Campus Placements see Modest Growth in 2025, Companies Hiring for Skills over Credentials: Deloitte Report

Deloitte Campus Workforce Trends Report 2025: Key Highlights
The report highlights various campus placements and hiring trends. Here are the key highlights:

• About a 3.91 percent rise in campus salaries in FY25, marking a rebound after last year’s slowdown.
• The median salary package at the top 10 MBA colleges is set to touch Rs 26 lakh per annum in 2025, up from Rs 24 lakh last year. 
• For the top 10 B-Tech colleges, median salary package stood at Rs 17 lakh, up from Rs 16.3 lakh in 2024.
• Nearly 15 percent growth in hiring budgets of companies to attract top talent from campuses.
• A 24 percent jump in PPOs across disciplines, reflecting renewed employer confidence.
• Overwhelming 87 percent of engineers surveyed are actively pursuing upskilling opportunities. 
• Cybersecurity and robotics are the top-paying tech skills in campus placements, offering 10–20 percent pay premiums. 
• For MBAs, “social selling and agile skills” command similar pay advantages. 
• Bangalore has emerged as the most preferred work location for graduates, followed by Hyderabad. 

It must be noted here that while the report says that median salaries at “top 10 MBA colleges are set to touch Rs 26 lakh per annum in 2025” it must be noted that many top B-schools such as IIM Ahmedabad have not revealed their placements 2025 data. So, the salary numbers presented in the report may be seen as indicative. 

Technology and Financial Services Sector Top Choices
The technology sector remains the top choice among students, followed by Financial Services (FS). Consumer products and manufacturing are preferred towards the end. Among the top two career choices, MBA graduates opt for management consultants and product managers, while fresh tech graduates prefer software development engineer and data scientist roles.

Corporate Hiring and Campus Placements Trends 2025 
Deloitte’s Campus Workforce Trends Placement 2025 reveals that employers are focussing on “skill-first strategies” that include smarter screening to stronger retention. The report notes that organisations are “recalibrating how they engage and retain young talent in a tech-forward world to minimise the campus to corporate acclimatisation period.” Here are some corporate hiring and campus placements trends from the study. 

• Early-career Hiring: In response to the widening gap between academic output and industry needs, the report reveals a strategic shift in early-career hiring, favouring a skills-first, AI-enhanced and outcome-centric approach over conventional credentials. 
• Redesigning Internships: Internships are being redesigned through behavioural assessments, learning agility, technical assessments, cultural alignment and digital DNA. 
• Drop in Campus Attrition: As a result, campus attrition has dropped by 300 basis points in FY25.

Commenting on the trends, Dr Neelesh Gupta, Partner, Deloitte India said: “We are witnessing a fundamental redefinition of campus hiring, one where skill alignment, early engagement and long-term retention are no longer isolated strategies but interconnected levers of sustainable talent development. As AI reshapes how we evaluate and engage future talent, the role of employers must evolve from recruiters to enablers of continuous learning.” 

Deloitte India’s Human Capital team publishes the Campus Workforce Trends 2025 report. This study offering deep insights into early-career hiring. Drawing insights from over 200 organisations and data across 500+ campuses, the report provides a view of India’s evolving campus talent landscape.

Also Read:
MBAUniverse.com MBA Placements Report 2025 
IMC 2024 Theme Paper on Changing MBA Roles & Competencies