Skills Over Pedigree: What Axis Bank's HR Head Says Banks Now Look For

Does the name of your college still decide whether a bank hires you? Less than before, says Rajkamal Vempati, Group Head of Human Resources at Axis Bank. In an interview with ET Education, she said employers should stop relying on elite-campus credentials and degree cut-offs. She added that some of what employers call a talent shortage is really weak sourcing: they have not looked widely enough.

Her other points, as reported by ET Education and summarised by Teksands:

• Routine banking operations work is shrinking. Relationship management and technology and data roles are growing.
• The biggest gains from AI come from automating whole workflows, not from tools that only draft documents.
• Interns who build AI agents show what capable early-career people can do.
• She has not personally seen anyone lose a job because of AI, although anxiety among entry-level staff is rising.

What Axis Bank's own numbers show

HRKatha reported Axis Bank's workforce figures in September 2026:

• Campus hiring: 12,000 to 12,500 planned for FY27, up from about 11,500 to 11,600 in FY26. Only about 150 to 200 of the FY27 intake are for technology roles. Most join business, customer-facing and governance functions.
• Total hires in FY26: 31,665.
• Headcount: 101,337 at the end of FY26, down from 104,453 a year earlier.
• Attrition: 22.4% in FY26, down from 25.5% in FY25.
• Internal moves: about 65% of employee movement is internal, against an industry average the bank puts at 25% to 30%. The minimum time in a role before an employee can apply internally was cut from three years to 16 months.
• Roles in demand: commercial banking, wealth management, MSME banking, risk, compliance, audit, cybersecurity and relationship management.

For senior and specialist roles, the bank also runs ARISE Homecoming, a programme to bring back Indians who studied abroad. It is looking at close to a hundred hires through it, Teksands reports.

What this means if you are starting out

Put the two pieces together. A large private bank is shrinking its total headcount and still hiring more than 12,000 people from campus. The work is moving, not disappearing. Most entry jobs are in sales, customer service and relationship roles, and few are in technology.

Finploy's job data points the same way. Of every 100 posts that lenders and insurers have placed on Finploy, 98 are front-office sales and relationship roles. Back-office roles are about 0.2% of posts (Finploy data, October 2026). In Finploy's experience, desk roles in finance, HR, compliance and research are rarely advertised. They are mostly filled by referral, and one opening can draw many fit candidates.

Five practical steps

1. Start where the openings are. A front-office role in a branch is the most common entry point. With internal moves after 16 months at banks like Axis, it can be a route to other teams.
2. Show what you can do, not only where you studied. Bring a project, a case study or an internship result to the interview.
3. Take an internship seriously. In banking no one works alone. An internship teaches you to get work done through other teams.
4. Pick one domain and go deep. Banks hire technology people who already know lending systems, account opening, digital KYC or data protection.
5. Get practical training for premium roles. Wealth, broking and NRI relationship roles need strong spoken communication and technical skill together.

Frequently asked questions

What does Axis Bank's HR head say about college pedigree?

Rajkamal Vempati, Group Head of HR at Axis Bank, told ET Education that employers should stop relying on elite-campus credentials and degree cut-offs, and that some apparent talent shortages reflect weak sourcing.

How many campus hires does Axis Bank plan for FY27?

HRKatha reported that Axis Bank plans 12,000 to 12,500 campus hires in FY27, up from about 11,500 to 11,600 in FY26. Only about 150 to 200 of these are for technology roles.

How soon can Axis Bank employees apply for an internal move?

Axis Bank cut the minimum time in a role before an internal application from three years to 16 months, HRKatha reported. About 65% of employee movement at the bank is internal.

Which banking roles are growing as automation rises?

According to Axis Bank, demand is strong in commercial banking, wealth management, MSME banking, risk, compliance, audit, cybersecurity and relationship management. Routine transaction-processing work is increasingly handled by automation.