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Stanford University tops 2018 employability rankings

Universities in Australia, the UK, and China also made it to the top 10 in the QS graduate employability rankings.

BY BrainGain Magazine Staff Writer | 28-09-2017

Stanford University main quad (photo by Jun Seita, used under CC license)

Stanford University has again made the top spot for graduate employability in the 2018 QS employability rankings. It is one of 10 US universities among the top 20. The seven other countries represented in the top 20 are Australia, the UK, China, Japan, Canada, Switzerland, and Hong Kong.

Stanford is followed by the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) and Harvard University. UCLA is up from 15th position last year. The University of Sydney has held on to its No. 4 position, and is followed by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

2018 Rank	2017 Rank	Country	Institution
1	1	US	Stanford University
2	15	US	UCLA
3	-	US	Harvard University
4	4	Australia	University of Sydney
5	2	US	MIT
6	5	UK	University of Cambridge
7	11	Australia	University of Melbourne
8	8	UK	University of Oxford
9	9	US	UC Berkeley
10	3	China	Tsinghua University
Source: QS Employability Rankings

A PIE News report quoted QS education writer Jack Moran as saying, “We don’t want this ranking to measure reputation alone. We want to reward universities for being proactive, for placing employability at the top of the agenda.” The employability rankings are based on employer reputation, alumni outcomes, partnerships with employers per faculty, employer/student connections, and graduate employment rate.

University of Sydney (photo by Jake Rohan, used under CC license)

The report quoted Mr Moran as saying that “universities that don’t have highly prestigious global brands are seeking to emphasise the quality of the employment prospects they offer to potential graduates, which incentivises them to engage in the sort of behaviours and initiatives that this project rewards.”

Latin American and Middle Eastern institutions figure in the top 50 in the employability rankings, even thought they don’t show up the World University Rankings. Thus, for example, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile ranks 37th for employability, and the American University of Beirut is 41st.

Tsinghua University, Beijing (photo by Ryan Raffa, used under CC license)

Six German institutions are also in the top 100 for employability – twice as many as in the top 100 university rankings. Four Australian universities feature in the top 50 – besides the universities of Sydney and Melbourne being in the top 10, the University of New South Wales is 36th, and the University of Queensland is 49th.

Employability is high on the list of concerns of international students. Indeed, Mr Moran calls it “a key driver of international study”.

The 2018 QS graduate employability rankings feature 495 universities in 65 countries. The full list can be found here.