The First-Job Paradox: Why India’s Young Graduates Are Looking Overseas Insight by Prodigy Finance

London : Ask a final-year student in India who is interviewing for an internship or a first job what keeps them up at night. Exams rarely come up. What does is the entry-level listing that wants two years of experience from someone who has never had the chance to earn a single one.

That worry shows up in the official data too. According to the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation’s Periodic Labour Force Survey for 2025, 9.9% of Indians aged 15 to 29 were unemployed. In cities the figure was 13.6%. For educated persons, meaning anyone with secondary schooling or above, it was 6.5%.

Ask employers and you hear the same story from the other side of the desk. According to the India Skills Report 2026, companies in almost every sector reach first for people with one to five years of experience. Pharmaceuticals and healthcare filled 65% of new roles from that group. Manufacturing gave freshers just 5% of its openings. IT is more welcoming, with 35% of fresher hiring, and that door only opens for graduates headed into tech.

So students are widening the search. According to the Ministry of External Affairs, around 1.25 million Indians were studying abroad as of January 2025.

Many now treat an international postgraduate degree as a long-term investment in their future careers. Prodigy Finance, which has supported international master’s students since 2007, has seen students place growing importance on the quality of education, employability and access to global career opportunities. They are looking for a fair first chance. Some say recruiters overseas notice what it took to get there: a place at a good university, won from a modest background, with nothing handed over. In Prodigy’s 2022 Impact Report, 74% of the 995 graduates surveyed said they had at least doubled their salary after their master’s. Prodigy lends without a cosigner* or collateral, which matters for families with no assets to pledge.

Sonal Kapoor, Global Chief Business Officer at Prodigy Finance, says, “Nobody is pretending the market is easy. What gives us hope is seeing talent from rural and humble backgrounds keep education as the priority, because it changes more than one life. It changes the whole family. Two thirds of the students we have funded were the first in their family to even attempt graduate study. Completing any degree from that starting point is commendable. Doing it overseas says a lot about how far one quality education can take a person.”

For many students, the hardest decision comes before the application. Mariana Allocer, spokesperson at NovaGrad, Prodigy Finance’s study abroad guidance platform, says, “We have been helping students get into top universities for years, and the drive behind almost every one of them is a better career. That is why we try to step in from the very start. One wrong university choice or one wrong course can set a student back years. Having the right guidance early makes all the difference. The goal isn’t simply a bigger name on the degree. It’s the right course at the right university for where a student wants their career to go.”

India’s first-job challenge is unlikely to disappear overnight. But for a generation unwilling to let a lack of experience define its potential, the search for opportunity is becoming increasingly global. For some, the first step towards a career may begin far beyond India’s borders.”

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