How to write a tech resume as a fresher in India: the one-page format, what to put instead of a skills wall, and a free resume website that beats a PDF

How should a fresher write a tech resume?

One page. A header with your name, one line describing what you build, and links to email, GitHub and a portfolio, no photo, no objective paragraph. A projects section with three entries, each with the problem, the decision, and a measurable outcome, ahead of education. A short skills line, not a wall. Education below projects, since for a fresher the projects are the evidence and the degree is context. Nothing that needs a second page has earned its place yet.

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I have reviewed enough fresher resumes at hackathons and campus sessions to see the same mistakes repeat: a skills wall with forty items, an objective paragraph nobody reads, and projects buried under a "certifications" section three times its length. This page is the fix, plus the free resume-website option that often works better than the PDF itself [6].

A resume is not a list of everything you know. It is three pieces of evidence that you can do the job, arranged so a tired recruiter finds them in ten seconds. Pranjul Rathour

What should be at the top of the resume?

Your name, a phone number, an email you actually check, and three links: GitHub, a portfolio or LinkedIn, and one more if relevant. Under that, one line: what you build and one proof, the same sentence your LinkedIn headline should carry [3]. Not "Computer Science student seeking opportunities". Not a paragraph. One sentence a recruiter can read while scrolling past forty other resumes.

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What goes in the projects section, and how should it read?

Three projects, each three lines: the problem in one sentence, the decision or hard part in one sentence, and the outcome in one sentence, ideally with a number. "Built a RAG system over 40 pages of college documents; added a confidence gate after early demos returned wrong answers confidently; recall at 5 improved from 61 percent to 89 percent, measured on a 30-question set." That is one project entry. It proves you can scope, iterate, and measure, in three lines.

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My guide to which projects to choose for this section, and the ones that actually get interviews, is written up separately [7].

Should I have a skills section, and what should it look like?

A short line or two, grouped by category, not a wall with progress bars: "Languages: Python, JavaScript. Tools: FastAPI, PostgreSQL, Git, Docker." No percentages, no five-star ratings for how well you know a language, which nobody trusts and which ATS systems ignore anyway. List what you can actually discuss for ten minutes in an interview, and nothing you would freeze on if asked a follow-up question.

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How do I get past an ATS without gaming it?

Use plain, standard section headings, Experience, Projects, Education, Skills, so parsing software reads them correctly. Avoid tables, columns, text boxes and graphics that confuse a parser, however good they look to a human eye. Mirror the language of the job posting honestly where it matches what you actually did, a posting that says "REST APIs" should be met with "REST APIs" in your resume if that is what you built, not a synonym. None of this is gaming a system; it is writing clearly enough that both a machine and a human parse the same document correctly.

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What should education look like for a fresher?

Degree, institution, graduation year, and a CGPA only if it genuinely helps, one line, below the projects section. Coursework only if a specific course is directly relevant and not implied by the degree itself. No list of every subject studied. A recruiter reading a fresher's resume already expects a degree; the projects section is what differentiates one BCA or B.Tech graduate from another.

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Should I use a resume website instead of a PDF?

Both, for different moments. Send a clean one-page PDF when a form or an email asks for a resume, since that is the expected format. Link a simple resume or portfolio website in the header for everyone who wants more, because it can hold live demo links, a longer project write-up, and updates without you re-sending a file [6]. A resume website is not a replacement for the PDF; it is the deeper layer the PDF's links point to.

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What mistakes do freshers make on tech resumes?

A two-page resume with a full page of certificates and half a project. An objective paragraph that says nothing a recruiter could not guess. A skills wall claiming expert-level everything. Projects described by technology stack instead of outcome, "Built using React, Node.js, MongoDB" with no sentence on what it did or what was hard. Broken links to private repositories. A resume never updated after the first draft, still listing a project from first year as the newest thing built.

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Tech resume interview questions

Not asked directly, but tested by every "walk me through a project" question: can you defend every line on the resume for ten minutes without notes. If a bullet point cannot survive a follow-up question, it should not be on the resume. The strongest resumes are the ones the candidate wrote entirely from memory of what they actually did.

Also asked as: resume interview questions · walk me through your resume · how interviewers use your resume · resume follow up questions

Where should I start?

Cut your current resume to one page tonight: header, three projects in three lines each, a short skills line, education last. Then link a portfolio site from the header. For a resume and portfolio workshop that turns a semester of projects into an interview-ready one-pager, email pranjulrathour41@gmail.com or use pranjulrathour.scult.in/invite.

Pranjul Rathour

GenAI Engineer · Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh, India

GenAI engineer and AI product builder with 2+ years shipping production-grade AI systems: RAG pipelines, fine-tuned LLMs, hybrid retrieval and multi-modal apps across vision, speech and OCR, architected end to end from ingestion to deployment. Leads engineering for SCULT INDIA's 14-member team, founded the 500+ member TechVerse Enclave community and has mentored 200+ students. Three hackathon first prizes: Changethon 2025 (IIT Roorkee), Product Genesis at Vividhotsava 2025 (CSJMU Kanpur) and BYTEBATTLE (MeetKats).

Open to GenAI roles, hackathon judging, mentorship sessions and guest talks at colleges. Email pranjulrathour41@gmail.com.

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