Archive for the 'Research' Category

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What do you look for in a good corporate careers site? Good jobs, certainly. A design that’s easy to navigate? Information about what it’s like to work at the company?

Most companies forget that last point or possibly they don’t know where to start.

Deutsche Bank delivered on all of the above when it created several Web-based videos of employees talking about why they work there.

And having checked it out, I can see why Deutsche Bank was proclaimed the best corporate careers site by a group of students, recent graduates and Swedish researchers.  

Archives for Research

International human resource managers have long struggled to articulate the return on investment for expatriate costs.

Smart HR managers will be sure to highlight the findings of a recent study by Dr. Michael Dickmann in their next presentation on expat ROI. (Companies spend an average of $311,000 a year on each expatriate.)

An academic authority on expatriate management, Dickmann runs the Centre for Research into the Management of Expatriation (CReME) at the Cranfield School of Business in England.

His study, conducted in conjunction with PricewaterhouseCoopers, found that productivity jumps while the employee is on assignment, stabilizes when he or she returns and then increases again.

Archives for Research

Fortune’s annual 100 Best Companies to Work For list is out and the top 10 contain a few surprises, some might even say head scratchers. But then again what a boring list it would be if you could guess all of them without looking.  

This year about 400 companies competed to make the list. What’s particularly useful about it are the different ways to sort through the data on the CNNMoney.com website, including by location, pay, job growth and benefits, to name a few.

Although one might argue that 400 companies really only scratches the surface of corporate America, one of the things that substantiates this list are employee interviews. Fortune’s research partner, San Francisco-based Great Place to Work Institute, compiled 100,000 employee interviews among these entries.

I’ll bet you can’t guess the highest paying employer on Fortune’s list - or possibly any of the top 10 aside from Goldman Sachs. But it’s interesting to note that the average annual pay of employees at Bingham McCutchen an elite Boston law firm is $211,017. Pity the associates who start out at a paltry $160,000 a year.

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Here are three telling data points which, when properly assembled, paint an unflattering picture about working in America today:

• The wealthiest 1 percent sees their income dramatically outpace others;
• Men in their 30s today earn less than their fathers did in the 1970s;
• A parents’ economic success is one of the biggest pointers to their children’s future economic success.

Those are key findings of a new study that evaluates economic mobility, or the ability of a person to move up or down the economic ladder within a lifetime or from one generation to the next.

Archives for Research

Firstborns feel family pressure to excel and science backs it up: birth order is an important driver of career choices. What is less well understood is the role of birth order and intelligence - at least in my family.

Birth order might sound a bit farfetched for a science or careers topic, like astrology, biorhythms or a fad pizza diet, but it’s not. A Norwegian Armed Forces Medical Services study published in this month’s Science shows that firstborns of either sex are, on average, 2.3 IQ points smarter than their younger sibs.

Those several IQ points make an enormous difference when it comes to getting into college and ultimately advancing in life, contends Dr. Frank Sulloway, author of Born to Rebel: Birth Order, Family Dynamics and Creative Lives. Sulloway, who commented on the study in the New York Times and in this month’s Science (fees, registration required), says, “There’s some evidence to suggest that first and later-borns go into different kinds of careers and have associated different motivations.”

Archives for Research

In 2017, we may look back and laugh at the primitive nature of today’s work. Women will shatter the glass ceiling. Racial and ethnic minorities will get further ahead and working conditions will improve for the ‘average’ person. These are among the key findings from a BusinessWeek “Future of Work” survey of 2,000 optimistic managers.

Meanwhile, technology will bring profound changes, pledges BusinessWeek. The Apple iPhone we lust after today will shrink “down to the size of a credit card,” says one writer. Offices will be healthier, greener and safer.

And in the coming decade American workers will become more global savvy. One proxy for this knowledge suggests BusinessWeek is first-name knowledge of foreign workers. Are American managers on a first name basis with someone who works in India? According to BusinessWeek’s survey, eight percent said yes, they are; in a decade expectations rise to 30 percent.

No one speculated on how these American managers would start relationships with Indians, or why, but I take it as a positive sign that so many people view it as inevitable.

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Meet the latest crop of college graduates - demographics, economics and productivity are on their side. They have reason to be a bit cocky: With record numbers of Boomers edging toward retirement, corporations are realizing that it’s time to staff up amid looming talent shortages.

Employers plan to hire nearly 20 percent more new college graduates in 2006-07 than they did in 2005-06 according to a new study by the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE). Overall, nearly 60 percent of responding employers said they plan to hire more new college graduates in 2006-07 than they did in 2005-06.

Other key findings of NACE’s research:

• Marketing graduates are seeing the biggest rise in entry level pay this year, up 10.3 percent to $41,285
• The average offer to economics grads is $53,449, while the average for finance graduates is $47,877
• After seeing a decrease in 2005-2006, the 2006-2007 computer science grads are seeing a 2.5 percent uptick in their average offer to $52,177
• Social media is part of the DNA - 77 percent of students have a profile page on site such as MySpace or Facebook.

Ironically, the study found that the most effective job prospecting methods weren’t the most popular among students. Nearly 71 percent of the 12,000+ students responding to NACE’s study indicated that they had applied for a job by sending their resumes directly to an employer’s web site. The next most popular method, reported by 47 percent of students, was to mail a resume directly to the employer. Applying at a career center-sponsored job fair (44 percent) and posting a resume through the career center web site (34 percent) trailed in popularity.