Resume format for freshers: a one-page layout recruiters and ATS can read

Put your strongest evidence first. For most freshers that is education and skills, followed by projects. Keep everything on one page.

• Header — full name, phone, professional email, city, LinkedIn and GitHub/portfolio as plain text links.
• Career objective (2 lines) — the role you want plus two or three skills you can prove. Skip generic lines like "seeking a challenging position".
• Education — degree, branch, college, CGPA or percentage, and graduation year. Add Class 12 and 10 only if the employer asks or the scores are strong.
• Skills — grouped: programming languages, tools/frameworks, and domain skills. List only what you can answer questions about.
• Projects — two to four, each with what you built, the tools used and a result.
• Internships / training — company, duration, and one or two result-first bullets.
• Certifications and achievements — short, relevant, with the issuer and year.

Treat projects, internships, college events and freelance work as experience. Write each bullet as action + what you did + outcome. Use honest numbers: users, records, accuracy, time saved, team size.

• Weak: "Worked on a library management project."
• Better: "Built a library management web app in Java and MySQL used by 3 departments; cut manual issue-return entries by about half."
• Weak: "Part of college fest committee."
• Better: "Coordinated sponsorship outreach for a 2-day college fest with a team of 6; secured 4 local sponsors."

Need stronger verbs? See our list of resume action verbs.

• Use a single column. Tables, text boxes and two-column templates often scramble when software reads them.
• Use standard headings — Education, Skills, Projects, Experience — so each part lands in the right field.
• Pick one common font (Arial, Calibri or similar) at 10–12 pt and keep margins even.
• Skip photos, skill-level bars and icons for contact details; they add nothing an ATS can read.
• Save as PDF unless the portal asks for Word, and name the file clearly, e.g. "Priya-Sharma-Resume.pdf".

• One resume for every company. Mirror the wording of each job description in your skills and objective.
• Long declarations and personal details. Father's name, marital status and a signed declaration take space that projects could use.
• Listing every technology you've touched. Interviewers ask about anything on the page.
• Typos in contact details. Check your phone number and email before every upload.

Service companies and product companies look for different signals. If you're applying through campus or off-campus drives, read our ATS guides for TCS NQT, Infosys, Wipro and Accenture.