Employability and Skill Set of Newly Graduated Engineers in India

Skill shortage remains one of the major constraints to continued growth of the Indian economy. However, very little research has been conducted to identify which specific skills are in high demand and which skills are in short supply. This employer survey seeks to address this knowledge-gap by answering three questions: (i) which skills do employers consider important when hiring new engineering graduates? (ii) how satisfied are employers with the skills of engineering graduates? and (iii) in which important skills are the engineers falling short? The results confirm a widespread dissatisfaction with the current graduates 64% of employers hiring fresh engineering graduates are only somewhat satisfied with the quality of the new hires or worse. After classifying all skills by factor analysis, we find that employers perceive Soft Skills (Core Employability Skills and Communication Skills) more important than Professional Skills. Skill gaps are particularly severe in higher order thinking skills ranked according to Bloom’s taxonomy of thinking skill. In contrast, communication in English has the smallest skill gap, but remains one of the most demanded skills by the employers. While employers across India asks for the same set of soft skills, their skill demands differ for Professional Skills across economic sectors, company sizes, and regions. These findings suggest that engineering education institutions should: (i) seek to improve the skill set of graduates; (ii) emphasize Soft Skills, (iii) refocus the assessments, teaching-learning process, and curricula away from lower-order thinking skills, such as remembering and understanding towards higher order skills such as analysis and creativity; and (iv) interact more with employers to understand the particular demand for skills in that region and sector. ________________________________ The authors would also like to thank the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) for its technical and implementation’s support of the survey. The authors would like to express their gratitude to National Project Implementation Unit under the Ministry of Human Resource Development for its administrative support of the survey. The employer survey was made possible thanks to the FICCI’s member companies that kindly responded to the survey. We are also grateful for comments received at the FICII Higher Education Summit 2009 and at World Bank presentations. This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the Governments, the FICCI, or the World Bank they represent.