it when they open the file.

Tailoring your resume for each job

You do not need a new resume for every application. You need one base resume per type of role, adjusted in five minutes for each job. Here is how:

1. Read the job post and note the 4–6 skills or tools it mentions most.
2. Reorder your skills line so the ones you share with the post come first.
3. Pick the project that best matches the job and move it to the top.
4. Adjust the summary line to name the role, for example “QA fresher” instead of “software fresher”.
5. Save a copy with the company name in your own folder, so you know what you sent.

What to remove from your resume today

• Objective paragraphs about being a “dynamic, hard-working team player”.
• Lists of soft skills like “good communication, leadership, punctual”. Show them through your projects instead.
• Declarations such as “I hereby declare that the above information is true”.
• Personal details: date of birth, religion, marital status, father’s name, full address.
• Hobbies like “listening to music” and “surfing the internet”.
• A second page that repeats the first one in bigger font.

File name, format and sending

Save your resume as a PDF with a clear file name, for example Priya_Sharma_Java_Developer.pdf. A file called resume_final_new_2.pdf is hard for a recruiter to find again. Keep the file under 1 MB.

Apply through the company’s official careers page or the official email in the job post. Never send your resume, Aadhaar or bank details to an unknown “HR” on WhatsApp. When you are ready, browse fresher jobs or experienced jobs and practise with our interview questions before the calls start.

Frequently asked questions