Something historic happened last month: Raj Rajaratnam, a US hedge fund manager of Srilankan origin, was convicted for fraud and conspiracy in the biggest insider trading trial on Wall Street. Rajaratnam’s network of high-level contacts at such big names as Goldman Sachs, McKinsey, and IBM took the assets of his hedge fund Galleon to $3.7 billion in a fashion not much unlike a Hollywood movie.

Scandals and stories like these can make you wonder: Have these financial crises (definitely a plural by now) impacted Wall Street’s ability to recruit the best talent?

Universum’s annual survey of American MBA students reveals some interesting facts that are relevant to this question:

• 42% perceive an employer’s “good reputation” to be the most attractive.
• Goldman Sachs was ranked the 4th Ideal Employer (compared to 3rd in 2010) and J. P. Morgan was ranked 9th (compared to 7th in 2010).
• No Wall Street firm in the Top 25 dropped by more than 2 positons.
• No Wall Street firm in the Top 25 climbed up the ranking from 2010.
• Work/life balance is no longer the #1 career goal (decreased in importance by 6%), replaced by competitive or intellectual challenge!

Does that mean that the students are slightly less interested in Wall Street but the impact is not significant? Is this more a correlation than causation?

For the first time ever, Universum presents the most attractive employers in the Nordic region. The rankings highlight the most powerful employer brands in Scandinavia, companies that excel in talent attraction and retention. The results are based on the Universum Student Survey 2011 in which over 34,000 students at top academic institutions in Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Finland chose their ideal employers.

Here are the top research highlights:

• After some tough years the banks and the management consulting industry are now increasing in popularity among business students.
• Management consulting is becoming more popular among engineering students too, as is the construction, software and computer services industries.
• In Norway and Denmark there is greater interest shown in the engineering consulting sector.
• Finally, employers that are perceived as supporting talent to develop their personal brand, i.e. the me-brand, are more attractive.

Curious about which are the most attractive employers? Click here to see the Nordic’s Ideal Employers 2011

Three questions to employers on their opinion of parental leave and working moms

1. Do you believe that working moms perform less than non-working moms?
2. Are you open to the idea of your employees taking leave and do you provide flexible working time to allow them to cope between the demands of the job and family?
3. Are you prepared for when your top performers take leave?

These are some of the questions that employers should ask regarding their approach to parental leave. This topic is a difficult one to approach as the policies differ between counties. There are pros and cons to having generous parental benefits, but whatever one’s opinion, we must certainly all agree that it’s a human right to have a family – one which employer, government and society should not hinder or forbid. Read the rest of this entry »

Career Goals Heat map

How important is to be competitively or intellectually challenged on the job? What do students say?

Take a look at the heat map to see how cultural and regional differences play a part in what new talent want.

Austria is the country where it is the most important for students to be competitively and intellectually challenged by their employer, followed by Switzerland and Spain.

Sports bring star power to engineering

By Catrine Johansson

The engineering consulting company ÅF used to be associated with typical engineering stereotypes: stiff, introverted and timid. Not so anymore. Today, ÅF oozes cool. The journey from geek to chic took eight years, and involved ignoring all conventions about how an engineering company should behave.

ÅF broke new ground by connecting its brand to major sports events such as the ÅF Golden League and the Olympic Games. Connecting an engineering brand to athletics was almost unheard of at the time. Some people outside the company scratched their heads as they predicted failure. If anyone is scratching their heads today, it’s because they wonder why they didn’t think of it first.

Read the rest of this entry »

By Fred Cohn

The nature of organisational leadership is evolving from a rigid hierarchical model to a more empathetic, people-oriented style. Forward-looking companies are instilling leadership practices that foster collaboration, aiming to give all employees a sense of personal involvement of the organisation’s operations. These new values are especially important to the newest generation of workers: Millennials don’t want to work within a dismissive, unfeeling corporate structure. Instead, they seek positions in companies whose leadership will inspire them and value their contributions. Read the rest of this entry »

What’s the number one thing you could do to change the world?

It’s amusing to see in Coca-Cola’s recent CSR campaign the #1thing how clueless, apathetic or powerless most people are.

If your number one thing is to giveaway ice cream or smile at people, I’m afraid you lack ambition. Or perhaps you feel powerless in the bigger picture.

Yes, there is no right answer to the question and every answer should be welcomed.

World peace and reduced global warming sounds better – although how can one regular person be able to do anything about that. Maybe giving a smile to someone is the easiest option.

Nevertheless, there is something extremely appealing about the video: it feels genuine and humble; regular people are captured; their thoughts come across unscripted; they even appear somewhat comical…one woman gets filmed in silence as she tries hard to come up with a good enough answer but fails. In short, there is a general feel good atmosphere to the movie as it comes across as unpretentious.

The video forms part of a much larger initiative LivePositivelyCollective.com. It’s a site which Coca-Cola launched in January, aiming to create public discussion, find ideas and solutions, and showcase what others are doing to make the world wonderful.

Regarding the campaign, FT journalist Clare Dowdy writes, “Beyond a warm, cosy feeling, it seems rather far-fetched to think any good could actually come about.”

Whatever the outcome, it’s surely creating some good attention. So far, it has received over 100,000 views for its video the #1thing and 268 likes on youtube. Also, as FT points out, it has received over 1000 tweets on the launch of the video based on tweetreach.  

Some of us might remain unsure about what Coca-Cola is doing to make the world a better place. Perhaps, it’s by giving us its number one soft drink and doing business sustainably. Or maybe it’s by creating a forum for a much bigger and more important discussion, one which we should all be preoccupied with.

I just came across Philip Delves review of “The Shift: The Future of Work is Already Here” by Lynda Gratton. It seems like an interesting view of current day working life and what is to come in the future.

Gratton presents 5 forces that will shape the future of work

1. Technology
2. Globalisation
3. Demography& longevity
4. Society
5. Energy resources

Read the rest of this entry »