Skills over degrees: Is India’s hiring system ready to make the shift?

The college hiring market in India is entering a new phase of maturity, with alignment emerging as a defining theme. Students, colleges, and corporates are investing more effort than ever in understanding one another. Yet, many continue to make decisions based on assumptions that no longer reflect reality.

The gap between perception and reality has emerged as a central story in college hiring in 2026. Skills-first hiring is a clear example of a narrative running ahead of practice. While colleges have embraced the concept almost unanimously, corporates remain mid-transition. Cumulative Grade Point Average (CGPA) scores and college pedigree continue to shape hiring decisions at many organisations, even as skills-based assessments gain ground.

According to The State of College Hiring in India 2026 by HirePro, an AI-powered recruitment and assessment platform, only 21% of corporates have fully adopted skills-first hiring and moved away from traditional credentials. Meanwhile, 51% still allow CGPA to influence hiring decisions.

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The study finds that 42% of companies are still in transition. Another 21% say their approach varies across roles and business units, indicating that skills-first hiring is yet to become a consistent, enterprise-wide practice.

The report also reveals that 9% of employers continue to rely primarily on college pedigree and academic credentials, while 7% remain in the pilot stage, experimenting with skills-first hiring without embedding it into mainstream recruitment.

The perception gap is even more evident when the views of colleges and corporates are compared.

Colleges are increasingly advocating skills-first hiring to bridge the gap between academic learning and modern workforce demands. However, 96% of colleges believe that most corporates are already “skills-first”, a view that is not reflected in corporate hiring practices.

The industry narrative of a skills-first revolution, therefore, appears to be running ahead of corporates' self-reported practices. For most organisations, the transformation is still underway, not a done deal.

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Gen-AI proficiency tells a similar story: it is increasingly expected, even preferred, but has yet to become a hard filter for most roles, with corporates choosing to train candidates rather than screen them out at the point of hire. According to the report, while 85% of corporates prefer students to be Gen-AI-ready, only 12% currently apply it as a hard hiring filter, while 44% classify it as a “preferred skill”.

This suggests that students may be over-indexing on Gen-AI proficiency as a hiring signal, preparing for a filter that, for now, largely does not exist. At the same time, a widening confidence gap between how students rate their own readiness and how corporates assess it points to a persistent disconnect between classroom preparation and workplace expectations.

The report also highlights that demand for Gen-AI skills also varies by role. Nearly 29% of corporates distinguish between AI skill requirements for tech and non-tech roles, suggesting that non-technical job seekers may have a longer runway to build these capabilities.

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