New Grad Resume Guide 2026: Land Your First Tech Job

Your first tech resume has one job: prove you can ship. Recruiters at campus fairs and new-grad programs spend 6 seconds scanning — they look for projects, internships, relevant coursework, and clean formatting. This guide gives you the exact structure, content rules, and template that new-grad hiring managers expect in 2026.

New grad resume rules

1. One page. Always. No exceptions for undergrads.
2. Education first (above experience) — you are selling your degree and coursework.
3. 2–4 projects with deployed URLs, tech stacks, and metrics.
4. Internships and part-time tech roles: 3–5 bullets each with XYZ formula.
5. GPA only if 3.5+ (or if the employer asks).
6. Skills: 10–15 technologies you can discuss in an interview.
7. No photo, no objective statement, no "references available upon request."

Section order for new grads

1. Contact — name, phone, email, GitHub, LinkedIn.
2. Education — degree, school, GPA, relevant coursework, honors.
3. Experience — internships, co-ops, part-time tech roles, research positions.
4. Projects — personal, class, hackathon, open-source.
5. Skills — languages, frameworks, tools.
6. Optional: Certifications, Awards, Leadership.

Projects: how to make them count

What to cut when space is tight

• High school achievements (unless truly exceptional — national olympiad, etc.).
• Non-technical part-time jobs (unless no other experience exists — then one line each).
• Coursework that is not relevant to the target role.
• Soft skills listed as skills ("team player", "communication") — show these in bullets instead.
• More than 4 projects — pick your strongest.

Template and formatting

Use Jake’s Resume — it is what campus recruiters expect in tech. Build it on IhateLaTeX in 15 minutes: fill the form, add projects, run ATS Score, squeeze to one page with 0.6 in margins and compact bullets if needed. Download as Firstname_Lastname_Resume.pdf.