For India’s college graduates, the ghost of AI isn’t the only thing haunting their job prospects. Now, the world’s largest information technology (IT) firms are making them wait at the door too.
Over the past month, at least four global technology firms—including Accenture Plc, Tata Consultancy Services Ltd (TCS), Cognizant Technology Solutions Corp. and Oracle Corp.—have either delayed onboarding selected freshers or withdrawn job offers and cancelled roles, according to candidates, placement officials and company communications reviewed by Mint.
This implies a tough road ahead for the country’s 1.3 million engineering graduates vying for jobs at the world’s largest technology firms, as the rise of automation tools poses further risks to job availability amid macroeconomic uncertainty.
Emails sent to Accenture, Oracle, TCS, and went unanswered.
Waiting game
At least two companies have delayed onboarding selected freshers.
“We understand your eagerness to join TCS and begin your professional journey with us. Please note that the issuance of joining letter is aligned with our current business requirements and project demands,” read an email from TCS’ onboarding team sent last month and reviewed by Mint.
“This keeps us in the lurch because we don’t know when we will get the job and when we will start earning,” said a candidate who cleared the company’s hiring process three months ago.
TCS recruits graduates through three fresher hiring tracks—Ninja, Digital and Prime—with annual salaries ranging from ₹4 lakh to ₹14 lakh. The categories differ in the complexity of technical assessments and the nature of projects assigned. with Ninja being the starting band and prime being the highest.
New Jersey-headquartered Cognizant has also delayed onboarding for some freshers.
“We received our letter of intent in November (2025) and are still awaiting our offer letters. What is saddening is that some of my classmates who cleared their internship months later got their offer letters whereas we haven’t,” said a graduate selected under Cognizant’s GenC programme.
GenC (Generation Cognizant) is the company’s entry-level hiring programme for roles such as software engineering and service desk operations, with salaries ranging from ₹4 lakh to ₹8 lakh annually.
Responding to one candidate’s query, Cognizant cited business requirements as one of the factors determining joining letters.
“Your Date of Joining (DOJ) will be finalized based on business requirements and is subject to the successful completion of the Background Verification (BGV) process,” read an email from Cognizant’s GenC talent acquisition team reviewed by Mint.
TCS has not publicly disclosed hiring targets for the year. Cognizant, meanwhile, has said it plans to hire more freshers than the 20,000 it recruited last year.
Both companies have also announced restructuring. TCS completed the exit of about 12,000 employees by March 2026, while Cognizant is in the process of reducing its workforce by at least 4,000 employees.
TCS, which follows the April-March financial calendar as against Cognizant’s January-December, ended last year with $30.02 billion, down 0.5% on a yearly basis. On the other hand, Cognizant ended 2025 with $21.1 billion, up 7% from the year-ago period.
Offers withdrawn
While TCS and Cognizant delayed onboarding, Plc said it is doing away with certain roles that candidates had applied for.
“I was told in May that I had cleared the final interview at Accenture only to be told a month later that the role I had interviewed for did not exist,” said a candidate, requesting anonymity.
The company attributed the move to recent developments without elaborating.
“Thanks for your interest in the role of Custom Software Engineer at Accenture. However, we regret to inform you that due to certain recent developments, we are no longer recruiting for this role,” read an email from Accenture’s HR team earlier this month.
Nashville-based Oracle has also withdrawn offers made to students from some of India’s top engineering colleges.
The company reportedly rescinded offers to about 30 students across two Bengaluru engineering colleges. Placement heads described it as a case arising from “unavoidable circumstances” and the “first such instance” in a decade. The students had completed five-month internships and were expected to receive full-time offers with annual salaries ranging between ₹9 lakh and ₹18 lakh.
This comes three months after Oracle underwent arguably its largest layoff drive by letting go of about 14,000 employees, or roughly a fifth of its workforce.
Accenture and Oracle ended last fiscal with $69.7 billion and $67.4 billion in revenue, up 7% and 17% on a yearly basis, respectively. While Accenture follows a September-August financial calendar, Oracle follows a June-May calendar.
Most of the affected candidates had expected to join by May. Their joining dates have since been deferred or, in some cases, their offers withdrawn.
Changing campuses
The delays come as fewer engineering graduates are opting for traditional IT services firms.
“We are seeing an increase in delayed onboarding in the last couple of years because of business turbulence. Some IT services firms state they will not be able to onboard after conducting interviews because of an uncertain business pipeline,” said Sreenivasa Ramanujam Kanduri, placement head at Ramaiah Institute of Technology, Bengaluru.
“Many students don’t prefer to join IT services firms because of two main reasons. First is low pay, and second is onboarding delay, which has been increasing over the last few years,” said Prof. Ranganath D, placement head at RV College of Engineering.
KS Sridhar, placement head at PES University, said companies are increasingly hiring through internships before making permanent offers.
“Companies have started adopting a wait-and-watch approach by hiring students as interns, observe their performance and offer performance based full time employment,” he said.