What Hiring Managers Want in Freshers 2026

We asked 15 hiring managers, tech leads, and HR directors across Pune, Bangalore, and Hyderabad one question: “When you look at a fresher’s application, what makes you say yes — and what makes you say no?”

Their answers might surprise you. Because the gap between what freshers think matters and what actually matters is wider than most people realize.

The Uncomfortable Truth About Fresher Hiring

Here’s what most freshers believe gets them hired:

• A high CGPA
• Memorizing 500 LeetCode problems
• Having a CS degree from a top college
• Listing every technology they’ve ever heard of on their resume

Here’s what hiring managers told us actually matters:

• Can this person build something real?
• Can they explain what they built and why?
• Will they learn fast and ask good questions?
• Do they write code that others can read?

Let’s go deep on each of these.

#1: Projects Beat Everything

This was the single most consistent answer across all 15 hiring managers:

“Show me what you’ve built.”

Not what you’ve learned. Not what courses you’ve completed. Not your certificate collection. What you’ve built.

What a “Good Project” Looks Like to a Hiring Manager

A hiring manager at a mid-size Pune product company explained it perfectly:

“I see 50 resumes a day that list ‘to-do app’ and ‘calculator’ as projects. These tell me nothing. But when someone shows me a project that solves an actual problem — even a small one — I pay attention.”

Strong fresher projects share these qualities:

1. They solve a real problem — not a tutorial exercise

   • ❌ “E-commerce clone following Udemy tutorial”
   • ✅ “PG finder app for students in Pune — scrapes listings from 3 sites, shows on a map, sends alerts for new listings under ₹8,000”

2. They have a live demo — deployed and accessible

   • A GitHub link is good. A live URL is 10x better.
   • Free deployment: Vercel, Render, Railway, Netlify

3. They have clean code with a README

   • Setup instructions
   • Tech stack explanation
   • Screenshots or a short demo video
   • What you would improve if you had more time (shows self-awareness)

4. They demonstrate depth, not breadth

   • One project with authentication, database, API integration, error handling, and deployment shows more than five shallow projects

The “Build in Public” Advantage

Multiple hiring managers mentioned that candidates who document their building process (on LinkedIn, Twitter, or a blog) stand out dramatically.

“A candidate had been posting weekly updates about building a health tracking app. I could see their thinking process, the bugs they hit, the design decisions they made. By the time they applied, I already wanted to hire them.” — Engineering Manager, Bangalore startup

#2: Communication Skills Are Non-Negotiable

This surprised us in how strongly it came through. Every single hiring manager we spoke to rated communication as a top-3 hiring criterion for freshers.

Why Communication Matters More Than You Think

In a real job, you spend more time communicating than coding:

• Standup meetings (explaining what you’re working on)
• Code reviews (explaining your decisions)
• Slack/Teams messages (asking for help, updating progress)
• Documentation (writing clear README files, API docs)
• Client calls (in service companies)

A tech lead at an MNC in Hyderabad shared this insight: “I can teach someone a new framework in two weeks. I cannot teach them how to communicate clearly in two weeks. That takes years.”

What “Good Communication” Looks Like in an Interview

It’s not about fluent English. It’s about:

1. Explaining your thought process: “I chose MongoDB here because the data schema was flexible and didn’t need relationships…”
2. Admitting what you don’t know: “I haven’t worked with GraphQL yet, but I understand it solves the over-fetching problem that REST APIs have…”
3. Asking clarifying questions: “Before I solve this, can I clarify — should I optimize for speed or readability?”
4. Structuring your answers: Start with the “what,” then the “why,” then the “how”

The Language Question

Several hiring managers addressed this directly:

“We don’t care if your English isn’t perfect. We care if you can express your ideas. Some of our best developers communicate primarily in Hindi during meetings and switch to English for documentation. That’s fine.”

#3: Problem-Solving Approach > Perfect Solutions

How Hiring Managers Actually Evaluate Coding Rounds

Here’s something freshers don’t understand: in a coding interview, the answer is only 30% of what’s being evaluated.

