Where Generation Y wants to work (and how to attract their attention)

From Fortune magazine, 3 May 2007. Read it here.

Everybody wants to work for Google. After leaping into the No. 1 slot this year on Fortune’s annual list of the 100 Best Companies to Work For, the company turns out to be tops with MBA students as well. For the first time on Fortune.com’s list of 100 Top MBA Employers, more respondents say they’d rather work for Google than for traditional magnets McKinsey (ending its 11-year reign at No. 1), Goldman Sachs, and Bain & Co.

Another intriguing wrinkle in the 2007 survey results: Four of the five employers in the top 20 that moved up in rank this year – Nike, Microsoft, Apple, and Google are headquartered on the West Coast. Coincidence? Claudia Tattanelli, CEO of Universum, the research firm that conducted the survey of 5,451 MBAs on which Fortune.com’s list is based, thinks not.

“It’s one sign of the entrance of the ‘millennial’ generation, born since 1980, into the mix of MBA candidates,” she says. This demographic cohort, also known as Generation Y, “cares a lot about lifestyle. They’re willing to work long hours, but when they leave work, they want to spend time outdoors in a great climate.”

For MBAs overall, New York City remains the favorite city to work in; but San Francisco has replaced Chicago (those brutal winters! those broiling summers!) as second choice, and San Diego jumped from tenth place to fifth.

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Besides a life, what else do MBAs want now? Again due to Gen Y’s mildly maverick influence, it seems, having a prestigious company name on one’s resume matters less than it used to: “Good career reference” as a mark of an ideal employer dropped from first place in 2006 to 12th this year. (MBAs do still care about salary: Competitive compensation was cited by 48% of respondents as something an ideal employer should offer.)

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One thing some old-school employers bent on wooing Gen Y have clearly already figured out: This is a generation raised on the Internet and other snazzy mass media, so if you want to wow them, create a truly great corporate website.

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Of course, many newly minted MBAs have already had some inside experience at top employers by way of internships. For any company planning an internship program this summer, comments from students in this survey give a few clues to what really knocks their socks off. A recurring theme: real responsibility right away, as at Nike, where interns get control over products (with mentoring from higher-ups), or McKinsey and Boston Consulting Group, where MBA students are assigned to sink their teeth into client projects.

Another popular feature of the highest-rated internships is lots of chances to rub elbows with top management. Microsoft doesn’t have the highest-ranked internship program overall (that honor belongs to McKinsey), but for sheer star power, it’s pretty hard to beat: Interns at the company’s Redmond, Wash., headquarters are invited to an informal little get-together at Bill and Melinda’s house.

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This is a good read.

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