Metro campuses are contested by every large employer in the country. Tier-2 and tier-3 institutions are contested by almost none of them.
That asymmetry is the largest sourcing arbitrage available in Indian early-career hiring.
Live from our candidate database
Counted at render time and refreshed every six hours. This is a supply-side view of one platform, not a national labour-market statistic.
Why the gap persists
Campus calendars are expensive to change and are usually inherited. Adding an unfamiliar institution requires a relationship, a travel budget and someone willing to defend the decision if it does not work — so most teams simply do not.
Sourcing against a candidate pool sidesteps all three constraints, which is why the arbitrage has not closed.
Acceptance rates run higher
Candidates from less-contested institutions typically hold fewer competing offers, which shows up directly in offer acceptance. The same offer converts at a different rate depending on where it lands.
What actually needs solving
Two things: relocation logistics and interviewer bias. The first is administrative. The second is not — CVs from unfamiliar institutions are systematically down-rated by interviewers who have no reference point for them.
A structured screen with the institution name removed is the simplest fix, and it produces immediately visible changes in shortlist composition.
Start with adjacency
The easiest first step is not the furthest one. Sourcing from tier-2 cities within a few hours of an existing office solves the relocation question and gives you a controlled test of whether the quality assumption holds.
Key takeaways
- Tier-2 reach is under-exploited because campus calendars are expensive to change, not because the talent is weaker.
- Fewer competing offers means the same offer converts at a higher rate.
- Interviewer bias against unfamiliar institutions is the real obstacle; blind screens fix it.
- Start with tier-2 cities near an existing office to control for relocation.
Questions
Is quality genuinely comparable?+
Within any institution the distribution is wide, and the top of a tier-2 institution routinely outperforms the middle of a tier-1 one. Screening on capability rather than on institution is what captures that.
How do we handle relocation for interns?+
A modest relocation allowance and help finding accommodation removes most of the friction. It is a small cost against the acceptance-rate difference.