IIT Delhi tops Indian institutes' rise in THE global employability ranking

While IIT Delhi's rank was unchanged from last year, IISc Bengaluru climbed 10 places to 61st spot; other institutes forming country's top-5 were IIT Bombay (97), IIM-A (162) and IIT-Kharagpur (170)

Ranked 27th, the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Delhi leads Indian institutions' rise in the latest annual Global Employability University Ranking and Survey (GEURS) on the back of subject specialisation and graduate skills.

Now in its 11th year, the annual Global Employability University Ranking and Survey (GEURS), run by higher education HR consultancy Emerging and published by Times Higher Education (THE), has revealed the world’s top 250 universities according to recruiters. It shows that increasingly, employers are looking for graduates with strong digital literacy and subject specialism skills rather than focusing on the prestige of the university they attended.

According to the survey, Indian universities see a clear rise for the first time in years due to strengths in subject specialisation and graduate skills, with UK, Israel and India standing out for digital specialisms.

While IIT Delhi's rank was unchanged from last year, it was followed by the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) Bengaluru which climbed 10 places to be ranked at 61st. The other three Indian institutions forming the top five for the country included IIT Bombay (97), Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Ahmedabad (162) and IIT Kharagpur (170).

The survey was carried out by polling institute Trendence across 23 countries and regions, resulting in 118,196 votes cast by 10,928 international recruiters and managers supervising five or more graduates a year. These recruiters and managers selected up to 15 universities from a list of 2,000 and gave reasons behind their votes.

This year, 44 countries and regions were represented, with the US, France and UK being the top three countries by share of vote and Mainland China, India and Spain among the risers as recruiters prioritise digital literacy and subject specialism above university prestige for the first time.

The top ten sees the US, UK, Japan and Singapore represented, but there’s a whole host of countries that are rising stars when it comes to employability. Mainland China, France, India and Spain are among those countries and regions that rise while the United Kingdom (UK), US, India, and Israel stand out for their digital performance.

Meanwhile, commenting on the rankings, Sandrine Belloc, Managing Partner, Emerging said that the annual GEURS employability ranking specifically addressed the student need to identify those universities that offer the best prospects for future employment.

"It provides them with the reasons behind recruiters’ choices and shows that indicators such as digitalization, specialization or soft skills are increasingly important, much more so than the prestige of a university’s name. The resulting rankings provide a diverse range of universities for students to consider when thinking about who to invest in for their higher education to help shape their personal path into a successful and rewarding career."