Surekha Nanekar

What Do IT Interviewers Actually Ask Freshers in Pune? Real Questions from TCS, Infosys, and Startups (2026)

Surekha Nanekar / August 21, 2026

You have got an interview lined up. It may be for TCS or Infosys or even a start-up from Hinjewadi. You are aware of all OOP concepts and definitions, and you have revised your SQL. What you really want to know is what the interviewer is going to ask you and what a good answer would look like. Generic preparation guides give you categories. This blog gives you the actual questions pulled from verified 2026 interview experiences across TCS, Infosys, and Pune startups organised by company, by round, and by role. Read through the section for your target company before your interview. Bookmark the ones you cannot answer yet. Those are your preparation gaps. The short version: what each company actually asks freshers in 2026: TCS Technical Round: Your project in depth, OOP with real-world examples, SQL queries (joins, GROUP BY, EXISTS, UNION), one basic coding problem, and a new 2026 question about AI vs traditional software systems. Infosys SE Round: Which programming language are you comfortable with (sets the direction of everything after), OOP pillars with examples, DBMS normalisation from 1NF to BCNF, SQL triggers. SP and PP rounds add live DSA coding on linked lists, trees, and sorting. Pune Startup Technical Round: React hooks and component architecture, Node.js event loop, REST API design, Django ORM, and a GitHub portfolio walkthrough. System design basics even for freshers at product companies. TCS technical interview: real questions freshers are being asked in 2026 Based on Glassdoor’s TCS interview database updated June 2026 across 25,558 submitted reviews, the average interview difficulty is rated 2.7 out of 5, and 72.7% of candidates rate the experience as positive. The technical round stays close to your resume. TCS technical interviews mostly stay close to your resume and project work; they rarely go into deep DSA or system design for freshers. That is genuinely good news if you actually built the project on your resume. The project questions where every TCS interview actually begins Before any OOP question, before any SQL query, the interviewer will ask about your project. This is not a warm-up. It is where TCS interviewers spend the most time, and it is where most freshers either win or lose the round. These are the actual questions reported from TCS technical interviews in 2026: “Tell me about your final year project.” “What problem does your project solve?” “Which technology did you use and why did you choose it over alternatives?” “How does the backend of your project work?” “What was the most difficult part of building this?” “What would you change if you rebuilt it today?” “What happens when a user clicks the submit button? Walk me through the full flow.” Interviewers ask follow-up questions from whatever is written on the resume, especially about project tools and technologies. If Django is listed on the resume, the interviewer will ask about Django views. If MySQL is listed, they will ask about the database schema. If React is listed, they will ask about component structure. Every skill on the resume is fair game for a follow-up question. The students who struggle in this section are the ones who followed a tutorial and listed the tutorial’s technology as their own skills. The ones who do well are the ones who made at least one genuine technical decision during the project and can explain why. OOP questions TCS freshers are actually asked “What is object-oriented programming? Name the four pillars.” “Give me a real-world example of inheritance, not just a definition.” “What is the difference between method overloading and method overriding?” “Explain polymorphism with a code example or a real-world scenario.” “What is encapsulation and why would you use it?” “What is abstraction? How is it different from encapsulation?” “What is a constructor? Can it be overloaded?” “What is the difference between an abstract class and an interface?” The pattern across these is consistent. Interviewers at TCS do not want dictionary definitions. Saying “polymorphism means many forms” gets a follow-up that most candidates cannot answer. A simple code example, or a real-world analogy that demonstrates you actually understand the concept, is what earns positive feedback in this round. A useful way to prepare: for each OOP pillar, write one sentence definition and one concrete real-world example that is not the textbook Animal-Dog example everyone uses. Use something from your actual project. SQL questions: asked in almost every TCS technical round SQL is asked in almost every TCS technical interview. Joins, subqueries, indexing, EXISTS, NOT EXISTS, IN, NOT IN, GROUP BY, HAVING, UNION, UNION ALL, INTERSECT, and MINUS are all commonly tested. Real SQL questions from TCS interviews in 2026: “Write a query to find the second highest salary in a table.” “What is the difference between WHERE and HAVING? When do you use each?” “Explain INNER JOIN versus LEFT JOIN with a practical example.” “What is a primary key? Can it be null?” “What is normalisation? Walk me through 1NF and 2NF.” “What is the difference between DELETE, TRUNCATE, and DROP?” “Write a query to count employees in each department.” “What is a subquery? Write one.” Prepare to write these queries on paper or a whiteboard, not just talk about them. TCS interviewers frequently ask candidates to write out the query rather than describe it. Coding questions: one problem, basic to medium difficulty The technical round conducted by TCS usually consists of one basic question. Examples include the second largest number, reverse string, palindrome, Fibonacci series, or a factorial. It’s all about the logic and good code, rather than DSA. Practice writing such questions manually rather than coding them on an IDE. If you are being interviewed by TCS, there is a chance that you will have to write code manually as well. The logic will carry weightage, but still, you need to be sure about the correctness of your code. The new question in 2026: AI versus traditional software A June 2026 Glassdoor interview submission for TCS contains this verbatim: “What is the difference between

