Top Employers for Global Business Undergrads

A new generation of college grads around the world wants international work that will take them abroad. For many, that means U.S.-based multinationals

By Lindsey Gerdes

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In the global war for talent, the likely winners are U.S.-based global companies that offer border-crossing career opportunities and appeal to the wanderlust of a new generation. That's the upshot of a massive new survey of undergraduate students who—in remarkable numbers—identified U.S. companies as their favorites.

Stockholm-based research firm Universum, in its first-ever Global Index of Attractiveness, surveyed 120,000 undergraduate business and engineering students in 11 of the world's biggest economies. The top 10 lists for both engineering and business students were dominated by such US-based powerhouses as Google (GOOG), Goldman Sachs (GS), and Procter & Gamble (PG), while the next 40 employers on each list included companies headquartered in Switzerland, Britain, and Germany.

Why are U.S. companies so popular? "Many of the truly global companies are American," says Universum CEO Michal Kalinowski. "There are a lot of companies in other countries that have a global reach but are still perceived as having a national culture, [such as] L'Oréal and Siemens (SI), whereas many American companies are perceived as truly international."

That said, results by country show that business students still have some loyalty to employers headquartered closer to home. Students in all but two markets, India and the United Kingdom, placed a local company at the top of their list. German business undergrads picked Stuttgart-based Porsche, for instance, while French students chose luxury goods company LVMH, based in Paris, and Canadian students actually chose their government as their No. 1 employer. This is partially due to the rough economic climate of the last year, says Kalinowski of the "home-grown multinationals" these students tend to favor. Says Kalinowski: "There is a perception among students that if you work in one of the affiliate countries, you will be more easily sacrificed."

Hot pick: Big Four accounting firms

One of the biggest surprises was how well the Big Four accounting firms did. Despite their distinctly unsexy images, all landed in the top 10 for business undergrads, with PricewaterhouseCoopers in the No. 2 spot behind Google, whose cult following among the global youth culture easily propelled it to No. 1. As a group, the Big Four handily beat out such buzz-worthy rivals as the consulting giants Bain & Co. and Boston Consulting Group, which are catnip for business students.

The Big Four's success is no accident. The industry has been positioning itself as a destination for global-trotting young talent. In the U.S., PwC has begun offering global opportunities to interns through an international exchange program with PwC's U.K. firm. No. 10 Deloitte, meanwhile, invites students from various countries for a three-day conference in Athens, where they tackle a complex business problem and get to know other accounting majors from across the globe.

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