The UNIVERSUM awards are approaching! Every year we award the ideal employers of 2011’s career-seekers and hold seminars to discuss the latest trends in talent attraction.  Below are the dates of our various events. Secure your place right away and email us today – seats are limited!

Click here to see our event calendar and pre-register

On the 25th of October 2010 we started the new Universum Student Survey 2011 (My Future Career), our annual online career study that helps your students think proactively about their own future working life and identify their career preferences. Since October over 115.000 respondents from over 30 countries have already participated! Thank you very much supporting our research! Your university specific reports will be delivered in the Spring/Summer of 2011. For the official delivery date of your University report or other questions about the survey, please send an email to michiel.pool@universum.se.

For the first time ever in the Universum Student Survey history we offer participants the opportunity to receive direct feedback on their own answers through our new career application called Springboardr. We launched Springboardr.com in August 2010 as an online tool to help students discover, follow and connect with their ideal employers. Springboardr matches students with employers based on their profile and career ambitions.

Please take a look at www.springboardr.com and check out our new tool. To stay updated on all the new developments and features on Springboardr.com please follow on us on Twitter or find us on Facebook.

Coming out of the economic recession is making us rethink the way we work. What’s true now is that we have seen a “more flexible, more freelance, more collaborative and far less secure work world”. What’s true is that a new workforce is arriving; one that is run by a generation with new values — and women will increasingly take command. For example, it’s estimated that women now account for more than 50% of the American workforce and that there are a majority of females graduates in OECD countries.

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By Valerie Clarberg 

Our research shows students consider career fairs to be amongst the three most useful communication channels when wanting to know more about an employer (click on thumbnails below to see graphs). 

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If you are a career advisor for students, we would appreciate your feedback on the following questions:

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Baby boomers can’t quit just yet. Many of them saw their investments and retirement plans collapse during the recession. Also, the ageing population is forcing governments to increase the retirement age to help support the pension systems. In spite of these initiatives, baby boomers will still retire, meaning that Gen X will have more space to manoeuvre, if not already, and will be running the show. Read the rest of this entry »

4,878 professionals choose their ideal employers
Professionals in Denmark have nominated Novo Nordisk as their ideal employer. For business professionals, the companies that received the most votes were: 1) Novo Nordisk, 2) Lego, 3) Vestas, 4) Carlsberg and 5) Novozymes. For professionals in engineering or natural sciences, the companies in the top five were: 1) Novo Nordisk, 2) Cowi, 3) Rambøll 4) Novozymes and 5) Vestas. To see full rankings, click here.

Due to a critical shortage of experienced staff, attrition is an “every-day hazard for companies operating in East Asia”, reports the FT.

In her article, “Aggressive hiring keeps the talent moving”, Elaine Moore, gives the example of RBS Coutts, which lost one third of its staff to its rival BSI. 

According to her, the war for talent is not only affecting private banking and big corporations, but also small businesses where employees are known to switch jobs for minimal salary increases.

Michal Kalinowski, UNIVERSUM’s CEO, was quoted saying “In 2010, the first Chinese company entered UNIVERSUM’s World’s Most Attractive Employers list (a global index of Employer attractiveness). An interesting sign of things to come is that for the first time ever there is a Chinese company in the top 50 – Lenovo at 44 among engineers”.

The report featured UNIVERSUM’s data on East Asian Students’ Career expectations and the ideal employers in Hong Kong, Singapore, China and Japan.

Quoting various experts in the field, however, the article’s main arguments were: 1) salary increases do not guarantee retention and 2) employers should assess cultural & motivational fit between candidate and the organisation prior to employment.

UNIVERSUM Germany released the Ideal Employers of Professionals, also dubbed the UNIVERSUM TOP 100. The car manufactures BMW & Audi compete for the number one title as Germany’s Ideal Employer.

BMW is known for its performance and luxury vehicles, and is in fact the global leader in premium car sales. The company employs over 96,000 people. In the recruitment market, the prestigious brand appeals most to business professionals, taking the first place away from Audi, but received fewer votes from Germany’s engineers.

A subsidiary of Volkswagen, AUDI manufactures premium automobiles too and employers over 57,000 employees. Germany’s engineers, by majority, nominate Audi as their ideal employer, thus eclipsing BMW from site. 

 Both companies have incredibly strong employer brands and have unquestionable status in the talent attraction arena – congrats to them!

View the ideal employers of Germany’s professionals by clicking here

This year, the conversation in media and academic circles has been about how to rethink the balance between doing well and doing good, from switching focus on how to increase the bottom line to implementing sustainable business practices. Read the rest of this entry »