relatively more important than other _Professional Skills_ (ranked 3rd among 7 _Professional Skills_ ) _,_ but that in South problem-solving is only ranked 6th.

To summarize, we find that similar _Soft Skills_ are considered important across sectors, regions, and firm sizes. The analysis also shows that employers tend to have different priorities in _Professional Skills_ depending upon their characteristics.

# **5.3 Satisfaction: To What Extent Does the Skill Set of Engineering Graduates Meet Demand?**

Overall, 64% of employers are only somewhat satisfied or worse with the quality of engineering graduates‘ skills. 3.9% of employers rate the skills as ―Not at all satisfied‖, 16.1% as ―Not very satisfied‖, and 43.9% as ―Somewhat satisfied‖. The average rating on ― _overall are you satisfied with the newly graduated engineer that you have hired over the last 4 years?_ ‖ is only 3.15. That is slight above ― _somewhat satisfied_ ‖. The mean of the average satisfaction rating of each of the 26 skills is similar: 3.19, which indicates that the employers have responded fairly consistently on the dis-satisfaction level for both the overall level compared to each of the specific skills. It is noteworthy that none of the skills listed in the questionnaire are on average rated above 4.0, ―Very Satisfied‖, which means that no skill satisfies employers at the ―very‖ or ―extremely‖ level. Given that this is the first survey one cannot compare with either previous surveys to evaluate whether satisfaction has decreased over the last decade as a consequence of the massive expansion (800% from 1998 to 2008). This (dis-)satisfaction level is corroborated by other studies on skills of the Indian engineering graduates. For instance, the NASSCOM and McKinsey report (2005) finds that 75% of engineering graduates are not employable by multinational companies.

Obviously, this (dis-)satisfaction level is an average. There is no doubt that India produces a large number of exceptionally bright engineers, as can be seen in the importance of hightech entrepreneurs in the US that are of Indian origin, (Wadhwa, Rissing, Saxenian, and Gereffi, 2007) and the share of international publications that come from Indian engineering education Institutions. Also, it could be that employers have unrealistically high expectations regarding the potential skill level of graduates. In the US survey of engineering graduates, the average satisfaction rate was 4.01 equivalent to ―very satisfied‖. While the Indo-US difference is likely to reflect a difference in the quality of the graduates‘ skills, it could also stem from more reasonable expectations from employers or a generally more positive attitude of US employers. One should be cautious in directly comparing subjective surveys internationally.<sup>12</sup>

> 12 Satisfaction level of employers toward graduates‘ skills is not always pessimistic, at least in other countries.  Several similar employer surveys in the US, for instance, show that employers are satisfied, in some cases very satisfied, with graduates‘ skills. The employer survey conducted by Noel-Levitz and Utah State University shows that employers are very satisfied with the graduates from Utah State University. They show the interest to continue to hire the graduates. Another employer survey conducted by the University of Texas-Pan American also shows that very few employers are dissatisfied with graduates‘ skills. Given the different contexts between the US and India, satisfaction level cannot be simply comparable between the two countries. However, employers do not always unrealistically evaluate their satisfaction level toward graduates‘ skills.

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