Aligning HR Innovation with Industry Strategies: Enhancing Technical Graduate Employability through Industry-Institute Engagement Practices

This study aims to investigate the strategic approaches utilized by industries to enhance the employability of graduates through industry-institute engagement practices, seeking to understand the effectivenessof these strategies in addressing the increasing demand for skilled technical graduates with high competitiveness and employability skills. Employing a cross-sectional research design, the study was conducted in the Peenya Industrial area from December 2022 to March 2023, focusing on its high concentration of engineering industries. A quantitative approach was used to survey 120 executives from Peenya involved in recruiting engineering graduates, utilizing a structured questionnaire to assess strategies like placement cell activities, social media use, and entrepreneurial training. Data analysis involved descriptivestatistics and ANOVA.Results indicates that placement cell activities are the most employed strategy (63.3%), followed by socialmedia (21.7%) and college databases (11.7%), with entrepreneurial training and Centers of Excellencebeing less utilized. While age did not significantly affect perceptions, firm size did, particularly regardingentrepreneurial training effectiveness. The study highlights the increasing demand for skilled technicalgraduates and the challenges in ensuring their readiness for employment, emphasizing the predominantuse of placement cell activities, social media, and college databases in recruiting engineering graduates.It underscores the need for aligning HR innovation with industry strategies and collaborative efforts toenhance technical graduate employability