Resume format for internship applications: a fresher walk-through with sample

Is there a fixed resume format for an internship?

The Student's Guide 2025-26 of The Placement Cell at Jesus and Mary College (University of Delhi) states that all candidates must "adhere to the mandatory CV/Resume format prescribed by the Placement Cell" while registering for any placement drive. Where a college sets no format, Internshala's resume guide asks for one column, most recent item first in each section.

Internshala's resume guide says the same thing from the other side. Its list of common mistakes carries a tip: where your placement office or the recruiting company issues guidelines that contradict the list, "you have no choice but to follow what is asked by them."

So the first step is a question to your placement cell or department: is there a template? If there is, use it and treat everything below as advice on filling it in. If there is not, the steps below give a plain layout drawn from the guides cited here.

Step 1: What goes at the top, and what stays off?

At the top go your name, course and college, an email address you check, a phone number, and one link to your work. Leave off a photo, age and gender. Harvard's Mignone Center for Career Success lists "Include a picture" and "Include age or gender" among its don'ts, and "Missing email and phone information" among its top five resume mistakes.

What stays off:

• A photograph. Internshala's guide calls it "not required" except for roles where appearance matters, and names aviation, hospitality, media, films and modelling. The Jesus and Mary College guide instead advises candidates to carry two recent passport-sized photographs, with extra copies of the resume, to every recruitment process.
• A list of referees. MIT's careers office says to line up references but not to include them on the resume unless asked, and Harvard's list of things not to do includes "List references". The IIT Madras section list has none either. Keep two names ready in case a recruiter asks.
• Your college logo, unless your training and placement cell makes it compulsory. Internshala's guide says a few colleges do.
• A generic career objective. Internshala's guide says an objective "should be very specific and should be substantiated by the internships/projects done". If yours would fit any applicant, leave it out.

One exception shows why the college template wins. The IIT Madras Internship Resume Guidelines for 2025-26 tell its students to put name and roll number on the resume and to leave out mobile number, address and email. Those resumes are uploaded to the institute's own portal for verification, and the rule is that one college's own. A resume you send directly to an organisation needs your contact details.

Step 2: How do you write education when you have no marks yet?

Write the degree you are studying, the college, and the year you expect to finish. Internshala's help centre tells students still pursuing a degree to list it anyway and to write "the probable year in which you will be graduating" as the end year. Below the degree, give your Class 12 and Class 10 results, most recent first.

Every figure you write should match the document it came from, to the decimal. The IIT Madras guidelines say "Rounding of CGPA or any scores is strictly prohibited", and give the example that 7.99 is not 8 and 8.56 is not 8.6. The same document says the institute cross-checks each CGPA with its Academic Section and that discrepancies lead to penalties. Other colleges may not check that way, but an employer can ask for your mark sheet.

Once you have semester results, one aggregate figure is enough. Internshala's guide says you do not need each semester's GPA; the aggregate CGPA at the end of the latest semester does the job.

MIT's careers office tells its own first-years, whose first semester is graded pass or no record, that they can write "GPA: N/A" until an official GPA exists. That is an MIT rule. For an Indian first-year before any university result, writing the expected graduation year with no CGPA line does the same job without inventing a number.

Step 3: How do you list coursework, projects and course projects?

List two or three courses that match the internship, not your whole syllabus. Internshala's guide says "At best list 2-3 most relevant courses" and points out that an employer who wants every course will ask for your transcript.

Projects give a reader something to ask you about, and a class assignment counts. MIT's guidance says to consider "class projects, competitions or even personal projects" alongside jobs and internships, and to describe each in terms that make its relevance clear. Label each project honestly. The IIT Madras guidelines require the words "[course project]" on any project done for a course, so a reader can tell it apart from one done with a professor.

The same IIT Madras document says a personal project needs "a link to the report or code". Wherever you apply, a link on the line lets the reader check the work.

For a resume for IT internship roles, name the language or tool inside the project line. MIT's advice is that "if you wrote software, say what language you used", because naming a skill inside an experience line reinforces it by putting it in context. A line reads: "Built a [type of app] in [language] that [what it did], [link]."

Step 4: How do you list volunteering, NSS and college roles?

List each one the way you would list a job: organisation, your role, dates, and one or two lines on what you did, with a number where you have one. College roles (class representative, society coordinator, fest volunteer) go in a section of their own or under positions of responsibility.

For the National Service Scheme, the NSS page on regular activities gives 120 hours of regular activities in an academic year as what volunteers "generally" complete, working in villages, slums and voluntary agencies. Write the hours you actually completed and the unit you served with, not the scheme's general figure.

Keep the paper trail. The IIT Madras guidelines ask no proof for volunteering inside the institute, but say "a certificate/mail is required for volunteering in organizations outside our institute like NGOs etc." Before you write an NGO line, make sure the organisation has sent you something in writing.

Whether to list NSS or direct NGO work first is covered in the guide to NSS versus direct NGO volunteering on a resume, and how a hiring manager reads an NGO line is in how a recruiter reads an NGO line.

Step 5: How do you write each line, and what goes under skills?

Start each line with a verb that says what you did, leave out "I", and end on a result or a link. MIT Career Advising and Professional Development says resumes "don't require complete sentences" and that descriptions should start with an action verb such as built, managed, developed or wrote. Under skills, list the tools the listing asks for that you have used.

MIT's heading for the next rule is "Record accomplishments and contributions, not just responsibilities." A result is anything a reader could check: a number, an output, a link. "Collected feedback from [number] classmates and presented it to the department" tells a reader more than "good communicator".

