Data analyst resume for freshers: one page that gets read.

What does an ATS do to your resume?

An applicant tracking system (ATS) is the software employers use to collect applications and scan resumes for keywords, turning each one into fields such as skills and education that recruiters can search.1 Parsing can go wrong, so your format has one job: make every word readable.2

The fear that a robot bins your resume is overstated. Greenhouse, for example, says its AI matching scores how well an application fits a job but “does not automatically advance or reject candidates”, and that recruiters and hiring managers make every hiring decision. Its automatic rejections run on your answers to the employer’s screening questions, such as location or notice period.23 Matching scores are still why the posting’s own words matter.

Sources: Indeed India,1 Greenhouse2 and an employer’s parsing FAQ.4

On file type, advice differs: Greenhouse tells candidates to upload a PDF, while one employer’s parsing FAQ says .docx is parsed most accurately.24 Keep both, made from the same document, and follow each posting.

Which sections, and in what order?

As a fresher, put what proves your skills first: a short summary, your skills, then projects, then education and everything else. Keep it to one page: Indeed’s guidance is that one page is standard for new graduates, and a second is fine only if it carries relevant projects.5

Write a summary, not an objective. “Seeking a challenging role in a reputed organisation” tells a recruiter nothing; “builds SQL and Power BI reports on Indian public data” tells them what to look for in the rest of the page.

Indian norms: marks, photo, date of birth

Indian fresher resumes carry details that foreign templates leave out, and should drop several that older “biodata” formats include.

• Marks: show CGPA as your university reports it (8.1/10), and list Class 12 and Class 10 with board, year and marks, newest first. IIT Kanpur’s placement office asks students for exactly this table, with 10th and 12th marks.7 Some fresher posts set minimum marks for each level, so leaving them out can cost you.
• Converting CGPA: if a form asks for a percentage, use the conversion your university prescribes, not a formula from the internet.
• Photo, date of birth, marital status: leave them out unless the job asks. Indeed India notes a photo isn’t mandatory unless the job demands it, and that date of birth matters mainly where jobs have age limits, such as some government posts.6
• Address: your city and state are enough.6
• Declaration and signature: skip the “I hereby declare” line; it takes space and adds nothing a recruiter checks.
• A gap year: name it in one line, with what you built (“2024–25: prepared for CAT; built two SQL projects”). Our career gap guide covers longer breaks.

Project bullets that show results

A project bullet should say what you did, with which tool, on what data, and what came of it. Recruiters skim, so start each bullet with a verb and end it with the result.

Numbers about your own work (rows cleaned, cities covered, hours saved) belong on the page; claims you can’t show don’t, because interviewers will ask you to open the project. Mark self-made projects as yours and link the code: IIT Kanpur’s placement office, for one, asks for proof such as a git link.7 For datasets with their licences, use our 15 data analyst projects on Indian public data. On our program, the capstone library gives you projects on brands Indian recruiters know.

Skills: what entry-level posts ask for

Match the posting, honestly. In the 16 entry-level data analyst posts we read on LinkedIn India on 22 October 2026, SQL came up most often, then Power BI, Python and communication, then Tableau and Excel. Use the posting’s exact words where they’re true: if it says “Power Query”, don’t write only “data cleaning”.1

AI belongs on the page too, carefully. Indeed found AI mentioned in 39% of data and analytics postings in India in September 2025.8 If you use AI assistants, say so, and say how you check what they produce.

• Group skills by tool, with sub-skills: “SQL (MySQL): joins, CTEs, window functions”.
• List only what you can explain for five minutes; every skill is an interview question.
• No star ratings or bars: a parser can’t read them, and “4 out of 5 in Python” means nothing.

If SQL is your weakest skill, our SQL interview questions show the level analyst rounds test.

A complete sample resume

An invented candidate, for illustration only: a 2026 B.Com graduate applying for entry-level Data Analyst and MIS roles. Copy the structure, not the content: your projects, numbers and links must be your own.

Notice what it leaves out: no photo, no date of birth, no “objective”, no declaration, no skill bars, and nothing in a header or footer. Everything a parser needs is plain text in one column.

LinkedIn, GitHub and certifications

Recruiters click the links on a data resume, so make each one worth the click.

• LinkedIn: set a custom public profile URL (3 to 100 characters, no spaces or symbols; you can change it up to five times in six months), and use the same headline and projects as your resume.10
• GitHub: pin your best work (up to six repositories and gists in total) and add a profile README, a public repository named after your username with a README.md at its root.11 Each project’s README should give the question, the data source and its licence, how to run it and what you found.
• Certifications: write the full credential name with the exam code, “Microsoft Certified: Power BI Data Analyst Associate (PL-300)”, and share it from your Microsoft Learn profile, which must be public for anyone to verify it.9

Before you send it, read the page aloud, check every link opens, and save it as “Firstname-Lastname-Data-Analyst.pdf”. Then send it where the jobs are: our guide to data analyst jobs for freshers covers the titles to search and where they’re posted.

Questions

Sources

1. Indeed India Career Guide, How to write an ATS resume, updated 16 Jun 2026, read 22 Oct 2026.
2. Greenhouse Support, MyGreenhouse FAQ for candidates, updated 2 Oct 2026, read 22 Oct 2026.
3. Greenhouse Support, Application rules overview, updated 2 Mar 2026, read 22 Oct 2026.
4. Roche Careers, Resume parsing FAQ, read 22 Oct 2026.
5. Indeed India Career Guide, How long should a resume be?, updated 3 Dec 2025, read 22 Oct 2026.
6. Indeed India Career Guide, Include these personal details in a resume, updated 16 Jun 2026, read 22 Oct 2026.
7. IIT Kanpur Students’ Placement Office, For students (resume FAQs), read 22 Oct 2026.
8. Indeed Hiring Lab, September 2025 labour market update, 25 Oct 2025, read 22 Oct 2026.
9. Microsoft Learn, Microsoft Certified: Power BI Data Analyst Associate and Sharing and validating of Microsoft Credentials, read 22 Oct 2026.
10. LinkedIn Help, Manage your public profile URL, read 22 Oct 2026.
11. GitHub Docs, Managing your profile README and Pinning items to your profile, read 22 Oct 2026.