Published: 16 September 2026 · By: Resumity Editorial Team · Dateline: Bengaluru

TL;DR: In India, recruiters filter on expected CTC before they fall in love with your bullets. Unstop’s 2026 student data shows a wide gap between what undergraduates want and what they are offered. Put numbers in portal fields, not as a bluff in the PDF. Use the resume to justify the band with proof, not a demand.

Salary negotiation in India often ends before the call, because the Naukri / Workday field already screened you out.

The Unstop Talent Report 2026 (37,000+ students, 500+ HR leaders) found 73 percent of undergraduates expect a starting salary above ₹5 LPA, while 40 percent receive offers at that level. About 30 percent of MBA graduates in the study earn below ₹10 LPA; 39 percent of engineering graduates earn below ₹7 LPA. More than 90 percent of students said they would take a lower CTC for stronger learning.

Deloitte’s Campus Workforce Trends 2026 (HR Katha, 9 September) published the tier spread: a Top-10 B.Tech median of ₹18.7 lakh versus ₹5.75 lakh at Tier-3 (about 3.2 times). MBA Top-10 ₹27.4 lakh versus ₹8.4 lakh at Tier-3.

Nasscom’s August campus note, quoting placement heads, said TCS had nearly 65 percent of offers at Digital and Prime levels, ₹7–12 lakh, as AI skills pulled some offers out of the old ₹3–4 lakh band. That is one company’s mix as reported by colleges — not a national average.

TeamLease’s HY2 2026 outlook still had Bengaluru as the leading city for fresher intent (89 percent). Intent is not offer value. The same Unstop report said 82 percent of business-school students prioritise in-hand salary over perks — another reason a flashy CTC line on a PDF is the wrong lever.

What belongs on the resume

Usually leave CTC off the PDF for product/IT roles unless the posting requires it. Indian product recruiters treat current/expected CTC as portal metadata. Putting “Expected: 18 LPA” on a fresher one-pager is a filter you cannot unsay.

Do fill expected CTC on Naukri in a band you would actually accept. Recruiters search ranges. A fantasy number hides you from the jobs you would take; a panic-low number anchors the offer.

Use the resume to support the band:

  • Named internships, production projects, on-call, or domain
  • Skills that match the JD’s paid stack (see Nasscom: AI-native judgement, not a sticker)
  • Location (Bengaluru vs non-metro) as a fact, not a threat

How to pick a portal band without lying: open 10 live postings for your title and city; note the stated range if any; pick the overlap with what you would accept. If the posting is silent, use Naukri’s filter bands, not a Twitter screenshot of someone else’s offer. Deloitte’s tier spread is a reminder that college brand still moves medians — your resume cannot delete that, but it can stop you from being filtered on a fantasy CTC before a human reads the projects.

What not to do

  • Do not invent a current CTC. Background verification will see it.
  • Do not paste US “$120k target” language on an India file.
  • Do not claim Resumity, or any tool, raises salary. We have no such study.

If you are mid-career, NIIT’s 2026 gap report says your band is where demand is hottest — and hardest to fill. Your resume should make the 6–15 year story obvious (scope, team size, systems), which is what justifies the number in the portal.

Clean the file with a free ATS check. Tailor proof to the JD. Approve AI diffs so a model does not “helpfully” add a CTC or a promotion that never happened.

The negotiation starts when a human can find you in the right filter and believe the work.