MERN Stack vs Python Full Stack: Which One Should You Choose in Pune in 2026?

Surekha Nanekar / August 14, 2026

You have already decided on full stack development. Good. Now you are stuck on the next question. MERN or Python Full Stack? Both are popular. Both have real jobs at the end. Both are offered at Teknowell. But they are different enough that picking one and wishing you had picked the other a few months in is a real thing that happens. So let’s settle this properly. This blog covers what each course actually teaches at Teknowell in Pimpri Chinchwad, what each pays based on verified salary data, which one suits which type of person, and a clear recommendation at the end. No fence-sitting. Quick answer if you are short on time: Factor MERN Stack Python Full Stack Duration at Teknowell 3 months 4 months Languages you use JavaScript throughout Python backend, JavaScript frontend Backend framework Node.js with Express.js Django Database MongoDB (NoSQL) MySQL (relational) Best for Startups, product companies, frontend-heavy roles Beginners, backend-focused, AI-adjacent careers Average base pay in India ₹4 LPA (Glassdoor 2026) ₹4 LPA (Glassdoor 2026) Job titles MERN Stack Developer, Full Stack JavaScript Developer Python Developer, Full Stack Python Developer, Backend Developer What each course actually covers at Teknowell A lot of comparison articles describe these courses in abstract terms. Let’s be specific about what Teknowell’s programmes actually teach. MERN Stack: 3 months MERN is MongoDB, Express.js, React.js, and Node.js. The thing that makes MERN genuinely different from other full stack courses is the language situation. JavaScript runs on both sides: React.js builds what users see on screen, and Node.js with Express.js powers the server. MongoDB stores data in a format that looks and feels like JavaScript already. So from frontend to backend to database, you are working in one language the whole time. Teknowell’s MERN course covers AngularJS as an alternative frontend option alongside React, REST API development, and building real applications from scratch. Students are not doing exercises in isolation; they are building things that actually work and can be deployed. Job roles after completing the course: MERN Stack Developer, MEAN Stack Developer, Frontend Developer, Full Stack JavaScript Developer. Who the course suits: startup-focused careers, product-based company roles, frontend-heavy applications, and developers who want JavaScript across the full stack. Python Full Stack: 4 months Python Full Stack is a different setup entirely. Django handles the backend; Python is the language behind it. On the frontend, students work with HTML5, CSS3, JavaScript, and Bootstrap. MySQL is the database. REST APIs connect everything together. The reason this course runs one month longer than MERN is that it builds Python fundamentals first before moving into Django. That foundation matters because Django is a framework with real depth, and understanding what it is doing under the hood requires a solid grip on Python first. Job roles after completing the course: Python Developer, Full Stack Python Developer, Backend Developer, Web Application Developer. Who the course suits: beginners entering IT, backend-focused learners, students coding for the first time, and anyone interested in startup or IT services careers. Both courses include live project work, placement assistance, mock interviews, ATS resume preparation, and an internship that runs alongside the training rather than after it ends. Which one is genuinely easier to start with This is probably the most common question before enrolling, and it does not have a simple answer. But it has an honest one. About MERN and the JavaScript reality The one-language pitch for MERN sounds great on paper. One language, full stack, clean setup. In practice, JavaScript has some real complexity that catches beginners off guard. Asynchronous code callbacks, promises, async/await that’s not how most people naturally think about programming when they first start. And the difference between how JavaScript behaves in a browser versus how Node.js runs it on a server is not immediately obvious. None of that is insurmountable. Students work through it. But if you have never seen an async function before and suddenly need to understand how Node.js handles a server request without blocking, the first few weeks have a specific kind of friction to them. Where MERN has a clear advantage: if you have any prior JavaScript exposure at all from a college elective, from self-study, from building even a basic website, MERN builds directly on that. The pace is faster over 3 months, and React is genuinely one of the most relevant skills you can have when applying to startups in Pune. About Python Full Stack and the two-language reality Python has a reputation for being beginner-friendly, and it is earned. The syntax is readable in a way that most other languages are not. Logic in Python often reads close to how you would describe a process in plain English. For someone who has never written a line of code before, starting with Python genuinely feels less intimidating than starting with JavaScript. Django builds on that with a framework that is opinionated in a helpful way. It makes a lot of decisions for you so you can focus on building rather than endlessly configuring. Many students find that Django’s structure actually helps them understand web application logic more clearly than a more minimal framework would. The honest trade-off: Python Full Stack means learning two languages instead of one. Python on the backend, JavaScript on the frontend. The JavaScript depth required for the frontend in this course is not as heavy as in MERN, so it is manageable, but it is worth knowing before you enroll. The bottom line on difficulty Neither course will break someone who is genuinely trying. MERN has the async JavaScript hurdle. Python Full Stack has the two-language context switch. Students with any JavaScript background find MERN’s rhythm easier in the first month. Students starting from zero with no coding experience whatsoever find Python Full Stack’s opening weeks less overwhelming. That is the genuine pattern. What each track pays: current Glassdoor salary data According to Glassdoor India, the current average base pay shown for a MERN Stack Developer in India is ₹4 LPA, with a displayed base-pay range of

