World Bank Report

Employability and Skill Set of Newly Graduated

Engineers in India

Rajeev Valunjkar Dept. Of Electrical Engg.

1) Andreas Blom 2 )Hiroshi Saeki
November 1, 2010

Rajeev Valunjkar Dept. Of Electrical Engg.

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EMPLOYABILITY
WORLD BANK STUDY SURVEY
OBJECTIVE
(i) Which skills do employers consider important
when hiring new engineering graduates?
(ii) How satisfied are employers with the skills of
engineering graduates?
(iii) In which important skills are the engineers
falling short?

SURVEY DETAILS
Ten out of the 11 NBA Program Outcomes were included in the questions .

Thirteen skills from previous employer surveys were added. These were in
particular skills often referred to as soft skills or core skills or employability
skills, such as integrity, self-motivation, team skills etc.

Further three specific skills were added, namely
1) Basic computer,
2) Advanced Computer, and
3) Customer Service Skills.

Lastly, another three skills
1) Technical Skills (programming)
2) Communication in English and
3) Entrepreneurship Skills, were included as per request of employers.

Analysis of the employers feedback

The specific skills can be grouped into three
overall groups of skills:
Core Employability Skills
Communication Skills
and Professional Skills.
Which skills do employers consider
important when hiring new
engineering graduates?
Which skills do employers consider
important when hiring new engineering
graduates?
Key Findings of the Report
(ii) Although all three skills are important for
employers, Core Employability Skills and
Communication Skills (Soft Skills) are more
important than Professional Skills.
Soft skills, such as reliability and self-
motivated have the largest skills gaps.

Key Findings of the Report
64% of employers hiring fresh engineering
graduates are only somewhat satisfied or
worse with the quality of engineering
graduates skills.
The typical employer is only somewhat
satisfied with the skill set of the newly hired
graduates.

Key Findings of the Report
The graduates have strong English
Communication skills and this is one the most
important skills for employability.

Key Findings of the Report
The graduates lack higher-order thinking skills,
such as analyzing, evaluating and creating.
This is unfortunate, because these higher-
order skills are more important than lower-
order thinking skills. Skills such as Problem-
solving and conducting experiments and data
analysis have a large skill gap.

Key Findings of the Report
Employers predominantly demand the same
Soft Skills irrespective of economic sector, firm
size and region. However, firms in different
regions and economic sector and of different
size demand distinct Professional Skill.

How satisfied are employers with the
skills of engineering graduates?
In which important skills are the
engineers falling short?
Policy recommendations
(i) Address the three skill factors (Core Employability
Skills, Professional Skills, and Communication
Skills) when reforming assessment, teaching, and
curriculum.
(ii) Emphasize Soft Skills
(iii)Interact more with employers to understand the
real demands from the market
(iv) Improve assessment, teaching, and curriculum
(v) Customize courses to meet different demands



Skill Gaps: Higher-Order Thinking Skills
are lagging

A closer assessment of the skill gaps
tentatively suggest that the skill gaps are
largest within higher-order thinking skills, and
smallest among the lower-order thinking
skills.
Summary Analysis of Skill Gaps
The employers are likely to perceive Soft Skills more important than Professional Skills.

However, engineering graduates with limited and weak Professional Skills are
undesirable for employers.

The survey results, for instance, show a clear signal to the Problem Solving that is
under Professional Skills. As shown earlier, Problem Solving has the largest gap in
Professional Skills and the second least satisfying skill of all skills.


Wide gaps can be observed among almost all skills. This is more obvious for higher
order skills, such as Problem Solving that falls in Professional Skills.

Further, the mean scores of skill gaps in Professional Skills are higher than those in Soft
Skills, which are 0.91 and 0.88 points, respectively. Therefore, the importance of
Professional Skills should not be disparaged.

Developing Your Students Professional
Skills
This Toolkit, Developing Your Students Professional Skills, focuses on how students can benefit from learning and
working in a professional context outside the university, while studying.
Learning in the workplace, on work experience, in a practicum, doing a work placement, etc., gives students the
opportunity to:

Identify the relevance of particular theoretical concepts, skills and ways of proceeding that have been learnt in
their course of study, and thus encourages more intentional classroom learning;

Put theory into practice;

Appreciate that academic success is not the only attribute for successful employment and careers;

Develop an awareness of workplace culture and appreciate the rapidly changing nature of the world of work;

Evaluate and develop work-related personal attributes (diplomacy, cooperation, workplace etiquette and
leadership);

Develop specific communicative and interactive abilities; and

Establish career plans and strategies.

How do universities know what
industry needs?

These include:
Recruitment of staff into academia from industry

Point to point contacts between academics and engineers from
industry at all levels, including lunchtime conversations and other
informal links

Industrial advisory/liaison boards

Strategic partnerships, including research and knowledge transfer
partnerships
Employer links through careers services and recruitment processes

Staff secondments to industry and visits by academic
staff to students on placement
Students reporting to their departments following
placements
Effective use of alumni through well organized alumni
organizations and inviting recent graduates to give talks
to students
Sector Skills Councils who provide information about
skills requirements and bring industry together with
academia
Reading reports and studies, both national and regional.