NEW DELHI: Less than 20 percent of the estimated six lakh engineering students, who graduate every year, are "employable" for software jobs, claims a survey.

According to the Aspiring Minds' National Employability Report for Engineering Graduates, only 18.43 percent of engineers that graduate are employable for software jobs.

The report is based on a sample of more than 1.20 lakh engineering students from over 520 colleges across India. All these students graduated in 2013.

Out of over 1.2 lakh candidates, 91.82 percent lack programming and algorithm skills, 71.23 percent lack soft and cognitive skills, 60 percent lack domain skills, 73.63 percent lack english speaking and comprehension skills and 57.96 percent lack analytical and quantitative skills.

"The low employability among engineering graduates is a cumulative outcome of poor education standards and higher demand of skilled employees thereby creating a drastic skill gap in the country," Aspiring Minds CEO & Co-founder Himanshu Aggarwal said.

Corporates generally look for candidates who have their basic skills in order and do not require much training upon being hired. Hence, candidates with lower quality of skills in comparison to basic job requirements are left out in the entire process, Aggarwal added.

The report further noted that 70 percent of employable talent in lesser-known colleges are likely to be missed by corporations.

This can be attributed to the current entry-level hiring practices, where companies only visit certain high-ranking colleges for their hiring programme.

Also, during the resume shortlisting process, the college name is a key signal and resumes from unknown colleges are not even shortlisted.

A tier 3 student with equal proficiency and employability is much disadvantaged as compared to a tier 1 student and even if the student from a tier 3 college gets a job, he/she will get Rs 66,000 per annum less than a student of equal merit from a tier 1 college, the report added.

The findings of the report was based on the results of these students on AMCAT : Aspiring Minds Computer Adaptive Test, an employability test.
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