IIT Guwahati, ranked 3rd on objective assessment is at 21st position on recruiters’ perception. "This new IIT is yet to establish its brand image among the recruiters, as compared to its elder brothers. However, they are doing a better job in putting their houses in order," IDC India Head (User and Communication Research) Parijat Chakraborty said.

"The top ranks are devoid of any major surprises with IIT Kanpur, IIT Bombay, IIT Madras and IIT Kharagpur getting the top four honours. But the rest in top ten do spring up a few surprises... with ‘perceived’ heavyweights like BITS Pilani and DCE getting knocked out of the top 10 list," said the study of 117 engineering colleges.

Others in the top 10 are — IT BHU Varanasi, IIT Guwahati, NIT Warangal, NIT Trichy, Thapar Institute of Engineering and Technology, Patiala and Netaji Subhas Institute of Technology, New Delhi, in that order. IIT Delhi is the only premier institute that is not covered in this exercise as it decided against participation due to some internal reasons.