A recent survey of working professionals by employer branding firm Universum found that different generations have different career goals. The survey reveals that young professionals strive for work-life balance, while job stability is on top of senior professionals’ wish lists. This is a prime example that we are living in a world that consists of a multi-generational workforce and we need to listen to each generation’s needs.

Most companies are faced with managing a multi-generational workforce, and different generations come with a gap in career goals. For young professionals, defined by those under 40 with a college degree and fewer than eight years of professional experience, work-life balance is the number one goal. This can be said for all young professionals, as the data, no matter how look at it, shows that the top two career goals stay the same:  “Work/Life Balance” and “To be secure or stable in my job.”

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A recent survey* of young professionals by employer branding firm Universum found that job satisfaction among young professionals in the United States dropped precipitously in comparison to other countries. In 2010, the satisfaction among young professionals in the United States led all countries for which comparable data is available. In 2011, the United States slipped to third behind Norway and Sweden.

Participants were asked to rate their satisfaction with their current employer on a scale of 1-10. This year, the average in the United States was a 6.9, dropping from a 7.2 in 2010. China, a 6.3 in 2010, rose to a 6.5 in 2011 along with Sweden (7.0 to 7.1) and Norway (7.1 to 7.2). The only other country to drop was Poland, falling from a 6.3 in 2010 all the way down to a 5.8 in 2011.

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A recent survey* conducted by employer branding firm, Universum, found that 71 percent of young professionals are interested in changing employers — 72 percent having applied for a job in the last 12 months.  Moreover, 26 percent are interested in changing employers within the next six months.

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Universum is pleased to announce the acquisition of Campus Strategic Partners LLC and the additions of John Flato and Vicki Lynn to the Universum family. Lynn and Flato bring a combined 40 plus years of industry experience to the company, and will be integral in Universum’s strategic growth in 2012.

John and Vicki have led large scale campus recruiting programs as well as serving as career services directors at prestigious universities, and leverage these unique talents and industry best practices with their clients.

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New York, October 18^th 2011 — Through a strategic personnel addition coupled with the opening of a new office in New York City, Universum has begun to expand its operations in North America. For Universum, this is the first step in its strategic vision for the Americas region in 2012.

Universum, headquartered in Stockholm, will continue to maintain an office in Philadelphia, but will move some of its new and current staff to New York City. The expansion into New York will bring Universum’s total offices globally to twelve.

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One of the re-occurring themes I come across in my experiences with employer branding and recruiting is the seeming competitiveness for IT talent out of college and shortage there of.

Employers looking for the top IT talent often times find themselves competing for a small pool of qualified applicants. If there’s been one consistent trend in Universum’s resarch, it’s that Google is winning this battle. But it may not be that easy.

I recently came across a very telling graphic from the folks at Top Prospect Blog (blog.topprospect.com). The bloggers over at Top Prospect took on the task of visually illustrating the internal recruitment battle that goes on between some of the top employers for IT Talent.

In reviewing this graph you’ll notice that each arrow represents the ratio of employees leaving one company for another. Therefore, you’ll be able to see, which IT employers are winning the head to head.

Pretty cool, huh? It looks like for all the talent Google attracts out of college, they are still losing out to Facebook and LinkedIn. It also confirms what a lot of us have known for awhile – Yahoo! is in trouble.

I really would have liked to see this graph include some newcomers like Zynga or SalesForce, to see how they measure up against these tech giants.

Anyway, as you can plainly see the battle for tech talent is fierce between these tech giants and although Google may be winning the battle of attractiveness for those coming directly out of college, they aren’t always able to hold onto them.

To check out the article from Top Prospect and get a closer look at the graph go here:

http://blog.topprospect.com/2011/06/the-biggest-talent-losers-and-winners/

I recently came across a really interesting article on Recruiting Trends about Google’s social media effect on recruiting. The article discusses Google’s failed social media attempts before and discusses what is different in their strategy this time.

Google has an ambitious plan to extend social media across the entire Internet experience. You may have noticed the +1 sign that now accompanies a number of your favorite web pages, which is used to aid in future searches and the web experience as a whole.

