Fresher Resume ATS Checklist — India 2026

Why freshers get filtered

Freshers rarely fail because of experience — they fail because of formatting and missing keywords. A one-page, well-structured fresher resume can score 85+ on ATS with the checklist below.

The 12-point fresher ATS checklist

• One page, one column, PDF format.
• Standard font: Calibri or Arial, 10.5–11 pt.
• Contact info in the body (not header): name, +91 phone, email, LinkedIn, GitHub if tech.
• City: e.g. "Chennai, India".
• Summary: 2 lines. What role + top 3 skills + your best project.
• Education first (as a fresher): degree, institute, year, CGPA if 7.5+.
• Projects section: 2–3 projects with tech stack + one metric each.
• Internships: real ones only, with dates and 2–3 impact bullets.
• Skills grouped: Languages / Frameworks / Tools / Databases / Soft.
• Certifications: name + issuer + year (Coursera, NPTEL, AWS, Google).
• Awards / hackathons: name + rank + year (optional).
• File name: Firstname_Lastname_Resume.pdf.

Project bullet template

[Built] a [what] using [tech stack]. [Outcome with a number].

Good: Built a real-time chat app for 200+ college users using React, Node.js and Socket.io. Achieved sub-100ms message latency.

Keyword coverage for campus roles

TCS, Infosys, Wipro, Cognizant, Accenture, and Capgemini campus JDs look for: Java, Python, SQL, Data Structures, Algorithms, OOPs, Operating Systems, DBMS, Git, HTML/CSS, React or Angular or Node.js, communication skills.

Things to remove

• Photo
• Marital status, father's name, religion, caste
• Address (city is enough)
• Hobbies (unless directly relevant)
• Long objective statements
• "References available on request"

Free ATS check

Upload your resume at Resume Truth — free ATS score, keyword gap and 3–5 rewrite hints in 60 seconds.