Engineering students once relied on their degree alone to land jobs, but that is no longer enough. Tech hiring has changed with the times — companies don’t just want degrees; they want freshers who have more than theoretical knowledge. Recruiters now look for proof of skills — projects and internships completed, and the ability to clearly explain their work. As Ajay Jaganathan, who has been HR boss at
Walmart and also Amazon, notes, “Because the overall quality of technical education has improved, baseline knowledge among students is often similar. Companies now look for initiative, real-world problem-solving and learning agility. Projects, internships and research show a student has gone beyond
the classroom.”
A strong profile reflects genuine learning as students deepen their understanding by consistently building and refining projects. “Grades tell us how you have completed a curriculum. But projects tell us what you can do,” says Gokul Santhanam, global senior VP and business unit HR head at Mphasis Limited. “When a student can walk us through what they built, what went wrong and how they improved it, that’s far more meaningful than a list of certificates.”
Activities
A good way to begin is with small projects. Students can start turning classroom concepts into simple, manageable outcomes, such as a basic website, a small app or a simple automation.
“In my first year, I experimented with simple regression models on stock price data just to see if I could spot patterns,” says Rohan Amudhala, a second-year computer science student at SSN College of Engineering in Chennai. Another student took a different route. “I built a simple personal finance tracker app to help people record their daily expenses,” says Ananya Ghosh, a computer science student at VIT Chennai. “I got to know how users think. And I was rather excited that I could actually build something like that all by myself,” she says.
Building on these early experiments, some students begin to explore more structured work as they gain confidence. Rohan, for instance, is now working on a college research paper that uses regression-based mathematical models to predict fuel prices — a more complex and in-depth project than the small exploratory ones he began with.
Projects
Students should gradually take on more complex projects and start participating in clubs, hackathons and group activities so that their learning extends beyond the classroom. Internships add another layer of learning — solving problems under real-world constraints.
“I built an event management system for local organisers to handle registrations and schedules, along with two of my classmates. I focussed on the backend,” says Arvind Bharti, a final-year engineering student from Bengaluru. “The system slowed down because too many users were logging in at the same time. We had to figure out how to improve performance. I could handle it because I had worked on other apps and small systems before, which taught me how to solve such issues,” he adds.
For some students, this leads to larger engineering challenges. Members of a student robotics team at Plaksha University, Mohali, are building a Mars rover prototype for an international competition. The project brings together mechanics, robotics, electronics, biosciences and AI/ML, and involves 47 students collaborating across disciplines. Projects on this scale also introduce students to concepts such as coordination, process and responsibility. “Leading a project like this means learning to trust others, managing different subteams and staying calm when something goes wrong,” says Mannan Gadesha, a third-year robotics student and team lead of the project.
Documentation
One of the most overlooked parts of profile-building is documentation. Recruiters should be able to quickly understand what a project was about and what the student learnt. Screenshots, demo links and a clear description can make a big difference. “With so many subsystems and team members, documentation isn’t optional,” says Yatharth Nehra, who is a third-year student at Plaksha working on the Mars rover project.
Yatharth encountered similar expectations during a summer internship at Capgemini, where he was a data engineering intern on AI-driven automation tools. One of his key projects involved building agentic AI systems. These intelligent agents could analyse structured data, follow decision rules and perform tasks such as drafting communications, validating large datasets and updating records.
“In a corporate environment, even a small software change has to follow company guidelines, privacy rules and strict documentation processes,” he says. “That experience made me realise that discipline and structure are just as important as technical skill.”
Ultimately, profiles stand out because of solid experience and clarity of thought. When students can explain what they built, why they built it and what they learnt, their profile becomes a story of growth, not just a list of achievements.