Interview Preparation, IT Education

How to Crack Wipro Elite NTH and Cognizant GenC: Complete Preparation Guide for Freshers 2026

Surekha Nanekar / August 8, 2026

So you have already heard about TCS NQT and InfyTQ. Maybe you have even started preparing for one of them. But here is something a lot of freshers miss: Wipro and Cognizant are running two of the biggest fresher hiring programmes in India right now, and most students are not preparing specifically for either one. Wipro is targeting 7,500 to 8,000 freshers in FY26 through its Elite NTH programme. Cognizant is targeting 25,000 graduates globally in its FY26 to 27 cycle through the GenC programme. Both are open to engineering freshers from any branch. Both test skills that overlap significantly with each other and with TCS NQT prep. And both have a premium salary track that most students do not even know exists because nobody told them to aim for it. This guide covers everything you need to know about both exams: the actual pattern, what each section tests, the salary bands, a four-week preparation plan, and the mistakes that quietly cost freshers their shortlist. Wipro Elite NTH vs Cognizant GenC: Quick Comparison Factor Wipro Elite NTH Cognizant GenC Test duration 60 minutes 90 to 120 minutes Sections Aptitude + Essay Writing Communication + Aptitude + Coding (GenC Next) Negative marking None None Standard salary ₹3.5 to 4 LPA ₹4 LPA Premium track salary CoE track (undisclosed premium) ₹6.5 LPA (GenC Next Assessment platform AMCAT/SHL AMCAT Rounds after online test Technical + HR Interview Technical + HR Interview Wipro Elite NTH 2026: Eligibility, Salary and Exam Overview A lot of freshers call it the Wipro NTH; some call it the NLTH, some call it Wipro Elite. These are all the same programme. The full name is the National Level Talent Hunt, and it is how Wipro hires engineering freshers through its off-campus and drive-based recruitment process. Before getting into the exam pattern, there is something about Wipro’s hiring structure that most students do not know, and it matters for salary. Wipro Elite NTH Salary 2026: Standard vs CoE Track When people say “I am preparing for Wipro,” they almost always mean the Standard track, which is also called the Velocity track. You clear the NTH online test, go through a technical interview, clear an HR interview, and join as a Project Engineer at ₹3.5 to 4 LPA. This is Wipro’s main fresher intake route. But Wipro also runs a CoE (Centre of Excellence) track. Wipro has partnered with 50 universities in India to co-develop curriculum specifically in AI, cybersecurity, and data engineering. Students from those partner institutions go through a differentiated interview process and receive a pay premium above the standard band. Wipro has not publicly disclosed the exact CoE salary, but the CHRO confirmed at Q3 FY26 earnings that premiums are paid to candidates with prior client or project experience in AI. If your college has a Wipro CoE partnership, that is worth knowing about specifically before you apply. Wipro Elite NTH Eligibility Criteria 2026 Wipro requires a minimum of 60% across your 10th, 12th, and degree, but not as an average. Each level has to independently clear 60%. So if