Indeed's Saumitra R Chand on what India's comms job market is actually buying in 2026

Talent has always been a challenge for India's PR industry. Now, the headwinds of AI and global uncertainty are rapidly changing the skills needed to manage a modern PR and comms role. 

To understand the broad hiring trends in India, how comms, media and journalism roles are evolving, and how to apply for your dream comms job, we speak to Saumitra R Chand, head of PR and communications for India and Singapore at global job search firm Indeed.com. 

23.4 million people (Source: Comscore, Unique Visitors, November 2021) from India visit Indeed.com every month, placing the platform in the middle of the flow for hiring trends.

Read on.

The broad hiring picture

PRmoment India: What are the broad hiring trends you're seeing, in general and in communications specifically?

Saumitra R Chand: Overall, the broad hiring trend is that India is one of the leading countries for AI hiring — I think it's the second highest, after Singapore. We are seeing particularly strong demand for people with specialised skills and relevant experience. And we are seeing a lot of jobs moving beyond IT and tech into careers like hospitality and healthcare. Those are the industries booming in terms of jobs. India hiring data also shows very strong demand for professionals with seven to 10 years and above of experience. Entry-level and some senior hiring has softened, but seven to 10 years is seeing solid demand.

The other trend we are seeing is a lot of migration from bigger cities to smaller cities. That's a post-COVID trend, and with remote work, it becomes far more convenient for employees who had migrated to metros to stay closer to home.

Lastly, one of the trends we are seeing has to do with age, and how millennials perceive jobs versus how Gen Z perceives them. A lot of Gen Z employees getting into jobs right now are keeping purpose and the freedom to work on their own terms above compensation. They're preferring organisations that give them far more flexibility, and job titles that address their sense of purpose rather than compensation.

What's the comms mid-career market selecting for

PRmoment India: What are the mid-career hiring trends? Is there an ageism problem in comms?

Saumitra R Chand: On mid-career hiring, especially for comms folks and at the senior level, the market is becoming a bit more selective. I wouldn't call it an age problem or a seniority problem. What matters increasingly is whether your experience is still relevant to where the function is going.

For communications professionals like myself and many of my colleagues and friends, the risk is staying too specialised in the way we worked 10 or 15 years ago.

So my advice for mid-career comms professionals is: don't compete with younger professionals. Compete on judgement, on relationships, on strategic thinking and on the ability to solve business problems. The other thing is: add newer skills, as much as possible. In communications especially, your network and your credibility matter. A lot of companies now face crises, so how do you understand that, and how do you understand your business? That plays an incredibly important role.

Young companies, younger comms leads

PRmoment India: Company leaders are becoming younger, and the companies that are growing are themselves young — many of them emerging only in the last 10 or 15 years. In that situation, what would you recommend to the senior comms professional on the brand side?

Saumitra R Chand: First of all, I think it's a perception issue. The answer isn't to hide your experience. I don't think it's for the most senior audience to sell themselves as someone with 18 years of PR experience, but as someone who has spent 18 years solving reputation, stakeholder and business problems, and who now knows how to do that in an AI-enabled digital environment.

Future comms teams will probably balance early-career professionals who have a lot of insight into how AI and tech work with senior people. A lot of companies are also changing the way they operate. I wouldn't say the comms industry is eliminating senior talent — it's a phase, and it's redefining what seniority means.

Newer job titles are coming in too — for example, chief communications officer. Earlier, it used to be just head of comms. Nowadays, a lot of companies are enabling this title, and they're bringing comms heads to the table where decisions are being made

Where the jobs are

PRmoment India: Which industry sectors are hiring most right now? It would give an idea about potential PR services growth areas.

Saumitra R Chand: In terms of industry, tech and software are of course booming. The second is new-age companies and on-demand companies — they are hiring for these roles quite a bit. But I wouldn't put this down as job titles that are only tech-centric.

A lot of these job titles that were centric to tech roles are now moving into other companies. Banking, for example: a lot of banking firms nowadays are hiring for AI governance roles, or security roles where AI is required. 

So my top three would be banking; on-demand and new-age companies; and third, of course, the rest of the tech companies we all know about.

What's changing in journalism roles

PRmoment India: What hiring trends are you seeing for journalism and media in India?

Saumitra R Chand: On our platform, we see job descriptions for journalists increasingly listing digital content creation, audience engagement and video editing.

The modern newsroom wants journalists who don't just write about news but understand how stories travel across different digital channels. A majority of people consume news on their phone, so you would want reporters or journalists who can target your audience and cater to them — someone who understands that medium. We're seeing that sort of change in job descriptions on our platform as well.

What this means for journalism roles is a shift, because generalist beats are giving way to deep domain expertise as coverage across industries becomes more technical. Whether you're reporting on AI policy or anything else, journalists who bring specialised subject-matter knowledge are in high demand.

One of the other most interesting macro trends is the mobility of journalistic talent across the wider communications ecosystem. Core journalistic skills — audience empathy, rapid research, understanding data, sharp editing, narrative building — are all skills that people hiring for comms roles want too.

Applying for a comms job: show, don't tell

PRmoment India: One piece of advice you'd give to a comms professional — one mistake they often make when applying for a job that you've noticed?

Saumitra R Chand: One thing I've observed is that a lot of comms folks say they know something, but there are no examples of it.

So my advice to people applying for comms roles is: show, don't just tell. If you're good at writing, if you're good at editing, show examples of how you did it. Show instances. If you're great at crisis mitigation, give examples.

The other part — I wouldn't call it an error, but something we undervalue a lot — is soft skills. We focus a lot on hard skills, but soft skills like communication and critical thinking are all the necessary ammunition we need in today's world.

"A sweet accident": from radio to comms

PRmoment India: Tell me about your personal journey. A lot of people say PR is the last option for a lot of professionals. What was it for you — or was it a happy accident that you enjoyed?

Saumitra R Chand: I was a radio jockey, and then I did my Masterss in journalism. The next obvious step for me was to be a journalist. I actually wanted to be a BBC reporter for a very long time. I had interviewed Mark Tully, and he was sort of my icon in terms of being a reporter.

So I applied and went for the interview. But in the meantime, because of the whole psyche of being a postgraduate — that you've got to get a job soon, you've got to get a campus placement soon — I applied for a comms job and I got it.

I would say it was an accident, but a sweet accident. I don't regret any part of it. I thoroughly enjoy my job.

The reason I wanted to be a journalist was so that I could tell stories, and I'm doing the same thing here. It's the same strategy I apply in my comms role: I talk about stories, I shape narratives. I think it's probably the best decision I've made.