Employer Reputation (Indicator)

Employer Reputation is an indicator used in the following rankings:

• QS World University Rankings
• QS Subject Rankings
• QS Sustainability Rankings
• QS Arab Region Rankings
• QS Asia Region Rankings
• QS Europe Region Rankings
• QS Latin America and Caribbean Region Rankings
• QS International Trade Ranking
• QS Global MBA Rankings
• QS Business Masters Rankings
• QS Online MBA Rankings
• QS Executive MBA Rankings

It forms part of the Employability lens.

Below you can find the weighting(s) for the indicator. Weightings are reviewed on an annual basis. 

QS Subject Rankings

In our Subject Rankings, to stop institutions with a strong overall reputation getting an unfair advantage and to highlight specialist institutions, the following rules are applied:

• Employer reputation in the specific subject or faculty is compared to overall employer reputation.
• An extra boost may be applied to institutions identified as Specialists if they offer academic programs in the relevant subject or faculty area.
• Responses from employers expressing knowledge in less disciplines are weighted higher.

QS Business School Rankings

In the Employer Survey there is a separate section for respondents who selects 'Business Masters' as an option for the question on hiring decisions.

Employers are asked to select from an autocomplete list up to 10 business schools (either domestic or international) from which their company prefers to recruit international MBAs. 

We also ask respondents to select from a predefined list up to 3 business schools that they believe create the most value for businesses and society.

In Business School Rankings, the following rules are applied:

• Regional weighting is not applied.
• Nominations originated from the autocomplete selection (see above) are weighted higher than from the predefined list.
• Extra points are awarded if the nominator is from an industry that matches the ranking.
• Extra points are awarded if the nominator highlights that they would recruit from a programme that matches the ranking.
• Standalone business schools that receive nominations are boosted to combat the advantage that affiliate/child schools have due to the halo effect that may exist from the parent institution.
• If a business school or its parent institution is nominated in the main section of the survey in one of the below business-related subject areas, it receives a boost to reflect its broader brand awareness.
  • Global MBA Rankings - Accounting and Finance, Business and Management Studies
  • Master's in Management - Accounting and Finance, Business and Management Studies, Economics and Econometrics
  • Master's in Finance - Accounting and Finance, Business and Management Studies, Economics and Econometrics
  • Master's in Business Analytics - Business and Management Studies, Computer Science, Economics and Econometrics, Mathematics, Statistics and Operational Research
  • Master's in Marketing - Business and Management Studies, Communication, Cultural and Media Studies
  • Master's in Supply Chain Management - Accounting and Finance, Business and Management Studies, Economics and Econometrics
  • Online MBA Rankings (OMBA) - Business and Management Studies
  • Executive MBA Rankings (EMBA) - Accounting and Finance, Business and Management Studies

QS International Trade Ranking

In our International Trade Rankings we use nominations for the following subject areas:

• Business and Management
• Business and Management
• Economics

This indicator is based on the responses to the Employer Survey, which is distributed worldwide to employers from a number of different sources, including:

• Previous Respondents
• Submitted contact lists from institutions
• Sign-ups on our sign-up facility
• Survey Partners

Once the responses to the Employer Survey have been processed, we apply the following for all of the nominations.

International Weighted Count

• A weighted count of international nominations for each institution based on regional and country-level knowledge of a respondent, as well as a year of response.

Regional Familiarity Weights

• Weightings are applied based on the regional familiarity of respondents. Respondents are able to relate to more than one region. 
• If a respondent recommends an institution out of their regional or faculty familiarity the nomination has a lower weighting. 
• The aim is to ensure that over-represented areas are not obscuring nominations from less represented areas.

Country Weights

• Weightings are applied based on the location with which respondents consider themselves familiar. 
• The number of institutions in a country with international nominations is compared to the number of nominators from that country. Locations with a low participation rate are exempted from this to avoid small number effects.

Year Weights

• We use a combined total of the last FIVE years of survey nominations.
• The oldest nominations (5th year) are weighted at 25%, the 4th year is weighted at 50% and the most recent three years at full 100% weights.

Domestic Weighted Count

• Derive a weighted count of domestic nominations for each institution (excluding self-nominations). 
• This is adjusted against the number of institutions from that country with a certain level of international nominations and the total volume of responses from that country. 
• This is to reflect the fact that institutions in larger countries with more recognized institutions face more competition for nominations.

Normalizing and Transformation

• We normalize both domestic and international count to achieve a score out of 100.
• The two scores are combined with the relevant weights (see Methodology)
• Transformation techniques are applied to minimize the impact of outliers and scale the numbers to present a score out of 100 for the given faculty area.