Lesson 1 of 4
A resume that gets shortlisted
3 min read
Recruiters spend under a minute on the first scan of a resume, often after an applicant tracking system (ATS) has filtered it. Your resume must be relevant, scannable and specific.
Structure for freshers (one page)
- Header: name, phone, professional email, city, LinkedIn, GitHub/portfolio links. No photo, date of birth, religion or marital status (not needed in most private-sector applications).
- Summary (optional, 2 lines): the role you want and your strongest proof. "Frontend developer skilled in React and TypeScript; built 3 production apps used by 5,000+ students."
- Education: degree, college, year, CGPA (if 7+ or as required); class 12 and 10 scores if companies ask (common in campus hiring).
- Experience: internships, freelance work, part-time jobs.
- Projects: 2–4 relevant projects with links.
- Skills: grouped (Languages, Frameworks, Tools); only what you can discuss confidently.
- Achievements / leadership / certifications: hackathons, competitions, positions of responsibility, relevant certifications.
Put the most relevant section first: for tech roles with strong projects, projects can come before education.
Write bullet points that prove impact
Formula: action verb + what you did + how + result (with a number).
| Weak | Strong |
|---|---|
| Worked on the website | Built a React job board with search filters and saved jobs; cut page load time 40% with lazy loading |
| Responsible for social media | Grew the college fest's Instagram from 1.2k to 6k followers in 2 months with a daily Reels plan |
| Did data analysis during internship | Analysed 50k sales records in SQL and Power BI; identified 3 low-margin SKUs, leading to a 6% margin gain |
| Helped organise events | Led a 12-person team to run a hackathon for 400 students with ₹2.5L in sponsorships |
Strong verbs: built, designed, analysed, led, launched, automated, reduced, increased, negotiated, organised, implemented, optimised.
No numbers? Use scale (users, team size, data volume), time saved, scores or rankings, or before/after comparisons.
ATS-friendly formatting
- A simple single-column layout with standard section headings ("Experience", "Projects", "Skills").
- Standard fonts (Calibri, Arial, Inter), 10–12 pt; no tables, text boxes, icons for important text, or images.
- Export as PDF unless asked otherwise; name it
Firstname_Lastname_Resume.pdf. - Tailor keywords to each job description: if the JD says "Power BI" and "stakeholder management", and you have them, use those exact terms.
- No skill bars or ratings ("Python ★★★★☆" means nothing).
Common mistakes
Spelling errors, an unprofessional email, long paragraphs, listing duties instead of achievements, irrelevant hobbies taking space, untrue claims (interviewers will ask), outdated objectives ("seeking a challenging position…"), and inconsistent dates or formatting.
Check yourself
- Rewrite: "Did an internship at XYZ in marketing."
- List the keywords in a job description you want and check your resume against them.
- Is your resume one page, single column and free of typos?
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