you scored 72% in 10th, 57% in 12th, and 80% in your degree, you do not qualify. The 12th board percentage is below the cutoff, and that alone rules you out. This trips up a surprising number of applicants. Check your individual percentage at each level before applying, not the combined average. Also, no active backlogs at the time of application. Cleared backlogs with mark sheets are allowed. Any uncleared backlog at the time of joining leads to offer cancellation. Wipro Elite NTH exam pattern 2026 Section Questions Duration Negative Marking Aptitude 20 Part of 60 minutes No Essay Writing 1 Part of 60 minutes No Total 21 tasks 60 minutes No The online test is 60 minutes, administered through AMCAT or SHL India, and webcam-proctored. There are two sections: Aptitude and Essay Writing. No negative marking. Once you move to the next section, you cannot go back to the previous one. Plan your time accordingly before the test starts. For the full official syllabus breakdown and FY26 eligibility details, the FacePrep Wipro NLTH 2026 guide is one of the most current and accurate resources available. Option 1: Wipro Elite NTH Aptitude Section: Syllabus and Preparation The aptitude section covers three sub-areas, and all 20 questions are drawn from them combined. Quantitative Aptitude: Percentages, profit and loss, time and work, time-speed-distance, ratios and proportions, averages, simple and compound interest, permutations and combinations, probability. Wipro drives lean toward two-step word problems in this area. Algebra-heavy topics appear less frequently than proportion and percentage problems. Logical Reasoning: Number series, letter series, coding-decoding, blood relations, seating arrangements, syllogisms, direction sense, clocks and calendars. Series-continuation and coding-decoding show up consistently across Wipro drives. Practising these two types specifically gives better returns per hour than spreading across the full list. Verbal Ability: Reading comprehension passages (150 to 250 words typically), sentence correction and error detection, fill in the blanks, synonyms and antonyms, para-jumbles. No negative marking means no reason to leave any question blank. Attempt every question. Section 2: Wipro Elite NTH Essay Writing: Tips and Format One topic is given, and you write a response within the time remaining in the window. Wipro does not publish topics in advance. Past cycles have covered technology trends, workplace ethics, and open-ended opinion prompts on current events. What the section actually evaluates: clarity of argument, paragraph structure, grammar accuracy, and relevance to the prompt. The assessment runs through AMCAT’s written-English scoring engine, which weighs structure and grammar over vocabulary range. Aim for 200 to 250 words. A focused three-paragraph structure, with your position clearly stated in the opening, two or three supporting points in the body, a tight conclusion consistently outperforms longer rambling attempts. More words with less structure score lower than fewer words with a clear argument. How to practice: Write two timed essays per week in the month before your drive. Give yourself 10 minutes each. Pick current-affairs topics, enforce the time

