Given the choice, younger professionals are most interested in working at tech companies like Apple and government agencies like the State Department, but they are comparatively disinterested in working in the financial industry, according to a survey conducted by Universum, a research firm.
What attracts college graduates to big tech companies like Apple is mainly the cool factor surrounding these companies and their products, as the survey found young professionals were most influenced by the strength of the corporation’s brand when picking their most desired companies.
"Companies that have appealing consumer brands generally also succeed in being perceived as attractive employers. People nowadays love to work for companies that produce their favorite products and services," said Kortney Kutsop, employer branding specialist for Universum. "Also, market success is an important factor: The company needs to be generally seen as innovative and best-in-class in whatever they do—that’s the recipe for success."
By contrast, financial institutions like Citigroup, whose brands have been spoiled in recent years by the collapse of the financial industry, ranked in the lower half of the list of 99 companies desired by young professionals.
Beyond the power of a company’s brand, college graduates were also heavily influenced by the perceived financial stability of each company, which may explain why major corporations like Apple would rank at the top, since they are constantly expanding and hiring new employees. On the other hand, government agencies, which fared slightly worse than the tech companies, may have been hurt by perceived weaknesses in recent years, given that the public sector as a whole has been forced to freeze wages and lay off employees.
Universum, which surveyed more than 10,000 young professionals who graduated from college in the last eight years, also found that many of them are looking to switch jobs in the near future. In fact, half of those surveyed claimed to have applied to other jobs in the past year and a quarter plan to switch jobs within six months, suggesting that the organizations at the top of this list may be flooded with new applications in the coming months. In the survey, a majority of young professionals who graduated from college in the last eight years ______.