At a time when AI is reshaping the global jobs market, a new survey has found that top tech employers like Apple and Nvidia are increasingly hiring graduates from India’s lesser-known educational institutions.
An average of 34 per cent (roughly one-third) of employees at Zoho, Apple, and Nvidia said that they had graduated from Tier-3 colleges in the country, according to a new survey carried out by Blind, an app where verified working professionals can interact with each other anonymously. Tier-3 colleges do not include elite institutions such as the IITs and IIMs of the country.
The survey of 1,602 Indian professionals was conducted between September 17 to 24, 2025 via the app to examine how a techie’s college background influences their career outcomes. Many of the respondents who worked at companies such as Zoho, Apple, Nvidia, SAP, and PayPal said that college had had no influence on their careers.
Based on the National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) 2025, the colleges were grouped into Tier 1 (IITs, IISc, top IIMs, BITS Pilani), Tier 2 (NITs, DTU, Jadavpur University, and similar), Tier 3 (other state or private universities), and Tier 4 (comprising overseas institutions).
The findings of the Blind survey signal that students who do not get accepted into elite Indian universities may still have a future career in global tech firms. It also shows that while traditional financial firms like Goldman Sachs or Visa may still place value on college names, major tech firms tend to prioritise skills when it comes to hiring.
A majority of the respondents from Tier 1 and Tier 2 colleges agreed that campus recruitment shaped their careers more than any other factor. (File Photo)
At a time when AI is reshaping the global jobs market, a new survey has found that top tech employers like Apple and Nvidia are increasingly hiring graduates from India’s lesser-known educational institutions.
An average of 34 per cent (roughly one-third) of employees at Zoho, Apple, and Nvidia said that they had graduated from Tier-3 colleges in the country, according to a new survey carried out by Blind, an app where verified working professionals can interact with each other anonymously. Tier-3 colleges do not include elite institutions such as the IITs and IIMs of the country.
The survey of 1,602 Indian professionals was conducted between September 17 to 24, 2025 via the app to examine how a techie’s college background influences their career outcomes. Many of the respondents who worked at companies such as Zoho, Apple, Nvidia, SAP, and PayPal said that college had had no influence on their careers.
Based on the National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) 2025, the colleges were grouped into Tier 1 (IITs, IISc, top IIMs, BITS Pilani), Tier 2 (NITs, DTU, Jadavpur University, and similar), Tier 3 (other state or private universities), and Tier 4 (comprising overseas institutions).
The findings of the Blind survey signal that students who do not get accepted into elite Indian universities may still have a future career in global tech firms. It also shows that while traditional financial firms like Goldman Sachs or Visa may still place value on college names, major tech firms tend to prioritise skills when it comes to hiring.
“In general, people from IIT/IIIT/NIT do better in the interviews. 50 per cent of the screened candidates from IIT/IIIT/NIT usually end up getting an offer. The other lot, the success rate is around 20 per cent,” a Salesforce employee was quoted as saying in the report. Another Goldman Sachs employee opined, “Companies aren’t just looking at IITs anymore, they’re hunting grads from small towns and Tier 3 colleges. They’re literally betting that with some training, anyone can become a tech rockstar.”
The survey also comes amid mounting concerns of a deteriorating job market, especially in the tech sector which is seeing a wave of AI-fueled layoffs. Tech industry leaders such as Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei have predicted that AI will cause 50 per cent of entry-level roles to disappear in the next five years. Others like Nvidia boss Jensen Huang believe that AI will make some jobs obsolete while simultaneously creating new ones.
Other findings of the survey
A majority of the respondents from Tier 1 and Tier 2 colleges agreed that campus recruitment shaped their careers more than any other factor. However, 59 per cent of Tier 3 alumni and 45 per cent of Tier 4 alumni believe that college was no more than another line on a résumé, as per the survey.
Notably, traditional multinational companies like Goldman Sachs, Visa, Atlassian, Oracle, and Google typically hire heavily through campus placements. Yet, an average of 18 per cent of employees at these firms said that they came from Tier-3 colleges.
Graduating from an elite university may not guarantee a higher salary either. Only 15 per cent of Tier 3 alumni reported a strong benefit from their education while 74 per cent of total respondents said that college names helped only early on or not at all.
More than half of overseas graduates (53 per cent) also felt college had little or no effect on their earnings, as per the survey. These findings are in line with other reports as well. For instance, a recent Forbes analysis found that over 90 per cent of companies see better hiring outcomes when they prioritise employee skills over degrees.