The first signs of cracks are appearing in campus hirings this year, with companies changing recruitment plans due to artificial intelligence and the West Asia war, prompting colleges to caution newly recruited students of delayed onboarding and bringing back memories of pandemic-era job uncertainty.
Software testing platform BrowserStack has rescinded offers to engineering students from the batch of 2026. The concerns percolate to the next batch, too, Companies are revising their internship terms for students from the batch of 2027 at India’s leading B-schools and engineering colleges.
These worrying signals come as the job market starts to feel the pressure of both AI and geopolitical conflicts, with companies scaling back their recruitment plans.
“The decision to rescind extended to certain engineering students was a difficult one, made in the context of the significant productivity gains we see due to AI within our product and engineering functions,” Rohit Munjal, senior vice president and head of people function at BrowserStack, told Mint in an email response. “We recognize the impact this has on the students involved and did not arrive at this decision lightly.”
He said that in the interest of transparency, the company communicated this decision to the affected candidates at the earliest opportunity, ensuring they had the clarity needed to actively pursue other career options. “We have also committed to these students that they will receive first-priority consideration should relevant roles become available in the future,” Munjal added.
While Munjal did not divulge the number of engineering students affected, the company said it is “on track” to onboard 15-plus MBA graduates. Mint has learnt that the number of affected engineering students exceeds the number of B-school graduates being hired.
The withdrawal of offers was last widely seen during the pandemic. The batch of 2020 struggled as companies slowed recruitment while India Inc. navigated lockdowns and rapid digital transformation. The onboarding delays lasted for more than a year.
Dynamic situation
Today, while companies across sectors have announced retrenchments due to AI, the other looming threat is from the war in West Asia. The impact will be felt by the 2025-2027 batch of India’s top B-school students, who are currently interning.
“We are observing the situation in the Middle East carefully to see if it affects recruitment at IIMA. So far, barring a few firms mentioning that the war may have ramifications for future hiring, there has not been much impact. It is true that a few firms wanted to renegotiate the nature of internships with us in recent days in a way that is acceptable to all parties concerned,” said Viswanath Pingali, chairperson of placements at the Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad. “This is probably keeping in view the dynamic situation of the war. All students have begun their internships as of now, and we have not seen anything to be alarmed about.”
Other IIMs are preparing for the uncertainties as well.
“The main challenge we are navigating right now is the risk of delayed onboarding as companies naturally take a more cautious approach to new project kickoffs,” said Himanshu Rai, director of IIM Indore.
The B-school said it is “keeping a close, proactive dialogue with our corporate HR partners to solidify start dates and ensure the batch is supported and protected from any sudden market shifts”. IIM Indore clarified that their final placements for the batch of 2026 have not faced any “major concerns or lingering challenges.”
In the case of summer internships for the batch of 2027, “there have been a few isolated, one-off instances where a firm modified some of the additional perks attached to an offer, likely as a minor internal budget adjustment. These are very much the exception, not the rule,” Rai said.
Placement cycles
Internships at B-schools are a crucial indicator of the job market. The placement cycle typically begins when recruiters visit IIM campuses in September-October to hire students for internships in April-May of the following year. After the internships, selected candidates receive pre-placement offers (PPOs), while the rest participate in final placements.
A similar pattern is followed for engineering colleges. India’s marquee campuses follow a set calendar. The older Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs)—Kharagpur, Bombay, Madras, Roorkee, Kanpur and Delhi—begin their placements on 1 December. Many newer IITs, National Institutes of Technology (NITs) and leading private engineering colleges begin placements earlier, usually in September and October, to secure recruiters before the older IITs start.
The erstwhile hopeful buzz in campuses is now laced with worry, given the unabated uncertainties of the West Asia war. According to the placement head of an IIT, a few companies changed the job roles they had offered to students.
IIM Ranchi said it has not faced anything alarming such as deferred joining dates or staggered onboarding. However, the B-school highlighted the case of an intern at an Indian multinational heating, ventilation and air-conditioning company who was to be placed at an international pharma client's site in Dubai.
"Due to ongoing geopolitical circumstances affecting the client's location, the offer has been shifted to another Indian location,” said Rajeev Verma, chairperson of corporate relations at IIM Ranchi.
“Only companies with operations in the Middle East have paused their participation. Opportunities to join their India offices remain available, with compensation aligned to Indian market standards," said Anjani Kumar Bhatnagar, additional director and head of the Amity Technical Placement Centre. "One company has deferred its hiring plans due to the ongoing conflict in West Asia. Overall, the impact is confined to organizations with operations in the Middle East.”
While the final campus placements for the batch of 2026 in management colleges are almost over, internships for the batch of 2027 have begun, and students were hopeful that, like their predecessors, they would secure more PPOs.
Mint has learned that one consulting company requested the IIMs to reduce the internship stipend from $2,000 per month to about $1,400. This comes as a surprise because consulting firms have traditionally been major recruiters at B-schools.
Consulting sector
During both final placements and internships, the consulting sector has emerged as one of the strongest, with Boston Consulting Group (BCG), Bain & Co., PwC, Accenture, EY, KPMG and Deloitte among the key recruiters. IIM Ahmedabad is not the only institute keeping a close watch. IIM Kozhikode pointed out that some sectors may see an uptick in hiring while others may decline, as industries are affected differently by global upheaval.
“The war will lead to the dispersal of financial and economic activity centres. Investors will limit their risks by investing in safer regions less affected by geopolitical tensions. The impact will likely be felt two to three months from now and there will be a calibration in hiring patterns across sectors,” said Debashis Chatterjee, director of IIM Kozhikode. “While healthcare and edtech may hire in large numbers, the consulting industry may grow in some areas and dip in others.”
The impact of the war is higher on consulting and finance firms with exposure to the West Asia region. Ironically, placement sources said that during final placements for the batch of 2026, there was a 10-12% increase in median compensation offered by consulting and finance firms, in line with market trends. Compensation varies by company and sector, and at older IIMs, median packages can hover at ₹30 lakh-35 lakh.
“We have seen consistent momentum in India, and our campus hiring this year has progressed as planned, with the first cohort already onboarded. We remain focused on bringing in high-quality talent from leading campuses to support ongoing client demand and business growth," said Prabhav Kashyap, partner, Bain & Company.
However, since the war started in the last week of February, companies in India have taken their foot off the accelerator in hiring as demand from clients in the region weakened. Mint reported in April that major consulting and audit firms held internal discussions on how the conflict could impact their India headcount.