Post-95s talents name Huawei as the most attractive employers in China

SHANGHAI, June 20, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Universum today launches the findings from the China portion of the world's largest and longest running annual global talent survey, with over 50 thousand participating students from China's over 110 top universities. Set out to track the career aspirations and preferences of China's future professional workforce, the survey also recognizes the most coveted employers based on the responses collected. This year, Huawei successfully acquires its position as the most attractive employer in China as voted for by business and engineering talent respectively.

"Ever since we started to track Chinese students' career aspirations through our annual survey thirteen years ago, we've witnessed a lot of significant changes in the job market - I believe this reflects a rapidly evolving business landscape, and also the increased options available to an ever more mobile and better-informed future generation of talent in China. With the developments in the digital space, E-commerce has become one of the most attractive industries for Chinese graduates. The 2019 survey results show that rise in popularity of the domestic IT and technology employers is still going strong," said Mr. William Wu, Vice President of Universum Asia Pacific.

The top choices for the ideal city for students to work in after graduation are their cities of origin. However, In terms of total number, it's the tier one cities that will enjoy the strongest pools of talent: Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen. From this year's data we can also see that the competition for talent among tier one cities is increasing, as well as between the tier one and popular tier two cities.

"Not knowing enough about this company" is still the primary reason why students do not regard it as an ideal employer. Current channels for graduates to learn about the company are mainly based on employer presentations on campus and career fairs, followed by social media. According to the survey results, employers' career websites and online job boards are also increasingly used as sources of employment information for students.

"Encouraging To have work/life balance" (39%) is still the primary consideration for Chinese students in their future careers. As for career goals, "to be secure and stable in my job" (37%) and "to be autonomous or independent" (36%) are also important considerations. In terms of people & culture, Chinese students focus on "respect for its people". "Corporate social responsibility" is paid attention to for employer reputation and image. What students also value highly are employers who can demonstrate job characteristics such as "professional training and development". "A creative and dynamic work environment" and "clear path for advancement" are also important attributes they consider when assessing future employers.

In terms of the social environment and attributes of the workplace, the primary choice for Chinese students is "Respect for its people" (49%), this employer's attribute has become a key word that a majority of students generally agree with and choose. And it is generally believed that the key factors to embodying humanistic care are "A creative and dynamic work environment" (47%), "A friendly work environment" (44%), "Commitment to diversity and inclusion" (42%), "Recognizing performance (meritocracy)" (40.2%), "Interaction with international clients and colleagues" (40.1%), "Opportunities to make a personal impact" (39.8%), "Encouraging work-life balance" (37%) and other factors. In addition to corporate humane care, Chinese students value "corporate social responsibility" (34%) in terms of corporate reputation and image shaping. In addition, good reference for future career and competitive base salary are also Chinese students' considerations for their future career.

Other key findings from the 2019 China student survey include:

An era for local IT/Internet companies

While taking the top spot in business and engineering, Huawei also remains among the top three employers of choice for other fields of study, such as sciences and humanities.

Meanwhile, Alibaba ranks among the top three in the minds of business, engineering and science students, and is also very attractive to law and humanities students. Local Internet giants Tencent and Baidu are also highly appealing employers with students from all fields of professional categories. Of particular note is Xiaomi. The rankings of excellent local Internet companies such as Xiaomi are also rising, and Xiaomi has achieved the second place of engineering talent.

Typically known for their competitive compensation packages and long working hours, Chinese IT/Internet companies are often revered by Post-95s talent for their entrepreneurial spirit and creative & dynamic working environments - as shown by the data.

Popular favorite industry caters to the times, local corporate brand establishes

When Chinese students choose the industry, they reflect the distinctive background characteristics of the times. Among them, e-commerce (21.4%) accounted for the largest proportion, Telecommunication and networks (16.1%), financial services (13.4%), Software, Computer Services, Multimedia Development, Digital Entertainment (13.4%), industrial engineering and manufacturing (12.2%) are closely behind. According to the survey results, the traditional and popular industries showed a slight downward trend, among which Retail (1.9%), Fast Moving Consumer Goods (2.6%), Automotive industry (3.9%), Management and Strategy Consulting ( 9.1%) and so on are gradually fading out.

