You can’t fault popularity contests - they’re so democratic. But are they a useful way to help job seekers find a job?
Universum, a Swedish research firm, fields an annual study of MBA students on behalf of Fortune that ranks the 25 most popular potential employers. The MBA graduates who participated were asked to list their top five potential employers.
The exercise yielded no surprises: These are all blue chip companies known for high growth, excellent management and intellectual property. You can’t blame anyone for wanting to work at Google or GE or even No. 25, Coca-Cola. Of course, if you like large corporations, there are more than 1,700 billion dollar-size firms to choose from in the U.S. alone.
Unstated in the research is whether the MBA students plan to apply to these companies or to others as well. Landing a job with one of them will be a challenge. It’s no secret that these employers have their pick of graduates and, aptitude notwithstanding, many of them only recruit (or consider) applicants from blue-chip graduate schools.
Still, I am impressed by the percentage of MBAs interested in high-powered firms such as McKinsey, Bain, and Goldman Sachs. These aren’t wild-and-crazy startups - or even easy places to work - by any means. The thinking seems obvious: with any of these firms on your résumé you can write your own ticket elsewhere.
Here is Fortune’s Top 10 MBA Employers including links to each employer’s job board:
1. Google
2. McKinsey & Company
3. Goldman Sachs
4. Bain & Company
5. Boston Consulting Group
6. Apple
7. Microsoft
9. Nike
10. Bank of America
Let us know how it goes.
Biggest Employers
Branding You
Career Advice
Coaching
CV/Résumés
Education
Employment
Globalization
Hot Skills
Immigration
Job Boards
Job Testing
Mentors
MNC
Perfect Job
Recruiters
Relocations
Research
Salary
Social Media
Workplace
Rusty
Wonder why MBA’s wont rather start their own global startup give the low cost of capital and abundance of opportunity.
Sure you want to start your career at a McKinsey / Google, but why would they not rather take a risk and make it on their own.
Except for extremely wealthy MBA grads, most come out of college anxious for a nice paycheck and stability. I am impressed by the grads that reject high-powered corporate jobs for startups, but how many of them choose the right situation the first time around? If you choose the alternatives you should be prepared to try it a few times before getting lucky.
[…] Even people who work or have worked at one of these cyberspace giants speculate and debate about the merits of one versus the others. And there are media mavens, including yours truly, who keep tabs not only of which company’s search engine is first tier, but also of which company is the hottest place to work. […]
I’ve worked for two of the 25 and I have to say once you’ve been in the belly of the beast(s) they start to look a lot alike. Much of the kewlness factor has to do with hype and/or stock options :-)