Full Stack Development, Interview Preparation, IT Education

Highest-Paying IT Jobs in Pune in 2026: Roles, Salaries, and How to Get There

Surekha Nanekar / August 3, 2026

Two fresh graduates in the same year. Both have a degree. Both are based in Pune. One joins an IT services company and starts at ₹3.6 LPA. The other joins a BFSI Global Capability Centre in Kharadi and starts at ₹9 LPA. Same city. Same batch. Very different salaries. The difference is not luck. It is the role, the company type, and the preparation that went into landing there. Pune’s IT market in 2026 is not a flat landscape where everyone earns roughly the same. It is genuinely tiered, and understanding which roles sit at the top of that salary table is the most useful thing you can know before deciding what to study or where to apply. This blog covers the 7 highest-paying IT roles in Pune in 2026. For each one, we share real salary ranges, the names of companies actually hiring in the city, and what you need to get there. Quick answer: highest-paying IT jobs in Pune in 2026 by starting salary: GCC roles in Pune pay 25–60% more than IT services roles for the same position and experience level. [Source: PlugScale GCC Salary Benchmark India 2026.] Why Pune’s IT salaries are rising faster than most cities Before going role by role, there is one thing worth understanding about how Pune’s salary market actually works. It explains why two engineers doing the same role in the same city can earn so differently. Pune now has over 350 Global Capability Centres operating across Hinjewadi, Kharadi, Viman Nagar, Magarpatta, and Yerwada. These are not IT services companies taking on client projects. They are wholly-owned subsidiaries of global companies: Deutsche Bank, HSBC, Mastercard, Goldman Sachs, Siemens, Mercedes-Benz. When you work at a GCC, you are on the global company’s payroll, benchmarked against their global compensation standards, not Indian IT services norms. According to the PlugScale GCC Salary Benchmark India 2026, Pune salaries sit at 78 to 84% of Bangalore’s level for comparable GCC roles, and they are rising. GCC pay scales run 25 to 60% above IT services companies for the same role. That gap is the reason two freshers from the same graduation batch can earn ₹3.6 LPA and ₹9 LPA in the same city at the same time. Every salary number in this blog is presented with that context in mind. The company type matters as much as the role title. 1. AI and ML Engineer: the highest ceiling in Pune’s IT market If you want to understand where Pune’s IT salary ceiling actually sits in 2026, look at AI and ML engineering. It is not just the highest-paying tech role in the city. It is the fastest-growing one, and the talent supply has not caught up with demand. What this role actually involves An AI/ML Engineer designs, trains, and tests machine learning models against real data and deploys them for use by other systems. By 2026, this has expanded to Gen AI work, including the development of apps with LangChain, integration with