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University of Manchester given perfect score for ’employer reputation’ as graduates rank ninth for desirability

By Josh Nicholls

Manchester University graduates are the ninth most desirable employees in the world, and the fifth best in the UK, according to graduate bosses as part of the 2013 QS World University Rankings survey published last week.

More than 27,000 employers were asked to grade Universities around the World and out of 100, on various criterion, assigned Manchester a perfect score of 100 for ‘employer reputation’.

This placed Manchester graduates ahead of the university leavers of many prestigious international universities in terms of employability. These included The University of California which scored 98, The University of Toronto with 95.9 and Paris’ École normale supérieure at 77.4.

On a national scale Manchester graduates were ranked ahead of the alumni of The University of St. Andrews with 78.4, a list that includes future-king Prince William, Leeds University at 87.4 and The University of Birmingham with 90.4.

Only ‘brand Oxbridge,’ London Imperial College and the London School of Economics and Political Science prevented Manchester graduates from being top of the UK class.

The Graduate Market 2013, an annual report of graduate vacancies and starting salaries in the UK conducted earlier this year, estimated Deloitte and PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) would be among the top three graduate employers in 2013.

Indeed 50 Manchester graduates began work at Deloitte’s Manchester office earlier this month and the Head of Graduate Recruitment at the professional services giants spoke of his admiration for University of Manchester students.

“It is a very large institution with a high calibre of student; the students are career minded and career motivated demonstrating a wide range of transferable skills,” he said.

Richard Irwin, Head of Student Recruitment at PwC, also stated that only the ‘brightest and best people’ join their graduate programmes.

University of Manchester graduates are perpetually fulfilling such criteria as 332 of them have been employed since 2007 by PwC, whose private client team was recently named ‘Accountancy Firm of the Year’ at the City Wealth awards last May.

Picture courtesy of Gene Hunt via Flickr, with thanks.

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