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A recruiter may look at your resume for only a short time before deciding to read on. A fresher has little experience, so the job of the resume is simple: show the right skills and one or two things you have built, in a clear layout. This guide gives a template and shows how to word each part honestly.
Name, phone, email, LinkedIn and GitHub links.
Two lines: the role you want and your strongest skills.
Tools you can talk about, grouped.
Two or three, each with tools and a result.
Degree, year, marks if good, and certificates.
The rules that matter most
- One page. Two pages for a fresher usually means padding.
- One simple column. Fancy layouts with icons and graphs can confuse the software that many companies use to read resumes. A plain layout is safe.
- A normal font and enough space. Eleven or twelve point text, clear headings, and no walls of text.
- A PDF. Name the file clearly, such as Rahul-Sharma-Data-Analyst.pdf.
- Links that work. Open your GitHub and LinkedIn links from the PDF before you send it.
- No photo, no date of birth, no full address, unless a company asks. Check what the application asks for.
A plain-text template
RAHUL SHARMA
Pune | 98XXXXXXXX | [email protected] | linkedin.com/in/rahul | github.com/rahul
SUMMARY
Final-year B.Tech student looking for a data analyst role. Strong in SQL and Python, with one finished project on sales data.
SKILLS
SQL (joins, GROUP BY, window functions) | Python (pandas) | Excel | Power BI | Git
PROJECTS
Sales report in SQL and Python
- Cleaned 50,000 rows of order data with pandas and removed duplicate orders.
- Wrote 12 SQL queries for revenue by month, top products and repeat customers.
- Built a 3-chart dashboard and wrote a README that explains how to run it.
EDUCATION
B.Tech, Computer Science, ABC College, 2026, CGPA 7.8Replace each line with your own work. The numbers above are an example. Use only numbers that are true for your project.
How to word a project
Each project line should answer: what did you do, with which tool, and what came out of it. Start with a verb such as cleaned, wrote, built, loaded or checked.
| Weak | Better |
|---|
| --- | --- |
|---|
| Worked on a sales project | Cleaned 50,000 order rows with pandas and removed duplicate orders |
|---|
| Used SQL | Wrote 12 SQL queries for revenue by month and repeat customers |
|---|
| Made a dashboard | Built a 3-chart dashboard that shows monthly revenue by city |
|---|
If you do not have a number, describe the result plainly, for example: the script runs again without creating duplicate rows. Honest and clear beats a big number you cannot explain.
Skills: list what you can talk about
Group your skills in one or two lines. Include only tools you could answer three questions about in an interview. A long list of tools you have only seen once does not help, and it often leads to questions you cannot answer.
Match the job post. If the post asks for SQL and Power BI, and you know both, say so near the top. Do not copy words from the post for skills you do not have.
No internship, no problem
Most freshers have no work experience, and companies know it. Put your projects before education. Add a short line for anything that shows responsibility: leading a college club, organising an event or helping juniors. Certificates can go in a small last section. They matter less than a finished project.
Mistakes that get a resume skipped
- Spelling mistakes in the first few lines. Read it aloud, and ask a friend to read it.
- A long objective paragraph that says nothing. Use two useful lines instead.
- Rating skills with stars or bars. They mean nothing without context.
- Listing every course you took. Pick what matches the job.
- Sending the same resume to every role. Spend five minutes to move the matching skills and project to the top.
- Lying. A wrong claim often comes out in a technical question, and it can end the process on the spot.
Where to start today
Open a blank page and copy the template. Fill in your contact line and your skills only. Then write two lines for your best project. Finish the rest tomorrow.