OpenAI APIs, creation of RAG pipelines, and fine-tuning large language models to meet specific business requirements. This is not just simple data crunching. It’s engineering for manufacturing AI systems. Salary in Pune in 2026 The salary premium for AI and ML engineers is significant and well-documented. According to the PlugScale GCC Salary Benchmark India 2026, AI engineers command a 40 to 60% premium over equivalent-experience backend engineers in India’s GCC ecosystem. Experience Salary at IT services Salary at GCC in Pune Fresher (0 to 1 year) ₹5 to 8 LPA ₹8 to 14 LPA Mid-level (3 to 5 years) ₹12 to 18 LPA ₹28 to 45 LPA Senior (6 to 9 years) ₹20 to 30 LPA ₹48 to 72 LPA These figures are indicative and vary based on skills, portfolio strength, and specific employer. Candidates with Gen AI project experience consistently land at the higher end of these ranges. Who is hiring in Pune? Mastercard India Tech Hub (Kharadi), Deutsche Bank India Technology, HSBC Technology India, Bajaj Finserv, Persistent Systems, and a growing number of AI-first startups in Baner and Hinjewadi. All run active AI and ML engineering teams in Pune. What do you need to get there? Python is non-negotiable. Beyond that: solid machine learning fundamentals, experience with at least one deep learning framework (TensorFlow or PyTorch), and in 2026, some Gen AI exposure; even a single project using LangChain or the OpenAI API puts a fresher ahead of most applicants. A deployed ML project on GitHub is the clearest signal a hiring team can see. Teknowell’s data science and AI course in Pune covers Python, ML, deep learning, Gen AI integration, and Power BI with live project work on real datasets throughout the course. 2. Data Scientist: Pune’s most in-demand GCC hire Data science isn’t new, but what companies expect from data scientists in 2026 has. Classical ML skills are the new baseline. The best candidates will be those who can blend ML with Gen AI fluency, subject matter expertise, and the ability to communicate findings to non-technical stakeholders. What this role involves A data scientist spends their time cleaning and exploring data, building predictive or classification models, evaluating model performance, and turning the results into something a business team can act on. And many data scientists will be using Gen AI tools by 2026, using LLMs to make analytics features smarter or to automate the generation of insights. The output is not a webpage or application. It’s a recommendation, a prediction, or an AI-powered feature that someone else integrates into a product. Salary in Pune in 2026 The average data scientist salary in Pune in 2026 ranges from ₹6 LPA to ₹18 LPA depending on experience, skills, and company type. Freshers in Pune with strong Python skills, ML knowledge, and real project portfolios typically earn between ₹4.5 LPA and ₹8 LPA at entry level. At BFSI GCCs in Kharadi and Viman Nagar, well-prepared freshers with Gen AI skills are seeing packages of ₹8 to 12 LPA. Experience Salary range in

