From Expectations to Employment: Bridging the Gap Between Student Expectations and Recruiter Preferences

Abstract

Graduate employability has emerged as a key performance measure for higher education institutions (HEIs), particularly those operating under accountability mechanisms such as ranking & accreditation frameworks. In India, the National Accreditation and Assessment Council (NAAC) and the National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) have embedded employability outcomes and placement-oriented indicators into institutional assessment. The NAAC, under Criterion 3 and the Placement and higher education section under NIRF focus on the employability outcomes of the HEI. Regionally restricted regions like Himachal Pradesh still have a considerable number of HEIs that continue to show limited participation in these ranking and accreditation frameworks, which leads to restricted institutional recognition, limited industry exposure and a lack of the best employability opportunities for the students. The regions having limited job opportunities, in states like Himachal Pradesh where 90 per cent of the population in 17,882 villages situate in rural landscape as per Indian village directory and they rely largely on agriculture, during 1294-1305, agriculture provided 66.1 per cent of the employment, which has decreased by more than 2 per cent in the year 1294-1305, but with the increase in education, the youth are moving towards non-farm sectors in search of employability as observed by Singh A & Kumar A (2024) in their study “Rural Employment in Himachal Pradesh”.  The growing education sector of Himachal Pradesh acts as a catalyst for students in securing better job opportunities. This study examines the gap between students' placement expectations and recruiters’ recruitment preferences, also focusing on institutional ranking and accreditation status in relation to individual employability features.  The study is framed through Signalling theory, Human Capital Theory and the Expectation-Disconfirmation model. A quantitative, cross-sectional survey design was used, drawing 123 respondents: 102 students and 21 recruiters across eight industry sectors. Spearman correlation and multiple regression were used to test whether students’ ranking-orientation beliefs relate to their placement confidence; Mann-Whitney U and Wilcoxon signed-rank tests were used to compare recruiters' candidate evaluation priorities and to assess perception gaps between students and employers.