Report: Google Remains ‘Most Attractive Employer’ Among Business, Engineering Students

Universum, a company that specializes in employer branding, has published some findings based on the preferences of over 160,000 career seekers with a business or engineering background from the world´s 12 largest economies (based on nominal GDP).

The goal: to find out which company is most attractive an employer according to business and engineering students.

Well, there’s no way around it: Google is solidly numero uno in both categories – just like last year and the year before that (see PDF).

Microsoft isn’t doing too bad either, while Apple is climbing up the charts fast. And Facebook is nowhere to be seen in the rankings (okay, neither are Twitter, Yahoo and – shocker – AOL).

On the Business index, KPMG keeps its second place, with PwC overtaking Ernst & Young to end up in the top 3. Clearly, professional services firms still outrank major technology and FCMG companies (excluding Google, to be perfectly clear).

Apple went from #18 to #9 in the Business index compared to last year, which is still remarkably low considering Apple is currently the most valuable company in the world. Microsoft, meanwhile, moved from #7 to #6 in the ranking.

As for the Engineering index, which is also led by Google: IBM now finds itself in the second position, bumping Microsoft to the third spot. Both Intel and Apple rose up the charts (from #6 to #5 and #10 to #è, respectively, with Sony dropping from #6 to #4 in perceived employer attractiveness.

(Image courtesy of Flickr user brionv)