India's campus hiring market is holding firm heading into the 2027 recruitment cycle, with median pay projected to grow between 2% and 7% year-on-year across major academic streams, according to a report released on Wednesday, 30 September by professional services firm Aon. Employers are increasingly prioritising specialised skills, role relevance, and graduate job readiness over broad intake expansion.

Hiring Intent Across Qualifications

Demand for campus talent remains broad-based, though growth is uneven across disciplines. 56% of organisations surveyed plan to increase hiring of Chartered Accountant (CA) and Company Secretary (CS) graduates — the highest intent figure across any cohort in the report. Meanwhile, 51% of firms expect to bring on more interns, 40% intend to recruit additional diploma holders, and 36% anticipate higher intake of engineering graduates. Notably, median intake sizes across several cohorts have not shifted significantly despite this optimism.

Pay Projections: IITs, IIMs and Tier-1 Institutes

For B.Tech graduates, the projected median total cost to company (TCC) for the 2027 cohort at the seven IITs covered in the study is expected to hold close to ₹16.46 lakh. At Tier-1 engineering colleges, median TCC is projected to rise from ₹13.85 lakh to ₹14.75 lakh. TCC encompasses fixed pay, one-time cash components such as joining bonuses, and annual variable pay, but excludes long-term incentives.

For MBA graduates, median TCC at the top Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) is projected to remain steady at ₹26 lakh, while Tier-1 management institutes are expected to see a modest rise from ₹20.89 lakh to ₹21.50 lakh.

Skills and AI Reshaping Recruitment

Roopank Chaudhary, Partner and Head of Talent and Rewards Consulting, India, at Aon, said: 'Organisations continue to invest in campus talent, yet hiring decisions are increasingly shaped by business demand, specialised skills and graduate readiness. The findings show employers are building early-career pipelines that align more closely with the capabilities they need to support future growth.'

Artificial intelligence is also playing a growing role in candidate assessment. Amit Kumar Otwani, Associate Partner, Talent Solutions, India, at Aon, noted: 'AI is helping organisations assess candidates more effectively by placing greater emphasis on skills, role relevance and job readiness.' This comes amid a broader industry shift toward competency-based hiring frameworks over purely credential-led selection.

Intern Pipelines and Conversion Metrics

Internships remain a near-universal campus strategy — roughly 90% of organisations hire interns, and between 80% and 85% use pre-placement interviews or pre-placement offers as a structured pathway to convert strong performers into full-time employees. The offer-to-joining ratio is the most closely tracked campus metric, cited by 66% of respondents. First-year performance ratings and early voluntary attrition are each monitored by 55% of firms — reflecting a sharpened focus on whether campus hires actually stick and deliver.

What This Means for the Class of 2027

The Aon findings suggest that while pay growth is real, it is measured rather than dramatic, and the bigger shift is qualitative — employers want graduates who are demonstrably work-ready, not just credentialled. For students at Tier-1 institutes, compensation floors are largely stable; the competitive edge will increasingly come from demonstrated skills, internship track records, and AI fluency. With CA and CS demand leading hiring intent, finance and compliance professionals appear particularly well-positioned in the near-term market.