We collected 80 resumes from applicants to MITS and found 9 patterns that hurt candidates before a single interview — even from students at top colleges.
We reviewed 80 resumes submitted to MITS across three cohorts. The mistakes we found weren't limited to students from average colleges — they showed up just as often in resumes from NITs, state flagships, and students with strong GPAs. Here are the nine patterns that hurt candidates most, and what to do about each.
Mistake #1: The objective statement. 'Seeking a challenging position to leverage my skills and contribute to organizational growth.' No recruiter has ever read this and thought 'this person gets it.' Use that space for a 2-line summary of what you actually bring.
Mistake #2: A skills section with no context. Listing 'React, Node.js, Python, SQL' says nothing about proficiency or how you've used them. Worse, most candidates list technologies they vaguely recognize from a course, not ones they can actually use. Only list things you could answer a question about on the spot.
Mistake #3: GPA without context. '7.8/10' means different things at different colleges and departments. Add your rank or percentile if it's strong. If it's not strong, don't lead with it — let your projects do the talking.
Mistake #4: No links. If a recruiter can't click to see your project in 10 seconds, it functionally doesn't exist. Every project on your resume needs a GitHub link at minimum. A live deployed URL is even better. If the repo is empty or abandoned, don't list it.
Mistake #5: Describing features instead of impact. 'Built login functionality with JWT authentication' is a feature description. 'Reduced onboarding drop-off by 30% by replacing a 5-step email verification flow with single-click OAuth' is an impact statement. Ask 'so what?' after every bullet.
Mistake #6: Mismatched depth. Students often write 4 lines about a weekend tutorial project and 2 lines about something they spent 3 months building. The amount of space you give a project signals how significant it was. Prioritize accordingly.
Mistake #7: Over-designed resumes. Fancy two-column layouts and custom fonts often break ATS parsing software. Simple, clean, single-column formats with consistent heading styles outperform designed resumes in screening systems — and look just as good to human reviewers.
Mistake #8: Using a college email address. small.thing@college.edu signals you haven't thought about your professional presence. Create a professional Gmail and use it everywhere career-related.
Mistake #9: Listing GitHub without checking what it shows. Several resumes we reviewed had GitHub links that led to accounts with 0 public repos, or repos with 'initial commit' as the only entry. If you're linking to GitHub, make sure it shows something. One clean, well-documented repo beats eight half-finished ones.
Most students treat a resume as a list of things they did. Recruiters read it as a claim about what you can do for them. That shift in framing changes how you write every line.
Every bullet point should answer the implicit question: 'So what? Why does this matter for us?' If you can't answer that in one sentence, the bullet needs to be rewritten or removed.
The best resume you can have is one that's shorter than you expected and stronger than you thought possible. Every line earns its place.
"Take your current resume right now and go through it with one question: 'so what?' after every bullet. If you can't answer it, rewrite it. That single exercise will improve your resume more than any template."
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