This would be an incredibly ostentatious plan for anyone not named Google. It was only a matter of time before the most powerful brand on the Internet would break into the social media market. But what does this mean for recruiting? How could this affect companies like Linkedin?

In the article from Recruiting Trends, Vitaly Latush says, “If Google’s social overlay covers the entire Internet people may start choosing professional branding tools that better suit their professional/knowledge profile rather than accepting the one-size-fits-all options. ”

Google’s reach extends to nearly every corner of the Internet. Thus, building your recruiting brand through Google would be the most logical move should they develop the medium to deliver it. With Google+ they may have done just that. But only time will tell if Google+ can challenge and overtake Facebook and LinkedIn, or if it’ll wind up an afterthought like Google’s previous failed attempts.

Google Buzz anyone?

You can check out Latush’s article in its entirety by going here:

http://www.recruitingtrends.com/google-social-what-does-it-mean-for-recruiting

It’s been a busy time here at Universum and I apologize sincerely for the lack of updates. The Universum Rankings have taken the world by storm.

It all started in May, when Businessweek published the 2011 Universum Ideal Employer Rankings. These rankings were the result of surveying over 60,000 undergraduate students.

http://www.businessweek.com/bschools/content/may2011/bs20110511_024823.htm

Then, in July, Fortune/CNN Money picked up on Universum’s MBA Rankings. These rankings were the result of surveying over 6,000 MBA students.

http://money.cnn.com/2011/07/18/news/companies/top_MBA_employers/index.htm

All this coverage prompted Joyce Lain Kennedy of the Chicago Tribune to point a reader to the Universum Ideal Employer Rankings because of its extensive amount of data.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/classified/jobs/chi-google-plus-job-search-kennedy-20110724,0,7736688.column

But the best is yet to come. On November 17th, The Universum Top 100 will be printed as a supplement in the New York Times. Over one million copies will be distributed to some of the best and brightest minds around.

With all that being said, be sure to check back often for updates on all of the exciting happenings in the world of Employer Branding.

Universum held the Fifth Annual Universum Awards in New York City last Wednesday. The event was hosted by the New York Times and featured a number of talented speakers and guests.

The featured speakers included Yolanda Mangolini, Global Director of Diversity Talent and Inclusion at Google, Paula Caligiuri, author, professor and frequent CNN analyst as well as New York Times Bestselling Author and Businessman Stedman Graham.

The night saw dozens of awards handed out to employers who were perceived to be the most attractive as voted on by over 65,000 undergraduate and MBA students in the United States.

To see a full list of the winners you can go to Businessweek:

http://www.businessweek.com/bschools/content/may2011/bs20110511_024823.htm

Last week I mentioned that Universum’s first annual employer rankings for young professionals was released. The rankings saw extensive coverage and really helped ignite the conversation on just what makes an employer seem like a good place to work?

While many were content with just listing the employers as ranked by the 10,000 plus professionals, some decided to delve in more deeply to uncover just what makes an employer seem attractive?

Laura Vanderkam from the CBS Interactive Business Network decided to look at the rankings more closely and question just why a company that very few people are qualified to work for consistently ranks high on desired employer lists.

Vanderkam writes:

“Google’s perks in particular are legendary (free lunches! ball pits!) and nearly 25% of young professionals said they wanted to work there.

“But if you think about it, this doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. Google’s a great place to work… if you’re a software engineer. If you’re a writer, chemical engineer, musician, botanist or any of a host of other specialties, the opportunities are a bit more limited.”

And she’s right, there are very few of us out there that would be qualified to write code, but essentially it all comes down to branding and positioning, two of Google’s strong points.

The Universum Survey is incredibly straightforward. Students and professionals alike are asked the simple question “Where would you consider working?”

The result represents the strength of employer brands regardless of industry or the individual’s qualifications. It’s not so much a job application as it is a wish list, and where employers rank on this list depends heavily on its use of employer branding and strategy.

You can read Laura Vanderkam’s article in its entirety here:

http://www.bnet.com/blog/time-management/what-makes-a-company-a-cool-place-to-work/373