Python

Python for Data Science vs Web Development: Which Path Should You Choose in 2026?

Surekha Nanekar / July 30, 2026

So you have picked Python. Good call. Now comes the part nobody prepares you for. Python does not lead to one career. It leads to at least two, and they look nothing like each other once you are actually in them. One path takes you into Python Full Stack Development, where you build web applications using Python frameworks like Django for the backend, modern frontend technologies, databases, and REST APIs. The other takes you into data science, where you analyse data, train machine learning models, and in 2026, build Gen AI features using tools like LangChain and the OpenAI API. When people search “Python for data science vs web development,” what they are really asking is which of these two directions makes more sense for them. This blog answers that directly. Not with a “follow your passion” non-answer, but with the actual differences in daily work, salary, learning time, and who each path suits. Short on time? Here is the quick version: Python Full Stack Development: You build web applications using Django on the backend, React on the frontend, and databases and APIs connecting everything. The course at Teknowell runs 4 to 6 months. Freshers in Pune typically start at ₹3.5 to 6 LPA. Python Data Science: You work with data, build ML models, and use Gen AI tools. Course runs 6 to 9 months. Freshers start at ₹5 to 8 LPA. Higher ceiling, longer road. Both are strong careers. The right one depends on your timeline, background, and what kind of problem-solving you enjoy. What Python is actually doing in each path Walk into a Python Full Stack Development team and walk into a Python Data Science team on the same day, and you will think you are watching two different professions. Because in a meaningful sense, you are. The Full Stack Development path On this path, Python is most commonly used with frameworks like Django, and sometimes Flask or FastAPI depending on the company’s needs. Your job is the backend: the server logic, the database connections, the API endpoints that connect the frontend to the data. You write code that handles authentication, processes requests, stores information, and sends it back in the right format for the interface to display. A Python Full Stack Developer does not just write backend code. “Full stack” means working across the application, building the server-side with Python and Django while also understanding the frontend, databases, APIs, and how everything connects. In many real-world projects, Django is commonly paired with frontend technologies such as React, where Django exposes APIs, and the frontend consumes them to create the user experience. This combination helps developers build complete, end-to-end web applications rather than only the backend. The Python Django web development career is satisfying if you like building functional things and seeing them work. You push a feature, it goes live, users interact with it. That feedback loop is fast and concrete. Job titles at the end of this path are Python Full Stack Developer, Python Django Developer, or Software Developer. The Data Science path Python here is a completely different tool in a completely different context. You are using Pandas, NumPy, Scikit-learn, and in 2026, LangChain and the OpenAI API. Your job is not building products users interact with. It is answering questions the business cannot answer by looking at a spreadsheet. Why are users dropping off at this step? Which customers are about to churn? How do you build a fraud detection model that catches bad transactions without blocking legitimate ones? The output of your work is a model, a dashboard in Power BI, or a Gen AI feature that gets handed off to a development team to integrate. And then you have to explain what it means to a product manager or an executive who does not know what a confusion matrix is. That part surprises most freshers. Data science is code plus statistical reasoning plus making someone who does not write Python understand why they should trust what the model is recommending. Python data science scope in India is expanding significantly because of Gen AI. Companies are no longer just looking for classical ML skills. They want data professionals who understand prompt engineering, RAG pipelines, and how to use LLM APIs in production. Job titles here are Data Scientist, ML Engineer, Data Analyst, or increasingly, Gen AI Engineer. Salary: what each path actually pays According to Glassdoor, the average Python developer salary in India sits around ₹5.8 LPA, with entry-level roles ranging from ₹3 LPA to ₹10 LPA depending on specialisation. That range is wide because specialisation matters enormously here. These are market averages and actual packages vary based on company type, city, skills, project portfolio, and whether the student completed an internship before applying. Machine learning engineer and junior data scientist roles offer the highest starting packages among Python developer jobs in India, typically ₹5 LPA to ₹9 LPA for freshers, because the candidate pool is narrower and companies pay a premium to access it. Experience Python Full Stack Developer Python Data Scientist What drives the gap Fresher (0 to 1 yr) ₹3.5 to 6 LPA ₹5 to 8 LPA Smaller DS talent pool at entry Junior (1 to 3 yrs) ₹6 to 10 LPA ₹8 to 14 LPA Gap widens at first job switch Mid-level (3 to 5 yrs) ₹10 to 18 LPA ₹15 to 24 LPA Premium grows with experience Senior (5 plus yrs) ₹18 to 30 LPA ₹24 to 40 LPA Paths start to converge here These figures are indicative and sourced from publicly available market data on Glassdoor India, Naukri, and AmbitionBox. They represent ranges, not guarantees. The premium for data science exists for one reason: fewer people can do it well. Building a machine learning pipeline that actually works on real, messy data is harder to learn than building a Django backend. Not impossible, just harder. Fewer qualified candidates means companies pay more to find the ones who exist. And then there is the Python web

IT Education

Resume for Fresher IT Jobs in India: Exact Format, Skills Section, and Project Writing Guide (2026)

