If your dream is to land a job at some of the world’s biggest tech firms then there is no need to have an IIT or IIM tag anymore.`
A latest survey revealed that a surprising number of employees at Apple, Nvidia, and Zoho have not graduated from elite Indian universities, instead they come from Tier-3 colleges, institutions often dismissed as “average.”
IT Majors Keeping Skills Over Degrees
Further explaining that around one in three employees (34 per cent) at these companies come from Tier-3 institutions.
This simply indicates that talent isn’t confined to the Ivy League equivalents of India.
Coming to this study, it was conducted by the anonymous professional networking app Blind, surveyed 1,602 Indian tech workers between September 17 and September 24, 2025.
This study is simply aimed to understand how much a college name really matters in today’s job market.
We cannot deny that India’s top technology and management institutes, the IITs, IIMs, IISc, and BITS Pilani, have been seen as the ultimate launchpads for a global career for decades.
But now, this survey suggests the tide may be turning as the tech giants such as Apple, Nvidia, and Zoho appear more interested in skills than shiny degrees compared to the traditional recruiters like Goldman Sachs, Visa, and Oracle, who still lean heavily on pedigree during campus placements.
“In general, people from IIT/IIIT/NIT do better in the interviews. About 50 per cent of them get offers. The others have a 20 per cent success rate,” quoted in the survey by one of the Salesforce employees.
College Name Holding Little Bearing
“Companies aren’t just looking at IITs any more, 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,” said another participant from Goldman Sachs as the trend is shifting fast.
So far the colleges into four tiers: Tier 1 (IITs, IISc, IIMs, BITS Pilani), Tier 2 (NITs, DTU, Jadavpur University, and similar), Tier 3 (other state and private universities), and Tier 4 (overseas institutions) based on the study under National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) 2025.
It seems that more than half of respondents said their college name had little bearing on their career growth across these tiers.
According to 59 percent of Tier-3 alumni and 45 percent of Tier-4 alumni, college was “just another line” on their resume.
Similarly, 53 per cent of the foreign graduates believed that their degree barely affected their pay cheque.
Further survey revealed that graduating from a top university doesn’t necessarily guarantee a fatter salary.
In this survey, around 15 percent of Tier-3 graduates reported a significant career benefit from their education.
Contrary to this, a massive 74 percent of all respondents said their college name only mattered early on, or not at all.
In the meantime, AI is rewriting the global job rulebook as the tech industry is in flux, with companies laying off workers even as they chase new AI-driven opportunities.
