The paper is organized as follows. The next section briefly summarizes similar studies. Section 3 describes the methodology of the data collection. Section 4 shows descriptive statistics of survey respondents. Section 5 presents major findings with analysis of the collected data. Finally, Section 6 summarizes and discusses implications for education provision and education policy in order to increase employability of engineering graduates.

# **2. Previous Employer Surveys and Related Literature on Skills**

This section reviews a selected set of previous employer surveys and related literature on skills that guided the design of this employer survey. A number of employer surveys have been conducted for graduates of different academic disciplines, e.g., business administration, education, economics, psychology, etc. Many of these surveys aim to identify which skills are demanded by employers and to examine how the supply of skills matches labor market demand.<sup>3</sup> Noel-Levitz (a higher education consulting firm) and Utah State University developed a comprehensive and well designed instrument for employer satisfaction surveys. The objective of the survey was to measure the employer satisfaction for benchmarking purposes (Kleinke, 2006). Seventeen universities participated in the survey in 2004. A survey instrument was mailed to 297 employers of the graduates, of which 112 employers responded (38% response rate). The questionnaire focused on graduates‘ knowledge and understanding within: the field of the graduates‘ major, general skills, and specialized skills. Employers rated graduates‘ knowledge and skills on a five-point scale in two aspects: satisfaction with the specific skills of the graduate and the importance of each of those skills. The survey found that employers were on average ― _very satisfied_ ‖ with the knowledge and skills of the graduates (average rating of 4.0 on a five point scale). The survey instrument was found useful especially in that it asked both importance and satisfaction levels of knowledge and skills. This structure was incorporated in our survey instrument.

Lattuca, Terenzini, and Volkwein, 2006, assessed the impact of accreditation based upon student learning outcomes as introduced by the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET) in the mid-1990s. The expected student learning outcomes of both ABET and the National Board of Accreditation (NBA) in India are similar due to common membership of the so-called Washington Accord, which mutually recognizes engineering degrees across 12 member-countries, (Washington Accord, 2007). Since many questions in our employer survey were drawn from the NBA‘s learning outcomes, our survey results are to some extent comparable with the above study‘s outcomes. Lattuca, Terenzini and Volkwein surveyed 1,622 employers. The employers were asked information on their characteristics and three basic issues: (i) the preparation of recent engineering graduates, (ii) whether or not the skills of the graduates had increased, and (iii) the importance employers attach to each of the 11 EC2000 learning outcomes. The study found that the majority of employers agreed that, overall, graduates were adequately or well prepared for

> 3 In this paper, we use the term ―skills‖ in the broadest interpretation. Hence, it is not limited to skills of a routine nature related to a specific trade, but covers broadly and includes what some studies labels competences, personal attributes, personal characteristics and abilities of both cognitive and affective/interpersonal nature.

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