Introduced in 2005, the Employer Review is key in evaluating institutions from the perspective of Graduate Employability, one of the originally intended four focuses, themes or pillars of the research. In domestic ranking projects around the world a variety of indicators have been used such as percentage of graduates employed or graduate salaries, but these are subject to significant local influence. At a trans-national level they can become more a measure of economic strength, cultural trends or political effectiveness.

The Employer Review operates in a very similar fashion to the Academic Peer Review in that it is based on a global online survey. Respondents are again sourced through three key channels.

QS's extensive corporate database 

The powerful network of partners with which QS cooperates on its events around the world 

Participating institutions who submit a list of professionals with whom they work
 

Most effectively this would be principally comprised of employers that are known to have received graduates from the given institution. Both domestic and international employers can be included, multiple contacts from the same organisation can be included, public and private sector employers can be included.

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Again, a regional weigthing is applied to ensure equal representation from our 3 "super regions" of Americas; Europe, Middle East & Africa and Asia Pacific.

In 2008 the questions respondents are asked regarding universities inside their own country and outside were separated. These are recombined after the responses are in using methods designed to reduce any response bias by country.

The response to the Employer Survey has been growing rapidly and in 2008 consists of over 2,000 respondents from employers worldwide and the results of the analysis upon it contributes 10% to the weighting of the overall ranking.