Freshers’ confront AI experience gap!

HEMA SINGULURI I hyderabad

It is a classic case of ‘Catch-22 situation’. Companies want AI experienced workers, while freshers need a first job to gain that experience. The city’s Gen Z is watching the city’s AI ambitions grow with a mixture of excitement and caution. For fresh graduates standing at the starting line of their careers, the question is no longer whether AI will create jobs, but whether those jobs will be available to people with no experience.

That concern is increasingly visible among Hyderabad’s young job seekers. Recent online discussions show fresh AI and machine-learning graduates searching for entry-level roles while encountering vacancies that frequently ask for two or three years of prior experience. One Hyderabad job discussion captured the frustration bluntly: “If AI companies need highly skilled people, where do freshers get their first opportunity and experience?”

The experience paradox

The contradiction is becoming harder to ignore. Companies want candidates who can work with AI from day one, while graduates say they need their first job precisely to acquire that experience.

Abhishek Mokkapati, a third-year Computer Science student at Malla Reddy Engineering College, says the nature of entry-level work itself is changing. “Fresh graduate is no longer asked to write a simple login form from scratch. Instead, they are handed an AI-generated authentication module and told to review the code... This requires a completely different skill set,” he says.

Bhumika, a 21-year-old recent BA Journalism graduate, believes the answer is learning to work with the technology rather than resisting it. “While AI is definitely reshaping entry-level jobs in Hyderabad, it can’t replace human creativity and critical thinking—so as long as freshers learn to work alongside AI, there will always be a place for us,” she says.

Hyderabad’s AI infrastructure story is nevertheless expanding rapidly. TCS subsidiary HyperVault plans a 1GW AI data-centre campus on 264 acres, with investment of up to Rs 70,000 crore. Telangana says the project could generate about 7,000 direct and indirect jobs across areas including AI, power, cooling, networking, construction, engineering and operations. The challenge is ensuring that “jobs created” also translates into genuine pathways for first-time workers.

India’s Gen Z is hardly rejecting AI. Deloitte’s 2026 survey found that 93% of Indian Gen Z respondents use AI in their day-to-day work, while more than 90% say it has a positive impact on their professional and personal lives. For Hyderabad’s freshers, the message is therefore straightforward: don’t replace the first rung of the career ladder with AI. Use AI to make that first rung stronger.