Big Four Firms Have Top Spots as Desirable Employers

The Universum USA survey of most desirable employers from the perspective of over 40,000 US undergraduates conducted from December 2007-April 2008 puts the Big Four Accounting Firms within the top 20.

According to Businessweek.com, “Ernst & Young, which jumped from No. 12 to No. 4 on the list, was aided by its Internet efforts, says Universum USA CEO Claudia Tattanelli. (The firm launched the first company-sponsored group page on Facebook in 2006.) "They're branding themselves with social networking…trying to communicate to the new generation in a new way," says Tattanelli.”

Clearly, social networking initiatives for E&Y has yielded benefits.

Here are the ranks for all the featured firms:

• Ernst and Young moves up from 12 (in 2007) to 4 (in 2008)
• Deloitte moves up from 17 (in 2007) to 7 (in 2008)
• KPMG moves up from 27 (in 2007) to 16 (in 2008)
• PricewaterhouseCoopers drops from 7 (in 2007) to 10 (in 2008)
• Accenture drops from 60 (in 2007) to 71 (in 2008)
  

The details are at:

http://bwnt.businessweek.com/interactive_reports/idealemployers_2008/index.asp?sortCol=name&sortOrder=ASC&pageNum=1&resultNum=100



On the US graduate side, the recent Universum IDEAL survey of most desirable employers specifically for the category of Business derived from 44,064 respondents from 184 leading universities and conducted December 2007 to March 2008, provided even better rankings for the Big Four firms:

PwC beat out Google, which was the most desirable employer for US MBAs, E&Y beat Goldman Sachs, Deloitte trumped Apple Computer and KPMG placed ahead of JPMorgan.

Company Percent 2007 Ranking 2007

Pricewaterhouse Coopers 13,55% 1
Google 13,41% 2
Ernst & Young 12,56% 3
Walt Disney 11,33% 4
Goldman Sachs 10,42% 5
Deloitte 9,78% 6
Apple Computer 9,37% 7
KPMG 7,89% 8
JPMorgan Investment Bank 7,85% 9
Merrill Lynch 7,6% 10
Nike 6,8% 11
Morgan Stanley 6,22% 12
Coca-Cola 5,82% 13
Procter & Gamble 5,74% 14
Microsoft 5,65% 15

The full details are at:

http://www.universumglobal.com/getdoc/00bca8cc-5f1f-4c01-a474-03b867a3b912/American-Graduate-Survey