Each year, the university conducts a Graduate Employment Survey (GES) to learn how its graduates are faring in the job market and to find out the latest requirements of employers. A survey of the Class of 2007 (with 4,847 graduates, NTU's largest cohort to date) found that close to 100% of them had landed a job within a month of graduation.

Graduates in demand
For the Nanyang Business School (NBS), the GES findings were especially impressive. Nine out of 10 NBS graduates found jobs even before graduation, while 95% of NBS graduates had secured jobs within a month of graduation. These figures underscore the school's recent successes on the global stage, with the premier Nanyang MBA having made it into the top 50 on The Financial Times' list of the world's top 100 MBAs. In 2007, the Economist Intelligence Unit also rated the Nanyang MBA as the best in Singapore and among the top three in Asia.

Malcolm Wong, who is starting his third and final year in the Bachelor of Accountancy programme at NBS this August, is a prime example of how fast NTU students are being snapped up by the workforce. He was offered a job by the Boston Consulting Group in Latin America when he was only in his second year. "I was thrilled when Boston Consulting Group made me a job offer even before I entered my final year," Malcolm recalls.

Graduates from the other schools also had much to celebrate. The GES found that 99% of Civil Engineering graduates and a full 100% of Bioengineering graduates had snared jobs before or within four months of graduation.

Better offers and starting salaries
Another key finding of the GES was that many NTU graduates had received not only one job offer upon application, but multiple ones. In fact, about two-thirds of the Class of 2007 received multiple job offers. And not only are these graduates in demand, they are commanding higher starting salaries (with a mean gross monthly salary of $2,900, which represents a 7.8% increase from the previous year).

Among the top 20% of NTU graduates, starting salaries are even higher, averaging $3,802 a month, with salaries of top earners as high as $15,000 a month.

These figures underscore the importance of specific skill-sets to employers, as well as the need for tertiary institutions to make sure that their programmes keep pace with the requirements of the job market. NTU has been able to build on its strengths in engineering, science, business, humanities and the arts, producing graduates with the right balance of knowledge, experience and drive.

Mr Alvin Bui, a recent NTU graduate who is now a project engineer, received more than 10 job offers while he was still studying at NTU. Says Mr Bui: "I was first offered a job when I was only still an NTU undergraduate in 2006. By the time I graduated from NTU, I was delighted to have received more than 10 job offers from various companies. The sign of recognition and confidence organisations have in NTU graduates is something that I am extremely proud of."

Innovating for the future
The results of the GES were especially gratifying to NTU President Dr Su Guaning. "We feel proud that our graduates have continued to score well with employers," he says. "Students from NTU have excelled because of a broad-based education that exposes them to research and global immersion opportunities, and which encourages their leadership abilities. This produces winning attributes that discerning employers look out for in the modern job market."

Innovation is the watchword. In February 2008, NTU unveiled five new degree programmes that reflect the university's unique cross-disciplinary approach to delivering the winning edge. For future graduates of NTU, opening the door to a career promises to be much more exciting.

Class of 2007 hired faster, paid better