Dream Companies for the Class of 2012: Everybody Wants To Work at Google

This month when an estimated 1.7 million kids graduate from college, job boards, human resource offices and company career sites are going to be hit – hard – as the post collegiate realization of having to earn a paycheck dawns across the country. But according to new research by employer branding firm Universum, the company who’ll be receiving the most resumes this spring will be Google.

This year Universum surveyed nearly 60,000 undergraduate students and asked them to name their “ideal” employers upon graduation. The resulting rankings reveal the companies new graduates consider to be the most attractive prospective employers on the market. For business majors and IT students, Google reigns supreme. 49% of students with majors in information technology named the Mountain View company their number one pick. (For a point of comparison, NASA, which was the top employer for engineering students, was only called out by 17%).

Google has such appeal among undergrads that it quite literally reached the top by popular demand. Just six years ago it wasn’t among the companies that students were queried about, but after so many undergrads wrote it in as a favorite it went straight to the top. Since then, it’s held either the number one or two spot each year for multiple majors.

Also interesting? Kids are still lining up for jobs with J.P. Morgan and Goldman Sachs. Despite the troubled banking system in recent years, business students are no less enthused by joining financial institutions than they were pre-crash. According to Camille Kelly, VP of branding for Universom, banking continues to hold its appeal with millennials, and she thinks she knows why: they think they can make a difference. “This is a generation that generally goes into any job opportunity thinking they’re going to be the one to change the system,” she says. “Maybe they’re still interested in because they really want to make a difference.”

Without further ado, the top 10 employers by major are:

Business Majors

No. 1 Google

No. 2 Apple

No. 3 Walt Disney Company

No. 4 Ernst & Young

No. 5 Deloitte

No. 6 J.P. Morgan

No. 7 Nike

No. 8 PriceWaterHouseCoopers

No. 9 Goldman Sachs

No. 10 KPMG LLP

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