The top companies that first-time job seekers want to work at right now

Major tech companies – Apple, Google, and Microsoft – are the most attractive employers to international students.

This is according to a survey by Universum, which analyzed the World’s Most Attractive Employers (WMAE). The survey was completed by 185,067 business, engineering, and IT students across nine of the world’s biggest economies.

The survey noted that young people have a growing desire for a competitive salary paired with a greater work-life balance compared to 2021.

However, Universum believes that the demands of students may be unreachable for employers as the world is expected to go into a global recession in 2023.

Universum CEO Mats Röjdmark also noted that 2023 would likely see the end of employers inflating their promises to new hires, which was the case in 2022 as talent demand exceeded supply.

He stated that a balanced approach of ‘you get what you give’ will likely return, as a hiring decline and further pressure on resources is expected next year.

Despite this, numerous major tech companies have announced their support of flexible working, which has seen substantial growth in importance to young people, according to the survey.

Google and Microsoft in particular, have supported flexible working as they believe they will get the most out of employees if they can work in the environment they feel most productive in.

Another thing that the survey noted was that most surveyees were at opposing extremes of the WMAE’s career type scale.

One extreme was made up of go-getters – people who are performance orientated and want to ascend the ranks of successful companies – while the other was made of balance seekers – people who desire a work-life balance and want to work in established small- to medium-sized organisations that provide flexibility.

Although many people in the survey were go-getters who wanted a challenge, the greater work-life balance desire among surveyors meant that young people were less likely to say that they wanted to work in a challenging environment compared to 2021.

Universum noted that the lower emphasis on the challenge was likely an extension of “quiet quitting” – a trend where employees do the bare minimum expected of them in protest of unreasonable employer demands.

Major tech companies, including Meta and Google, have jumped on this and have warned employees that they can expect to work harder.

And although the desire to have a better work-life balance has grown among surveyees, the companies that improved the most in the WMAE rankings offered challenging work.

The surveyed students seemed to have opposing views of what they wanted. Still, considering the economic outlook for 2023, new employees will likely not be in a position to demand too much from their employers.

The top 10 most desired employers for students in the necessary fields:

Business Student Rankings 2022

Engineering  Student Rankings 2022

It Student Rankings 2022

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