Who are 2017's most attractive employers for students?

Bellwether technology companies and accounting firms seem to be the most desirable employers for Millennials, with Google and Apple ranked as the best places to work, according to the “World’s Most Attractive Employers Survey 2017”, conducted by branding agency Universum.

Universum surveyed nearly 300,000 business and engineering–IT students in the world’s largest economies: Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Russia, South Korea, the United Kingdom and the United States.

Here are some of the other major findings of the survey:

1. Social media continues to be the place most students turn to when they want to communicate with and understand potential employers.

2. Globally, there’s significant interest in work–life balance.

3. The students’ pursuit of career goals like work–life balance, job security and company stability leads to higher gender diversity within organizations.

4. Business and engineering/IT students are leaning away from macro-employers (those that have more than 1000 employees).

For both industries, nearly three-quarters of the students surveyed stated that they would prefer to work within a smaller organization rather than a large company.

“Sometimes called Generation Impact, today’s students want to make a difference and might perceive they cannot make as much of an impact in larger organizations like the Fortune 500s,” said Claudia Tattanelli, Global Director at Universum Global.

The qualities of the ideal employer that students seek are fairly similar, regardless of their location. Nonetheless, there are enough deviations to call for localization, and companies who localize their message create the employer brand stories that resonate best with students.

Another important finding of the survey is that students want a career that allows for personal successes without the fear of job loss.

Students from this generation are far more capable and interested in sharing the responsibilities of income and household prosperity, no matter their gender. This new outlook requires balance between work and home life from all employees.