After a relatively subdued campus hiring season in 2025, placements have started on a stronger note this yearSpeaking to businessline, college and industry executives note that better visibility among major service firms alongside increasing demand from start-ups and core sectors is contributing to a rebound in fresher hiring this year.Philip Praveen, COO, Rajalakshmi Engineering College, suggests that while many Tier 1 service companies started their campus hiring drives relatively late last year, recruitment activity has started earlier this year. “Nearly 50 per cent of our placements have taken place in June and July itself,” he said.He also noted an increase in the share of higher paying roles. “At TCS, for instance, nearly 65 per cent of the roles have been at the Digital and Prime levels, with packages ranging from ₹7 lakh to ₹12 lakh per annum,” he said.The college expects overall placements to increase significantly this year compared to 2025, with major IT services companies, including TCS, Cognizant and Accenture expected to commence their campus hiring drives shortly.Ramachandran K, a former education editor and ed-tech entrepreneur, suggests that the predominant reason for the uptick could be that large service organisations have regained better visibility in terms of revenue, client acquisition and talent requirement after 2-3 years of uncertainty. He mentioned that IT hiring generally follows a cycle of highs and lows and added that rather than a full reversal, the current pickup could be a recovery after a low period. “These cycles happen every 5-6 years. There have been highs and lows,” he added.Multiple Tier-1 IT service firms have announced their intentions to ramp us fresher hiring this year. TCS has reportedly made around 25,000 offers to freshers for FY27 and plans to hire further based on demand. Infosys has committed to hiring around 20,000 college graduates in FY27, while Cognizant is targeting 24,000-25,000 fresh graduates in 2026, about 20 per cent higher than its intake in 2025.Rajesh Kumar. Cofounder - Kalvium & FACE Prep, suggests that big service firms are on a mission towards ‘juniorisation’ of its workforce where they prefer AI-enabled fresh graduates rather than relying solely on experienced talent and lateral hiring. As for the roles, colleges suggest that while AI proficiency has increasingly become a common requirement across recruiters, there has not been a significant change in the underlying job profiles being offered to freshers. “Much of the demand is still around software development, data, cloud, and cybersecurity. There is more emphasis on AI tools and skills but the roles that are being hired for are the same,” Vikas Misra, Vice-Chancellor of the Hindustan Institute of Technology and Science (HITS) said.Meanwhile, the pool of recruiters has expanded beyond traditional IT services companies into start-ups, GCCs and companies from manufacturing and other sectors.Misra suggests that the HITS expects about one-third of the hiring this season to come from start-ups. He added that the institute is hoping to close this year with a placement rate of about 90 per cent, slightly higher than the 80-85 per cent range last year.The rapid buildout in other parts of the AI ecosystem like chips and data centres are contributing to core engineering courses like electronics and communication and aerospace seeing stronger hiring momentum this year. “Semiconductor and manufacturing companies are beginning to come in now. It is a good mix of smaller start-ups, GCCs and large firms like L&T,” Praveen said.Misra reported particularly strong demand for aerospace and aviation talent. “Large aviation companies such as Boeing and Air India are coming for campus hiring, while space start-ups are also hiring in good volumes,” he added.Ramachandran suggests that while there will be a spike in these core engineering fields, the larger share of the workforce in these sectors come from polytechnic colleges. Colleges also flag that the internship to pre-placement route has seen a particular increase this year. Misra said around 30% of students placed so far in HITS have secured their offers through this route. “Start-ups, especially prefer the internships to pre-placement offers (PPOs) route,” Praveen added.Published on August 14, 2026