New Delhi: AI is reshaping the way companies recruit fresh graduates, while also changing the roles and skills expected from entry-level talent, according to Deloitte India’s Campus Workforce Trends 2026. The report found that 86% of organisations reported AI and agentic AI transforming their campus hiring processes in FY26, up from around 79% in FY25.
At the same time, 35% of organisations said AI and agentic AI are creating new early-career roles or skill requirements, up from around 21% in FY25.
Deloitte report states that organisations are moving beyond traditional automation and generative AI towards agentic AI-driven recruitment workflows. These systems are being used across screening, assessments and interviews, enabling faster decision-making, candidate-role matching and recruiter productivity.
AI-enabled resume screening is also evolving, with tools being used for skills inference, project analysis and certification mapping. Agentic AI systems can create shortlists based on role requirements and assist recruiters with candidate evaluation and scoring.
The shift is also putting greater emphasis on skills over conventional credentials. It said employers are increasingly prioritising learning agility, problem-solving, AI literacy and digital fluency, with AI and data-related capabilities attracting the highest compensation premiums across disciplines.
Campus hiring budgets rise
The increased use of AI has not resulted in lower investment in campus recruitment. The report found that organisations continue to strengthen their early-career talent pipelines.
The average talent acquisition budget, excluding compensation offered, increased from ₹4.41 crore in FY25 to ₹4.93 crore in FY26. The share allocated to campus placement increased from 15% to 16%, translating into a nearly 19% increase in campus hiring budgets.
Around 80% of participating organisations have a dedicated campus hiring team.
Internships are also becoming a more important route into full-time employment. Overall PPO conversion rates increased by around 6% year-on-year, with organisations increasingly using internship-to-hire programmes to assess and retain talent before making full-time offers.
Behavioural competencies were the most widely cited factor in evaluating interns for PPO conversion, at 75%, followed by learning agility at 72%, technical competencies at 66% and project delivery at 65%.
Employers become more selective
While campus hiring investment has increased, organisations are becoming more selective about the candidates they convert into full-time roles.
Deloitte attributes this to a greater focus on quality of hire, evolving role requirements and the need to align hiring volumes with business demand. The report also points to continued demand for technology and analytics roles, although with tighter conversion filters.
This selectivity appears to be accompanied by improved retention. Among hires from Top 10 and Tier 1 institutes, infant attrition, or attrition within the first year, declined from 18% to 15%.
One-year attrition fell from 23% to 19%, while two-year attrition declined from 25% to 21%. Deloitte said the decline reflects better alignment between hiring strategies and candidate expectations, supported by structured onboarding, internship-to-hire pipelines and early engagement.
MBA graduates continue to command premium
Despite the broader shift towards skills, the report shows that institute tier and degree continue to play a major role in campus compensation.
Compensation grew at around 2–4% CAGR between FY22 and FY26 across major degree categories, according to Deloitte. This was below the broader India Inc salary increases of around 7–9% year-on-year cited in the report.
For FY26, median compensation for MBA graduates from Top 10 institutes stood at ₹27.4 lakh, compared with ₹8.4 lakh for Tier 3 institutes, a difference of around 3.3 times.
For B.Tech graduates, median compensation stood at ₹18.7 lakh at Top 10 institutes compared with ₹5.75 lakh at Tier 3 institutes, a gap of around 3.2 times.
MBA roles continued to command a 45–60% premium over engineering roles, driven by demand for consulting, product and strategy capabilities.
The gap is even sharper at the internship stage. Top 10 MBA internships offered monthly stipends of around ₹1.8–1.9 lakh, compared with about ₹26,000 in Tier 3 institutes, representing a gap of around seven times. Deloitte said engineering internship stipends have also continued to rise, driven by demand for digital, AI and core technology skills.
Technology remains top career choice
Technology continues to dominate campus talent preferences, although other sectors are gaining ground.
In FY26, hi-tech remained the top preferred sector, followed by financial services, consumer products, professional services and semiconductors.
For engineering graduates, Bangalore remained the most preferred career destination, followed by Delhi NCR and Mumbai. Hyderabad and Pune completed the top five. Among management students, Bangalore remained the preferred destination, followed by Delhi NCR, Mumbai, Hyderabad and Pune.
The report points to a campus hiring market where investment is rising but recruitment is becoming more selective. AI is increasingly influencing not only the process of hiring fresh graduates but also the roles they are being hired for, while internships, skills and institute pedigree continue to shape who gets converted and how much they earn.
