The battle for talent in the finance space is fierce, from Goldman Sachs to Amazon, top finance professionals have a wealth of brilliant and diverse employers to choose from. But who is the most ideal employer among them all?
The 2018 eFinancialCareers Ideal Employer Report surveyed over 6,000 financial professionals globally, who were asked to name their top three companies to work for. More than 2,800 companies were named at least once. Respondents ranked 20 attributes for companies on a scale, with those scoring a six or seven deemed“important. Financial professionals then rated their three ideal employers based on how strong they believed companies were in the important attributes.
Gold for Goldman Sachs
Goldman Sachs returns to the top the of the eFinancialCareers Ideal Employers Report, due to extremely high scoring on sections such as competitive salaries, competitive bonuses, and industry leadership. One of their fiercest competitors, JP Morgan, came in a close second with high scoring in competitive bonuses and competitive salaries as well.
What is evident from this piece of research is that a mixture of reward and leadership is hugely attractive for finance talent, with over 200,0000 applicants gunning for analyst positions at Goldman Sachs in 2016, and only 2% landing a position showing the lure of working at what can be widely considered the top-rated finance company in the world.
Tech is slowly taking over
For a third time running, the tech behemoth Google, finished third in the report due to high scoring primarily on innovation, working hours and office environment. Beating the like of HSBC and Morgan Stanley, it shows that even in the financial space, a company’s culture and employer brand is just as important as bonuses and salaries!
This focus on culture is exemplified in the scoring of other tech giants such as Apple, Amazon, Facebook, and Microsoft, whom all placed in top the 30 of the rankings respectively. The importance of a dynamic environment and the ability to create your own path as individual reigned supreme throughout them all.
Working in finance is not all about your finances
Sure three of the top five companies were rated highest by competitive salary, but what we are starting to see is the true benefit of having a strong employer brand. The report shows the rise in popularity of elements such as environment, culture and more creeping into the mix of employer attractiveness. More and more finance professionals are eying moves to tech sectors.
Speaking to John Benson, Founder of eFinancialCareers, he said:
This report shows that the sector needs to change their approach when promoting their employer brand and culture whilst advertising open positions. In order to attract and retain the best talent, the game plan can’t just be around money. There needs to be an added focus on organizational culture and the work itself. The tech industry has been ahead on this for a while now and seeing the likes of Google and Amazon challenging the financial giants to attract smart financial professionals shows that financial institutions need to adapt to attract or retain the best talent.
Let’s not get it twisted. Money is and will always be an important factor when it comes to choosing your career path. But it doesn’t always have the only deciding factor
What we are seeing is that people, no matter what sector they are in, want to come into a place of work that cultivates a culture they are proud to be a part of and a place where they can build their careers and work on challenging projects. On top of being paid a salary that is fair and motivates them to come to work ready to be as productive as they can be.
