“IDEAL” Australian employers revealed!

The first Australian My Future Career survey from Universum has been released, revealing the employers Australian university students are most interested in working for.

As has been the trend globally, Google ranked the number one employer by management/commerce students. In regards to engineering/natural sciences, BHP Billiton took out the top spot.

Jo McConnell, HR vice president at BHP Billiton, feels her organisation’s emphasis on the individual is a hallmark of its HR strategy.

“We encourage them to think about how they are going about their work and how this will enable them to contribute directly. If you look at it from a racing perspective, we want to see people shaving off seconds from what they do. Once you see that across an entire organisation, it really makes a difference,” she said.

The study found that work/life balance, as well as job security and stability, were the most important attributes to current university students, and what they were looking for out of their future employers.

“When we look into the results of our survey conducted in the Asia Pacific region, there are clear similarities between the career goals of Australian students and their overseas peers,” Rachele Focardi, senior vice president of employer branding and talent strategy, APAC at Universum, said.

“Despite the many cultural and economic differences between the countries surveyed, ‘work/life balance’ is consistently the number one career goal of Millennial talent and ‘to be secure or stable in my job’ is increasingly more crucial, indicating concern with the ongoing economic uncertainty,” she added.

Other insights garnered from the study demonstrate that engineering and natural sciences students favour resources companies. This is perhaps due more to brand recognition than anything, as these organisations in the top 10 happen to be in line with the largest of Australian industries. This is supported by Google’s domination of business/management talent globally.

Additionally, the job stability found in auditing and accounting is causing an increase in management/commerce students gravitating towards banks and financial services. “On top of that, the Big Four professional services firms are known to provide good training and development along with clear career progression, which are also important to fresh talent,” Focardi said.

The Top 10 Australian employers for students are:

Management/Commerce

1. Google
2. Ernst & Young
3. Deloitte
4. PwC
5. KPMG
6. Apple
7. Commonwealth Bank
8. Coca-Cola Amatil
9. ANZ
10. Government – Federal/Commonwealth

Engineering/Natural Sciences

1. BHP Billiton
2. Riot Tinto
3. CSIRO
4. Shell
5. Government – State
6. Government – Federal/Commonwealth
7. Google
8. WorleyParsons Limited
9. GHD
10. BP

Click here for the full list.