At the same time, another major trend is that the competitiveness of Chinese local enterprises has gradually increased, mainly reflected in the technological Internet companies represented by Huawei, Tencent, Xiaomi, Alibaba, Baidu, and the ranking advantages of state-owned banks relative to foreign banks. It reflects the increasingly competitive employer brand establishment of these well-received companies.

Students network and information channels expanded

The preferred platform for Chinese students to obtain effective information and retrieval is Zhihu.com (39%), followed by Baidu post board (38%), Sina Micro Blog (37.6%), and WeChat (35%). In addition to the traditional social media defined network platforms such as Tencent Micro Blog (25.9%), Renren (25%), Qzone (17%), LinkedIn (16.5%), other kinds of online platforms preferred are Bilibili (15.6%) ), Douban (15.6%), Tiktok (14.6%), etc. They also appeared in the mainstream of used channels, reflecting the widening of channels and the diversification of available online platforms.

International employers are making a come back

When asked about their plan upon graduation, 27% of Chinese students said that they are most keen on working for international employers. After a sharp decline from 25% to 18% in 2017, they have climbed back to 23% in 2018, and in 2019 the figure keeps growing to 27%, indicating that international companies are re-gaining attractiveness. This is especially the case among business talent. Compared with state-owned enterprises and local companies, Chinese students believe that the work of international companies is more in line with international standards, and they can have more exposure to international opportunities and clients.

The ratio of choosing startups or self-employment has risen sharply

In contrast to the international employers, the state-owned employers are losing popularity somewhat. The proportion of students who choose to enter state-owned enterprises after graduation is 24%. However, Chinese graduates still consider state-owned companies to offer "a friendly working environment", "secure employment", and demonstrating better "corporate social responsibility". The survey also finds that the number of students wish to start their own business or working for a start-up company has experienced a large increase from 2018 (15%) to 2019 (29%), basically the same as students hoping to continue studying after graduation (28%).

Salary expectations increased 7.8% to be 8,690RMB monthly on average

Chinese students expect to earn 8,690 RMB per month on average upon graduation, an increase of 7.8% compared to last year. Female students (8,667RMB) expect much less than their male (9,344RMB) counterparts. Female students have a stronger desire for "ethical standards" and "support for gender equality" in their future employment.

The Top 20 IDEAL Employers among Business and Engineering students in China are as follows:

*Refer to appendix for the full Top 100 Most Attractive Employers rankings.

The Universum student survey, conducted online, takes place annually in 60 countries globally and collects the views and preferences of over 1.3 million students. It is currently run in Australia, mainland China, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore, South Korea, Thailand and Vietnam in the Asia Pacific region.

About 2019 China's Most Attractive Employers Rankings – China Edition

The results are based on the answers of 52,156 students studying for degrees in business, engineering, natural sciences, humanities/liberal arts/education, law and health/medicine, with 151,675 individual evaluations of more than 200 employers. Each respondent is asked questions about their career preferences, expectations and employment related drivers and then presented with a list of more than 200 national and international employers, nominated by the target group through an independent and structured nomination and assessment process, which prevents companies unfairly influencing their positions. Respondents acknowledge those companies they would consider working for. Of the companies selected as 'considered employers', the respondents then select their five 'IDEAL Employers' and answer questions about their perceived brand based on Universum's Drivers of Employer Attractiveness global framework. The rankings measure the level of employer attractiveness of companies or organizations on the recruitment market.

About Universum

Universum is the global leader in employer branding, providing end-to-end solutions that empower organizations to become better at attracting, recruiting and retaining top talent. Founded in 1988, Universum's mission is to create the best match between employers and potential employees by providing knowledge, guidance and actionable insights. The company gathers and analyses insights about the career expectations of over one million students and young professionals annually in 60 countries, and serves as a trusted partner to over 2,000 clients globally, including many Fortune 500 companies. With its headquarters in Stockholm, Sweden, Universum is a privately held company with offices in 13 countries.

For more information, visit http://universumglobal.com

APPENDIX 1

Top 100 most attractive employers – Business Students

APPENDIX 2

Top 100 most attractive employers – Engineering Students