Surekha Nanekar / July 24, 2026

Here’s an uncomfortable truth nobody tells freshers before they start applying: most IT resumes in India get rejected before a human being ever lays eyes on them. Over 80% of large employers, TCS and Infosys included, along with pretty much every fast-growing Pune startup, run applications through ATS software first. If the formatting trips up the system, or the right keywords just aren’t there, your resume is gone before anyone reads a word of it. Doesn’t matter how good you actually are. So let’s fix that. This guide covers the exact software developer resume format that’s working right now, what to actually write in each section, and how to write projects in a fresher resume in a way that doesn’t scream “tutorial project.” That last part, honestly, is where most people lose the game without realising it. Quick answer: One page. That’s it, one page. Section order: Header, Summary (2 lines), Skills, Projects, Education, Certifications, Extras. Skip the photo, skip the DOB, skip marital status. Save it as .docx for ATS portals; keep a .pdf version ready for direct email applications. Font: Arial or Calibri, 10 to 11pt, single column, nothing fancy. Recruiters give a fresher resume 6 to 10 seconds before deciding. That’s roughly the time it took you to read this box. What ATS actually is, and why it matters more than your CGPA right now Before jumping into formatting, you need to know what you’re up against, because this changes almost every decision you’ll make on the resume. Building an ATS-friendly resume for freshers in India isn’t about picking a pretty template. It’s about understanding how the system reads you. What ATS does ATS, or Applicant Tracking System, is software companies use to scan and rank resumes before a recruiter ever opens one. It looks for keywords, checks your section headings, and scores your resume against the job description. Use tables, columns, or graphics, and the system can misread the whole thing, sometimes turning it into a jumbled mess of text even if you’re genuinely a great fit. Over 80% of large Indian employers, TCS and Infosys among them, use ATS somewhere in their hiring pipeline. What that means if you’re a fresher About 1.5 million engineering graduates enter India’s job market every year. A single IT opening can pull in hundreds of applications. ATS isn’t out to get you; it’s just neutral software doing its job. A properly formatted resume gets through it fine. The problem is that a lot of the “attractive” fresher resume templates floating around online, the ones with icons and multi-column layouts, fail parsing badly. You send off something that looks great on your screen, and the recruiter opens a broken mess. Single column. Standard headings. No tables, no graphics. That’s the whole trick. .docx or .pdf, which one? Go with .docx for job portals and most company career pages; that’s where ATS parsing happens. .pdf works fine when you’re emailing a startup directly and know a real person will open it. Not sure which one applies? Default to .docx and keep a clean .pdf on hand just in case. A well-formatted resume gets you past the ATS, but recruiters still shortlist candidates based on relevant technical skills and projects. If you’re still deciding which IT career path to pursue, our guide on the Best IT Courses for Freshers in 2026 explains which skills employers are hiring for today. The exact one-page format that works for IT freshers in 2026 This is the part people bookmark and come back to, so here it is, no fluff. Whether you’re aiming for a fresher resume one page India recruiters won’t skip past, or something built specifically for campus placement, this order works. Section order (don’t skip this) Header, Professional Summary, Skills, Projects, Education, Certifications, and Additional if there’s anything worth adding. Most students still put Education at the very top out of old habit, probably because that’s what their seniors did. For a fresher, though, Skills and Projects belong before Education. Why? Because the recruiter reading your resume wants to know what you can actually build before they care which college you’re from. This holds whether you’re going through campus placement or applying directly to product companies and startups around Pune. Header Name in bold, phone number, a proper email address (firstname.lastname@gmail.com, please, not the nickname you made in 2016), your city, LinkedIn URL, GitHub URL. No photo. No date of birth. No marital status, no gender. These are leftover conventions from a different era of hiring, and honestly, they can invite bias into a process that should be about your skills. Your header should take under three seconds to scan. Professional summary Two lines. That’s the ceiling. And this is not an objective statement; please retire “seeking a challenging role to utilise my skills”; it’s on a few hundred thousand resumes already and says nothing about you. Say what you are, what you can build, what you’re targeting instead. Something like: “Full-stack developer fresher with hands-on experience in MERN stack, REST APIs, and AWS deployment. Built 3 production-grade projects during training at Teknowell, Pune. Targeting developer roles at product companies and GCCs in Pune.” That’s the shape a strong full-stack developer resume fresher India recruiters respond to actually takes. Your summary should also reflect the type of developer role you’re targeting. If you’re still choosing between Java and Python, read our comparison of Java vs Python: Which Career Is Better for Freshers in 2026? before tailoring your resume. Education Degree, college, graduation year, CGPA. Include the CGPA if it’s 7.0 or above. Below that, drop the number entirely and let your projects carry the weight instead. Some companies use CGPA as a hard filter at campus level, so it’s worth checking that cutoff early rather than finding out the hard way. Adding 10th and 12th marks is optional; only bother if the rest of the resume feels thin. Certifications and extras AWS Cloud Practitioner, Azure Fundamentals, Google Data Analytics, HackerRank badges; list

Teknowell
EduTech

Author name: Surekha Nanekar