Resume format for freshers

With no full-time experience, recruiters judge a fresher resume on education, projects, internships and skills. This one-page format puts those first and works for campus placements, off-campus drives and job portals like Naukri and LinkedIn.

The format, section by section

1
Header
Full name, phone, a professional email, city, and LinkedIn or GitHub links. No photo, date of birth or father’s name for private-sector jobs.
2
Resume headline
One line with your degree, graduation year and top skills — e.g. “B.Tech CSE 2026 · Java, SQL, React”.
3
Career objective or summary
Two lines on what you can do and the role you want. Skip “seeking a challenging position”; name the role and your strongest proof.
4
Education
Degree, college, university, year and CGPA, then Class XII and Class X with board and percentage. Campus filters often check all three.
5
Internships
Company, dates and two or three bullets on what you built or improved, with numbers where you have them.
6
Projects
Two to four projects written like work: the problem, the tech used, and who used it or what it achieved. Add a link if it still works.
7
Skills
Technical skills grouped (languages, tools, frameworks), using the exact words from the job posting. Only list what you can be interviewed on.
8
Certifications & achievements
Relevant courses, hackathons, coding ratings, NSS/NCC or college leadership roles. Keep the strongest three to five.

Sample

Sneha Kulkarni

B.E. Computer Engineering, 2026 · Python, SQL, React

Pune · name@email.com · +91 98xxx xxxxx

Summary

Final-year computer engineering student (CGPA 8.4) who has built and deployed two full-stack projects and completed a 6-month internship in data engineering.

Experience

Data Engineering Intern · A logistics startup

Jan 2026 – Jun 2026

Wrote Python scripts that cleaned 2 lakh shipment records a day and loaded them into PostgreSQL
Built a delivery-delay dashboard in Metabase used by the operations team in daily stand-ups

Project: Hostel mess feedback app · College project

2025

React + Flask app used by 600 students; complaints resolved 2× faster after launch
Deployed on a free cloud tier with GitHub Actions for automatic deploys

Education

B.E. Computer Engineering — CGPA 8.4 · An engineering college, Pune University

2026

Class XII (Maharashtra Board) — 89% · Junior college, Pune

2022

Skills

Python · SQL · React · Flask · Git · Data structures & algorithms · PostgreSQL

From our engineering fresher (campus) resume example.

Do

✓Keep it to one page.
✓Use a simple single-column layout and a standard font so applicant tracking systems can read it.
✓Save as PDF unless the company asks for Word, and name the file “Firstname-Lastname-Resume.pdf”.
✓Change the headline and skills order for each kind of role you apply to.

Don’t

✗Don’t add a photo, date of birth, religion, marital status or a signature — private companies don’t need them.
✗Don’t list school activities unless they show leadership or a national-level result.
✗Don’t use skill bars or star ratings; screening software can’t read them and recruiters don’t trust them.
✗Don’t end with a “Declaration” — that belongs on a biodata, not a resume.

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Questions

Should a fresher resume be one page?: Yes. Recruiters spend seconds on each resume in a campus drive. One page with your best projects and internships beats two pages of filler.
Objective or summary for a fresher?: Either works if it’s specific. Two lines naming the role you want and your strongest proof — a project, internship or skill — is enough.
Should I mention CGPA if it’s low?: If the posting has a cut-off, include it — they’ll ask anyway. Otherwise you can leave it out and let projects and internships lead.
What if I have no internship?: Lead with projects, then certifications and coding or hackathon results. A project with real users counts for more than a course certificate.