New Delhi: Over one-third of Indian employees at major technology firms such as Zoho, Apple, and NVIDIA are graduates of tier 3 colleges, highlighting a growing shift towards skills-based hiring, according to a report released on Wednesday.

The survey, conducted by Blind, an anonymous professional social media platform, included responses from 1,602 Indian professionals and categorised colleges based on the NIRF 2025 rankings into tier 1, tier 2, tier 3, and overseas institutions.

“While traditional financial firms still place value on college names, major tech firms tend to prioritise skills. At companies like Zoho, Apple, NVIDIA, SAP, and PayPal, where many respondents said college had no influence on their careers, an average of 34 per cent of surveyed employees were Tier 3 graduates.”

In contrast, traditional financial and tech companies, including Goldman Sachs, Visa, Atlassian, Oracle, and Google, continue to rely on campus recruitment, with only 18 per cent of employees from these firms coming from tier 3 colleges.

The survey also found that 59 per cent of tier 3 alumni and 45 per cent of overseas graduates considered their college education merely a line on their CV, while the majority of tier 1 and tier 2 alumni credited campus recruitment for their career development. About 15 per cent of tier 3 graduates reported significant salary benefits from their education, while 74 per cent said it helped only in the early stages or not at all. Similarly, 53 per cent of overseas graduates reported that their college had little or no effect on earnings.

Overall, the survey found that 41 per cent of respondents graduated from tier 1 colleges such as IITs, IISc, top IIMs, and BITS Pilani; 30 per cent from tier 2 colleges; 25 per cent from tier 3 colleges; and 4 per cent from overseas institutions.

IANS