KUALA LUMPUR: A new survey has found that women graduates looking for their first job put salary and bonuses first and career development second, while it is the reverse for men.
The survey, conducted by graduate recruitment outfit Talentbank, shows that pay and bonuses, and career development are the top two of five factors that undergraduates look for in their first job.
The others are flexible working hours, company culture and equal preference for both genders, Talentbank founder and chief executive officer Ben Ho said today.
A total of 28,000 undergraduates listed their preferences when they voted in the 2nd Annual Graduate Choice Awards (GCA), where they picked Maybank, Petronas, Maxis, Samsung and PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) as their Top 5 Most Attractive Employers.
The undergraduates from more than 100 universities named their top choices from a total of 83 companies across 23 categories.
Ho said the big number of votes compared to only 11,000 last year showed that undergraduates were beginning to discover the importance of their voice in signalling to the industry the importance of employer branding.
“From an employer’s perspective, the higher participation by undergraduates is an indication that young people are paying more attention to what companies do to brand themselves,” he said in a statement.
Ho said the 28,000 undergraduates, 55% of whom are from the Klang Valley, submitted their votes during a seven-month period beginning early this year.
“The selection ended with an audit checkpoint that saw 15 board members from various universities inspecting the results to ensure a fair selection process,” he said.
