93% of Indian students want internship before their first job

By Isa Isawade

An industrial statistics report, India Skills Report 2025, has revealed that not less than 93% of students in India have imbibed the internship culture before going into real job.

A chief reason adduced to this is the realisation by the young population in the country that, in India, you need skills more than degrees.

The Report which reveals state, gender, salary and industry preferences for first jobs was carried out by Wheebox.

According to the report, a staggering 93.22% of students surveyed expressed strong interest in internships before taking up full-time roles.

That’s nearly every student in the country seeing internship as a vital first step into the workforce.

According to India Today, the students were not that aware about building the right skills or getting industry experience two decades before, and with the majority expecting a starting salary in the range of Rs 26-33 lakhs a year, they expect to be paid well for their skills too.

This, it said, signaled a major shift in how young Indians perceive work readiness.

Geographical breakdown of the data shows Tamil Nadu tops the internship preference list with 97.46% of its respondents showing interest, closely followed by Uttar Pradesh (97.39%), Kerala (96.05%), and Karnataka (94.64%).

These states also happen to have large student populations and thriving engineering and management institutions — sectors that rely heavily on practical exposure.

The implication for recruiters, it maintains, is that the next generation of jobseekers is actively seeking learning-linked work, not just entry-level jobs.

“The data supports the growing trend of “internship-to-hire” models, where employers identify talent early and convert promising interns into full-time hires.

“The growing internship obsession isn’t just a fad — it’s a response to the employability gap. The India Skills report 2025 shows that, while India’s overall employability has risen to 54.81%, many graduates still lack job-ready skills. Internships are now seen as the bridge that can close this gap.

“In a post-pandemic job market shaped by hybrid work, digital collaboration, and AI tools, students want hands-on experience long before graduation.

“For students, an internship is no longer just about exposure, but about how quickly and smoothly they can transition into full-time job roles.

“For employers, it means internships are becoming an early talent-identification and culture-fit tool,” the news medium wrote.