Keep the skills line short, with each entry visible somewhere above it. The IIT Madras guidelines ask for no proof of skills or hobbies, so nothing on a skills line there is checked in advance. A skill that also appears inside a project line, as in the IT example in Step 3, has something behind it.

Match the listing's words where they are true of you. MIT notes that employers "may use keyword scanning on resumes", so the words relevant to the position should appear in yours. Internshala's guide gives the same advice with an Indian example: read the internship description for the skills it demands, and if the role asks for Java while most of your projects are in PHP, put the Java projects forward.

Step 6: How long should an internship resume be, and in what order?

One page if everything relevant fits, and never much more than that for a student. MIT's careers office says "Stick to one page, unless you have extensive experience or an advanced degree." Internshala's guide calls one page "desirable but not mandatory" and adds, "If your resume is more than 1.5 pages long, get your scissors ready."

Inside each section, put the most recent item first. Internshala's guide asks for reverse chronological order in academics, projects, internships and activities, and Harvard's guidance on how to create a strong resume says the same.

Use one column. Internshala's guide asks students to stick to a one-column structure because two columns make a reader decide where to look first. MIT adds type rules: a conservative font no smaller than 10pt and at least half-inch margins on all sides. The IIT Madras guidelines refer to an A4 resume.

One Indian college's list shows the full range of sections. The IIT Madras guidelines cover education, minors, scholastic achievements, coursework, professional experience, positions of responsibility, projects, research papers and patents, entrepreneurial activities, extra-curricular activities, and skills and hobbies. A first-year fills four or five and leaves out the rest.

A workable order for a first internship: education, projects, experience (if any), volunteering and positions of responsibility, skills. Once you have finished an internship, where a finished internship goes on your resume and LinkedIn is a separate guide.

What does a sample resume for internship applications look like?

The sample below follows Steps 1 to 6 for a hypothetical second-year student. All of its details sit in square brackets. It is a teaching layout and describes no real person, college or organisation, so use it as an internship resume template for layout only.

SPECIMEN RESUME. NOT A REAL CANDIDATE. DO NOT SUBMIT.
[Full name] | [Email address] | [Phone number] | [Portfolio or GitHub link]
EDUCATION: [Degree and subject], [College name], [University name], [Start year] to [Expected graduation year]. CGPA [exact figure from grade card, or leave this line out before the first result]
[Class 12 board], [School name], [Year]: [percentage exactly as on the mark sheet]. [Class 10 board], [School name], [Year]: [percentage exactly as on the mark sheet]
RELEVANT COURSES: [Course one], [Course two]
PROJECTS: [Project title] [course project], [Month and year]. [What you built or studied] using [tool or language]; [one measurable result]. [Link to report or code]
[Project title], personal project, [Month and year]. [What it does]; [who used it or what it found]. [Link]
VOLUNTEERING: [Role], [Organisation name], [Start month] to [End month], [hours completed]. [One line on the task and its result]
POSITIONS OF RESPONSIBILITY: [Role], [Society or committee], [Year]. [What you ran and for how many people]
SKILLS: [Tool or language], [Tool or language], [Language you speak]
SPECIMEN ONLY. Replace every bracket with a fact you can prove, or delete the line.

A resume travels with a short note or letter. The guide to a cover letter with no experience covers that document.

Should you send a CV for internship applications or a resume?

Send a resume unless the listing asks for something else. Internshala's guide describes a CV as a document of two or more pages, "generally 3-8 pages", mostly used for academic and research positions, fellowships and grants. A resume is a short summary of no more than two pages that you adjust for each role.

In practice the words are used loosely. Internshala's guide observes that "What most of the students write in India is a hybrid version of a resume and a CV", and the Jesus and Mary College guide writes "CV/Resume" as one format. If a student listing says "CV" and you are unsure what it means, send the resume and ask.

One government route builds the CV for you. The PM Internship Scheme, run by the Ministry of Corporate Affairs, places young people in paid internships with large companies. Eligible candidates register on the portal, complete their profile and "generate their CV", according to the scheme's official FAQs. For each internship, roughly two to three times as many names as there are offers are then sent to the company, with each candidate's resume.

A Press Information Bureau release of 22 April 2026 says interns receive at least ₹9,000 a month, that people aged 18 to 25 can apply, and that final-year undergraduate and postgraduate students are now eligible if they submit a No Objection Certificate from their college.

The scheme's FAQ page still lists the pilot's original terms (₹5,000 a month, ages 21 to 24, a 12-month internship), so check the current terms on pminternship.mca.gov.in before you apply. On that portal the CV is generated from your profile, so fill the profile with the same exact figures.

How does a college or employer check what your resume claims?

A college that verifies resumes asks for the document behind each line. The Indian Institute of Technology Madras accepts only these proofs for a completed internship: a completion certificate or relieving letter, an offer letter with an acknowledgement mail from the company, or an offer letter with stipend payment details carrying the company's name. A research internship can be proved by a letter from the professor.

What a genuine certificate carries is in the guide to internship certificate format; what an offer letter should say is in the guide to internship offer letter format.

Other colleges set their own rules, and an employer may simply call the organisation or ask for the certificate at interview. The Jesus and Mary College guide writes a penalty down: a candidate who gives "misleading or inaccurate information" during a drive can be debarred or blacklisted from some or all future internship or placement opportunities its Placement Cell facilitates.

A certificate carries no more weight than the work it records. A reader who asks "what did you do in week three?" learns more than the certificate tells them, and a line you cannot talk about for two minutes is better cut. The guide on how employers weigh an internship certificate goes further.

Write your own lines. The IIT Madras guidelines point students to the institute's resume archive but warn against copying points from it, because "it will be evident to the recruiter and can impact you negatively".