The other 70% is:

A senior developer who conducts 10+ fresher interviews monthly at a Pune IT company shared their evaluation process:

“I give a medium-difficulty problem and watch. The candidates who immediately start typing usually produce buggy code. The ones who ask ‘What if the input is empty?’ and ‘Should I handle negative numbers?’ — those are the ones I hire. They think before they code.”

The Right Way to Approach a Coding Problem in an Interview

1. Read/listen carefully — Don’t start coding immediately
2. Ask clarifying questions — Input constraints, expected output format, edge cases
3. Think out loud — Share your approach before coding: “I’m thinking of using a hash map because lookup is O(1)…”
4. Start with a brute force solution — Then optimize. Showing progression is better than jumping to an optimal solution you can’t explain
5. Test your code — Walk through it with a sample input before saying “done”
6. Acknowledge limitations — “This works for small inputs. For large datasets, I’d consider…”

#4: Cultural Fit and Attitude

This is the factor most freshers completely ignore, and it eliminates more candidates than technical skills.

What “Cultural Fit” Really Means

It’s not about being friendly or extroverted. Hiring managers look for:

Curiosity: Do you ask “why” or just accept things as they are?

• ✅ “I noticed your product uses WebSockets for real-time updates. Was that a deliberate choice over SSE?”
• ❌ Not asking any questions about the company or product

Ownership: Do you take responsibility?

• ✅ “In my project, I made a mistake choosing a complex state management library. I learned that simpler solutions work better for small apps.”
• ❌ Blaming failures on teammates, lack of resources, or bad luck

Learnability: Can you pick up new things quickly?

• ✅ “I hadn’t used TypeScript before, but I migrated my project to it in a week using the official docs.”
• ❌ “I only know what was taught in my course.”

Humility: Do you know what you don’t know?

• ✅ “I understand React at an intermediate level. I’m still learning performance optimization and testing.”
• ❌ “I’m expert in React, Angular, Vue, Node, Python, Java, and AWS” (on a fresher resume — no, you’re not)

Red Flags That Get You Rejected Instantly

Hiring managers shared their immediate rejection signals:

1. Lying on the resume: “If you list ‘proficient in AWS’ and can’t explain what EC2 is, you’re done.”
2. No questions for the interviewer: “Zero curiosity about the role means zero interest in the job.”
3. Badmouthing previous experiences: “If they talk badly about their college or training institute, they’ll talk badly about us.”
4. Entitlement about salary: “A fresher who opens with ‘What’s the maximum CTC?’ before understanding the role.”
5. Copy-pasted answers: “When their ‘tell me about yourself’ sounds memorized from a YouTube template.”

#5: Your Resume — The 6-Second Filter

Recruiters spend an average of 6 seconds on a first resume scan. Here’s what they look at:

The Scan Order

1. Name + headline (1 second) — Is there a clear role mentioned?
2. Skills section (1 second) — Do they match the job description?
3. Projects section (2 seconds) — Anything that catches the eye?
4. Education (1 second) — Basic qualification check
5. Overall impression (1 second) — Clean formatting? Reasonable length?

Resume Mistakes That Get You Rejected

Mistake 1: The 3-page resume You’re a fresher. One page. Period. If you can’t summarize your value in one page, you can’t communicate concisely in a meeting either.

Mistake 2: The technology dump

❌ Skills: “HTML, CSS, JavaScript, TypeScript, React, Angular, Vue, Svelte, Node.js, Express, Django, Flask, Spring Boot, MongoDB, PostgreSQL, MySQL, Redis, Docker, Kubernetes, AWS, Azure, GCP, Terraform, Jenkins…”

No fresher knows all of these. This screams “I copied job description keywords.”

✅ Skills: “JavaScript (ES6+), React.js, Node.js, Express, MongoDB, Git”

List what you can actually discuss in depth during an interview.

Mistake 3: No projects or generic projects

❌ “Projects: Calculator App, To-Do App, Weather App”

✅ “Projects: MealBuddy — A meal planning app for hostel students that suggests weekly menus based on budget and nutrition (React, Node.js, MongoDB). 500+ weekly active users.”

