Sydney graduates rated the most employable in Australia
University of Sydney graduates are the most employable in Australia and are among the top 5 most sought-after by employers worldwide, according to the latest 2017 QS Graduate Employability Rankings.
The University jumped 10 spots from its position last year to achieve a ranking of 4th worldwide for employability, outplacing institutions including the University of Cambridge (5), Columbia University (7) and University of Oxford (8). For the second year running the University of Sydney also topped the list of Australian universities in the rankings, released today.
Surveying 37,000 employers and mapping the careers of 21,000 individuals around the world, the QS rankings move past employment rates to give a more in-depth indication of how universities are perceived in the global graduate jobs market, how well-connected to the professional world universities are, and the quality of employment outcomes achieved by graduates.
Vice-Chancellor Dr Michael Spence said the strong result reflected the University’s extraordinary commitment to providing students with opportunities to gain work-ready skills to kick-start their careers.
“Equipping students with the knowledge, skills, values and purpose to serve society at every level and to lead the way in improving people’s lives has been our mission since the University was founded in 1850,” he said.
In today’s world, that means preparing students for the global workforce, training them to be adaptable and creative thinkers, as well as providing them with the hands-on experience they need to thrive in the workforce.
Dr Spence said the University offers students a number of opportunities to improve their employability, including a collection of practical workshops to build professional skills, regular careers fairs, networking events and internship programs to connect students with employers, and programs that allow students to work within a variety of organisations to solve real-world problems.
The University of Sydney alumni community consists of 320,000 business and political leaders, prominent innovators and entrepreneurs, including Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, Sydney Lord Mayor Clover Moore and eminent heart surgeon Victor Chang. More recent high-profile graduates include Australian Mentoring Experience (AIME) founder Jack Manning Bancroft, human rights campaigner Samah Hadid, who is Amnesty International’s Deputy Director for the Middle East, and James Alexander, founder of the award-winning University of Sydney Union startup accelerator and entrepreneur program, Incubate.
Ranking indicators
To determine the rankings, QS mapped 300 universities on the following indicators:
- Employer reputation (30%)
- Alumni outcomes (20%)
- Partnerships with employers (25%)
- Employer/student connections (15%)
- Graduate employment rate (10%)
The results follow the University’s recent ranking of first in New South Wales and 49th in the world in the latest Times Higher Education Global Employability University Rankings.
The University of Sydney is currently ranked 46th in the world in the overall QS World University Rankings.
