A University's employer reputation - local or global?

What is employer reputation, when it comes to university programs, and why is it important?

I should start with the question - is employer reputation important? Two of the largest university rankings (that includes subject rankings) publishers are based in the U.K. with the rest (such as the U.S. News) still predominantly form a part of the western hemisphere.

West has dominated international student mobility historically - that's a fact. My company's largest clientele is from the western hemisphere and so is the demand to get to this side of the world. While mobility trends (recently) have also improved across Asia, in terms of sheer numbers the study abroad demand attributable to the UK and the US is not even comparable.

Some recent developments, however, are starting to raise some interesting questions and conversations. While these are muted conversations at best right now, for many of us in the domain, these questions are making us stop and think. I hope you (the reader) will hopefully do the same.

So back to our rankings publishers' side of the equation. It is no surprise at all that universities in the UK and USA enjoy the top ranks across any ranking published by these publishers. Although elitist in nature, these rankings have over the years attempted to bring out regional and other variations (such as sustainability) to include those up-and-coming universities from across the world who don't have the endowments or sheer academic power to be ranked amongst the elite universities from the UK and the USA.

What seems to be an attempt to balance out the academic side of these rankings and also perhaps to increase the number of factors that contribute to the final numbers, "employer reputation" was possibly brought in (along with a few other factors) to show university decision makers as well as prospective students who would like to study abroad and refer to these rankings, an aspect that is critical to almost all internationally mobile candidates. The chance to start an international career with a job opportunity after graduation from these universities.

What is not so clear (I asked around for answers directly from the people responsible for these rankings, without success) is the data that is collected and shown for "employer reputation" in these rankings. Which employers? Where are they based? Do these companies (who were surveyed) belong to the same countries (such as the UK and USA) or are these from those countries/regions that students belong to (such as India, Nepal, Bangladesh or SE Asia or Middle East and Africa)? Does a company taking part in the employer reputation survey in the UK have the same idea/view of a program's reputation in (say) India or Vietnam?

Why am I asking this question and what's the angle here?

The current narrative around postgraduate work visas in countries like the UK is pretty negative - considering the political narrative around reducing net migration. Accommodation challenges across the board are forcing other countries (that were touted to be the next best destinations for international mobility (non-EU mobility)) such as the Netherlands to reduce/ put a cap on international enrolments, and more countries are having conversations in this direction.

Employer reputation at the source countries (those countries that contribute to the international enrolments) becomes critical in such cases because suddenly there would be candidates in droves who won't have graduate jobs (that are relevant to their skill sets and program outcomes) and have to now head back to their home countries with highly ranked universities here having no control whatsoever about their "employer reputation" in these countries.

The UK sticks out as the sore thumb sadly in such cases, and while the largest program demand is for business programs (postgrad demand only) the idea that people care massively about employability after spending upwards of ￡100,000 in a calendar year (with massive student debt) when they head back to their home countries - raises a serious problem that needs to be solved.

Just historical data of where they end up when they go back WILL NOT HELP. Why? Because that is predicated on the fact already that "employer reputation" building work wasn't a priority for UK universities (at source countries). So anyone who compromised and took lower-paying jobs when they went back to their source countries (compared to what they would have earned equitably if they had worked in the UK) is not a good data source to fall back on.

As far as we have witnessed, there are 2 primary areas of investment that these universities have at such source countries - student recruitment and TNE (in some cases). Neither contributes directly to "employer reputation" amongst companies out there. The alumni card also doesn't work here because of what I mentioned in the previous paragraph. There are local universities (ranked again, such as in the case of India there would be a case like IIM-B v/s Cambridge Judge, compared locally for a relevant job role in Bangalore) who have stronger and more loyal alumni bases that people would go up against.

So, the questions remain. Shouldn't universities that attract international students and are at the mercy of immigration laws designed by government policies (which is frankly beyond their control) work on creating an ecosystem that builds out employer reputation amongst corporations and confederations at these source countries? Shouldn't employability be global? If we believe what is written in the program brochures of these programs at top-ranked universities, they are apparently teaching kids to solve global problems through a global curriculum. Then why shortchange the outcome to local only?

So to answer the question I asked at the beginning - Employer reputation, across countries/ geographies/ regions, matters and it needs to be given a higher priority (taking career services to the centre stage and making them more dynamic) to sustain the global reputation of these universities and taking politics/ policies out of the equation.

What do you think?