Mistake 4: Objective statements

❌ “Objective: Seeking a challenging position in a reputed organization where I can utilize my skills and contribute to organizational growth.”

This tells the hiring manager nothing. Remove it entirely and use that space for a stronger project description.

Mistake 5: Including personal details that don’t matter

❌ “Father’s name, date of birth, marital status, passport number, hobbies: cricket and cooking”

None of this belongs on a tech resume. Use that space for a project description.

#6: The GitHub Profile Check

Here’s something most freshers don’t know: 7 out of 15 hiring managers we interviewed check candidates’ GitHub profiles before the interview.

What They Look For

What They Don’t Care About

• Star count on repositories (vanity metric)
• Number of followers
• Contributing to massive open source projects (contributing to any project, even documentation, counts)

Quick GitHub Improvement Plan

1. Pin your 3-5 best repositories on your profile
2. Write a profile README (yes, GitHub has this feature — create a repo with your username)
3. Add READMEs to every project with setup instructions and screenshots
4. Make commits daily — even small ones. The contribution graph matters
5. Use meaningful branch names and commit messages — this shows professionalism

#7: What Separates “Hire” from “Maybe”

After all interviews, hiring managers often have 5-10 candidates who are technically “good enough.” Here’s what pushes someone from “maybe” to “hire”:

The Differentiators

1. A blog or writing: Candidates who write about what they learn show deeper understanding. Even 3-4 LinkedIn posts about your learning journey count.

2. Contributions to the interview: Candidates who say “I noticed your app does X — have you considered doing Y?” show they’ve researched the company and can think independently.

3. Honest self-assessment: “I’m strong in React and Node.js. My SQL knowledge is basic — I can write queries but need to learn optimization.” This honesty builds instant trust.

4. Follow-up questions about the role: “What does a typical first month look like for someone in this role?” shows you’re thinking beyond just getting the offer.

5. Energy and enthusiasm: Not fake positivity — genuine interest. When someone’s eyes light up when talking about a technical challenge they solved, it’s visible and compelling.

The Interview Preparation Nobody Talks About

Research the Company (30 Minutes Before Interview)

• Visit their website and product
• Read their engineering blog (if they have one)
• Check their tech stack on StackShare or job descriptions
• Look at their recent news or product updates
• Prepare 2-3 genuine questions about their product or engineering culture

Prepare Your Stories (Not Scripts)

Have ready-to-tell stories for:

• A time you solved a difficult bug (your debugging process)
• A time you learned something new quickly (your learning approach)
• A time you worked with others (even on a college project — focus on collaboration)
• Why you chose this career path (be authentic, not rehearsed)

Practice the “Reverse Interview”

When they ask “Do you have any questions?” — this is not the end. This is your chance to stand out. Ask:

1. “What does the first project typically look like for someone joining your team?”
2. “How does the team handle knowledge sharing for new technologies?”
3. “What’s the biggest technical challenge your team is currently facing?”
4. “How do you measure a junior developer’s growth in the first year?”

These questions tell the interviewer that you’re thinking about contributing, not just getting hired.

A Final Word from a Hiring Manager

We’ll close with a quote from a CTO who has hired over 200 freshers in his career:

“The freshers I’ve hired who went on to become outstanding engineers all had one thing in common: they were builders. Not certificate collectors. Not tutorial watchers. Builders. They shipped broken code, fixed it, shipped again, broke it again, fixed it better. That cycle of building and failing and building again is what creates real developers. If I see that cycle in your GitHub, your projects, or your interview answers — you’re hired.”

Your CGPA won’t get you the job. Your certificates won’t get you the job. What you’ve built, how you think, and who you’re becoming — that’s what gets you hired.

Start building today.

This article is based on interviews conducted with hiring managers and tech leads across Pune, Bangalore, Hyderabad, and Mumbai between November 2025 and January 2026. Company-specific details have been anonymized at the interviewees’ request. Hiring criteria vary by company and role.