Highlights from "The World's Most Attractive Employers 2010": Swedish branding firm Universum's yearly employer attractiveness ranking, based on 130,000 career seekers, with a business or engineering background.

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• Google attacked by auditing firms: Swedish study - full lists

1. American multinationals increase their lead over the rest of the world.
Already in 2009 the american companies was the largest single group in the top 50 companies (20 among business students and 17 among engineering students – even not counting Big 4 and large management consulting firms as U.s. organisations). This year the number is 24 for both lists.

2. Employer Brands decoupled more and more from corporate Brands.
Comparing the list of the most attractive employers with the list of most admired companies (by Fortune) or most valuable brands (by Interbrand), it is clear that extremely attractive employers do not depend as much on their consumer or corporate brands.
The overlap between the rankings above and Universum’s global index is only half.

3. Companies that help talent develop the “me brand” are more attractive.
The world’s global talent are concerned about their own development and outside image. For that reason, they tend to choose companies that provide professional training and development, a good reference to a future career and organisations that have leaders who’ll support their development. the big 4 auditing firms just happen to be perceived by the talent group as fulfilling these important selection criteria.

4. Perception of industry and brand are interdependent.
Due to the banking and investment sector being perceived as responsible for one of the world’s largest economic meltdowns in history, employers in the industry have lost their appeal as a great place to kick-start one’s career. Management consulting companies have also dropped in the rankings, often linked to the banking and investment sector, and may have been perceived as part of the problem for past financial mismanagement. Due to public consciousness of environment issues companies in the Oil & Gas industry also face challenges to attract top talent and have also experienced a drop in the rankings this year.

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