I tracked 3,529 job posts in India for 30 days. Here's what "fresher" actually means.

Every fresher I talk to says the same thing: "Every job wants experience." So I checked.

I'm building Astra, a job platform for Indian freshers. It collects openings every day from company career pages and applicant tracking systems such as Greenhouse, Lever and Ashby. In the 30 days to 30 October 2026, 3,529 new roles opened in India.

Only 1,079 of them (31%) were entry-level. 1,563 (44%) were senior roles, and 879 (25%) were mid-level.

So yes, most jobs do want experience. But about 36 entry-level roles still open every day, and most freshers miss them, because those posts don't look the way freshers expect. Here's what an entry-level job in India actually looks like right now.

1. Fresher jobs almost never say "fresher"

If you search job sites for "fresher", "trainee" or "graduate", you're searching for the rarest words in entry-level titles. Here's how often each word appeared in the 1,079 entry-level job titles:

"Associate" alone appears in 26% of entry-level titles. "Trainee" and "Graduate" together cover 2%. Another 47 titles marked the level with a number, such as "Software Engineer I" or "Analyst 1".

What to search for instead: Associate, Analyst, Engineer I, Associate Software Engineer, and the word "Executive" for business roles. Then filter by experience, not by title.

2. Excel is asked for more than Python and SQL combined

811 of the entry-level posts listed the skills they wanted. The most common ones:

Excel shows up in 287 posts. Python and SQL together show up in 213.

That's because most entry-level jobs in India aren't software jobs. Analyst, operations, finance and customer roles all run on spreadsheets. Among the technical skills, Python and SQL are far ahead of everything else. Java, which most Indian CS curriculums lead with, shows up in only 34 posts.

If you're a CS student: Python plus SQL is the safest pair to show on a resume right now. If you're open to analyst roles, put Excel on your resume as a real skill (pivot tables, lookups, charts), not as a filler line.

3. Pay is rarely listed, and when it is, it's modest

Only 89 of the 1,079 entry-level posts (8%) stated a salary. Among those 89:

• The median was ₹4 LPA.
• Half paid between ₹3 and ₹7 LPA.
• The highest was ₹17 LPA.

The ₹20+ LPA fresher packages you see on LinkedIn are real, but they usually come through campus placements at a small number of companies, not through open job posts.

4. Where the jobs are, and who's hiring

Bangalore had 306 of the 1,079 entry-level roles (28%). Hyderabad (103), Gurugram (94), Mumbai (91), Pune (75) and Chennai (71) followed. Only 68 (6%) were remote.

The roles came from 575 different companies. That's the other surprise: no single employer dominates. The ones that posted the most were Marriott International (23), EY (14), Swiggy (12), Tata Capital (12), Moody's (11), Kotak Mahindra Bank (11), DHL (10) and Amazon (10).

Most of these are not "dream companies" in college WhatsApp groups. That's worth using: a role that fewer of your classmates are watching is a role with less competition.

What I'd do differently as a fresher

1. Search by level, not by the word "fresher". Use Associate, Analyst, Engineer I and Executive, then filter by experience.
2. Lead with Python and SQL, and list Excel properly if you'd take an analyst role.
3. Look beyond the 20 famous names. 575 companies hired entry-level people this month. Banks, consultancies, logistics and hospitality groups all run tech and analyst teams in India.
4. Apply early. About 36 entry-level roles open every day, and many close within a few weeks.
5. Expect ₹3 to 7 LPA from open postings, and treat higher offers as the exception, not the plan.

How I collected this

Astra pulls openings daily from company career pages and applicant tracking systems (Greenhouse, Lever, Ashby and others). This post covers every role in India first seen in the 30 days to 30 October 2026, excluding international roles. "Entry-level" is Astra's classification from each role's title and description. Skills come from the skills each post listed, and salaries only from posts that stated one; estimates are excluded.

I'm building Astra to make this easier: every entry-level role in one place, with direct apply links. New roles also go out daily on Telegram. If you want a cut of this data I didn't cover, ask in the comments and I'll run it.