Deloitte’s 2026 campus report says 86% of employers now use AI in recruitment. Internships are becoming the real interview.
Deloitte India’s Campus Workforce Trends 2026 surveyed 257 organisations and 505 campuses. Headline: 86% of employers say AI is changing how they recruit. Campus hiring budgets are up about 19%. Internships converting to PPOs improved roughly 6%. AI and data skills are pulling 20–25% pay premiums. Behaviour matters more than people admit: employers ranked behavioural skills and learning agility above raw technical scores for PPO conversion.
Read that again if you are not from an IIT or NIT.
The report also says pay still differs by institute tier. So no, the tag did not die. It just stopped being enough.
What this means on a normal campus
Placement cell will still print “150 companies visited.” What they won’t print:
- how many roles were for your branch
- median package vs highest
- how many offers needed a prior internship
Companies using AI to screen CVs will not be impressed by “participated in fest.” They look for:
- one project you can explain in 90 seconds
- a GitHub / Behance / report / clinic log / court memo — whatever your field uses
- an internship, even unpaid for 6 weeks, with a real task
If you have no tag, build a file
This month, pick one:
- 4-week internship application sprint (20 tailored mails, not 200 copy-pastes)
- one public project tied to a job family (data, design, lab, accounts, content, civil site)
- one certificate only if you will use the tool next week
AI in hiring is not sci-fi. It is an ATS rejecting a two-page life story. Short CV. Numbers. Proof.
The premium is for AI + data + the ability to learn. Not for “I attended a webinar.”