How We Ranked the Employers

The list may be smaller, but BusinessWeek's three-part methodology for ferreting out the best employers for new college graduates hasn't changed

By Louis Lavelle

Identifying the best employers for new college graduates is no easy task. Employers who might be a good fit for one graduate would be a disaster for another. But there are certain characteristics that all great employers share: great pay and benefits, top-notch training programs, and opportunities for rapid advancement. The methodology used for BusinessWeek's Best Places to Launch a Career ranking is designed to identify those employers.

A few things have changed since our 2008 ranking, including a handful of new employers and a modified employer survey. But the biggest change was a shrinking of the ranking itself from 119 ranked employers to 69—a reduction of more than 40%. By purposely raising the criteria for inclusion, BusinessWeek reduced the number of eligible employers and created a ranking that is both more exclusive and more competitive.

What hasn't changed, though, is our basic methodology, a three-part test designed to unearth the best employers for new college graduates.

Raising the Bar

To narrow the field, we turn first to the nation's career-services directors. In February we conducted a nationwide survey of directors at top colleges and universities, public and private. The survey asked the directors to identify the top five employers for entry-level workers in 17 industries, and the top 20 employers overall. Of the 262 directors surveyed, 60 replied, for a response rate of 23%.

Using the survey data on individual industries, BusinessWeek compiled a list of 118 companies, nonprofits, and government agencies that were eligible for the final ranking. This was a two-step process. The first step involved identifying the five high scorers in each industry. For every career-services director who ranked a company No. 1 in its industry, the company received five points. Every No. 2 ranking was worth four points, every No. 3 ranking was worth three points, and so on. After tallying the points, including ties, we had a total of 85 companies.

To flesh out the list, we reviewed the remaining employers suggested by the career-services directors and identified those with the highest industry point totals among all the industries. In order to raise the caliber of the final ranking and include only those employers that have the deepest and broadest support among career-services directors, we did something at this stage that we've never done before: We raised the bar. Instead of eliminating from consideration employers with fewer than 10 points, as we did in 2008, we eliminated those with fewer than 15 points. That gave us a total of 118 finalists, down from 174 in 2008.

User-Friendly Survey

Next, we invited each employer to answer an extensive survey seeking information on hiring, pay and benefits, training programs, and retention. The survey this year was considerably smaller. We eliminated an entire section on internship hiring that's used for a separate ranking, opting instead to gather that information closer to the publication date. And we eliminated several questions, including a few on benefits and training programs. The goal: a survey that's easier and less time-consuming to complete and that focuses more closely on the things that matter to job-seeking college grads.

Of the 118 finalists, 69 completed the survey, including four that are new to the ranking this year, for a response rate of 58%. We then compared the employers' responses to each question with the responses of others in its industry. For each ranking question on the survey, the best response, such as the highest pay or retention rate, was awarded 10 points. The worst response, or no response at all, received no points. Responses that fell in the middle of the pack were worth five points each.

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