Bank of Ireland is the most attractive employer for Irish business graduates seeking their first job, according to the latest edition of a Europe-wide student survey. Robin O'Brien Lynchreports.
The bank's first-place ranking reflects a general trend towards the major financial institutions and away from leisure brands and consumer favourites such as Coca-Cola, Adidas and Apple.
The European Student Barometer is published annually by the Trendence institute in Germany and covers 18 countries and 40,000 students about to enter the workforce. Students from UCD, DCU, Trinity College Dublin, University of Limerick, NUI Galway, NUI Maynooth, DIT and a number of other institutes of technology were included in the survey, which divided final-year students into business and engineering categories and canvassed them on their expectations and preferences for their first job after college.
Last year's business results were notable for their mix of international finance brands and consumer goods manufacturers, but this year the "big four" global auditing firms and Ireland's own banking "big two" have muscled out the high-street names.
Coca-Cola was the top choice of 2006, but has since dropped to 15th place, while Apple has been knocked from fourth to 19th place and Adidas has disappeared out of the top 25 altogether, from a position of strength at fifth place just 12 months ago.
KPMG, Deloitte, Ernst & Young, PricewaterhouseCoopers and AIB comprise the rest of the top six, while Google and Microsoft came in at seventh and eighth place, confirming the continued attractiveness of the Silicon Valley corporate culture to undergraduates.
Despite the prevalence of banking and finance in their choices, Irish students do not expect to put in the long working hours that are so often the norm in the US or Japan. The average expectancy of 42.3 hours a week conforms with that of their counterparts across Europe, with almost all national European averages coming in between 41 and 45 hours.
Many current employees of the top six companies might find those expectations a little optimistic, and would be amazed to learn that more than 10 per cent of the Irish students surveyed are hoping to head off for the weekend after just 36 hours.
It is not surprising, then, that when asked what characteristics they valued most in a prospective employer, Irish students rated work-life balance ahead of starting salary, job security and success in the market.
But if this last figure gives the impression that Irish students value social conscience ahead of corporate dedication, it would be a false hope. When asked what the most important characteristics in an employer would be, they rated the social responsibility of the company last, and advancement opportunities first.
In the engineering category, UK-based construction firm Laing O'Rourke came top, perhaps benefiting from its involvement in high-profile projects such as Pier D at Dublin airport, Luas and the London Olympics.
Google, Microsoft and BMW were the only companies to appear in the top 10 of both lists, while the remainder of the engineering favourites were a mixture of construction giants such as Sisk and Siac, medical technology groups Boston Scientific and Medtronic, and perennial high-rankers such as Intel and Arup.
This year saw an expansion of the survey, which is now in its fifth year, from beyond western Europe and Scandinavia to the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland.
Answers from respondents in these countries roughly matched those from other locations on many issues, including working hours, preferred employer characteristics and willingness to travel, but their expected starting salary was significantly lower. The Hungarian average starting salary was just under €9,000 per annum, with Poland at €13,348 and the Czechs at €11,641.
Irish students hope to pocket €30,911 on average in their first job, which is higher than long-established EU nations such as Belgium (€26,669), Italy (€22,665) or Spain (€21,024), but seems relatively low compared to the UK (€34,813), Denmark (€45,947) and Germany (€40,999) given the cost of living in these countries compared to the Republic. However, this discrepancy can be explained by the fact that Irish students can look forward to lower tax rates than those of their German and Scandinavian counterparts.
Trendence's head of consultancy, Oliver Viel, says the survey will expand further east in 2008.
"Next year we will have at least 19 countries. Slovakia will be new and probably Greece, maybe more . . . And we are indeed continuing to move east - in doing so we're responding to the wishes of our clients."
Among the criticisms of the barometer is that an undergraduate in his or her final year of college may know far less about the jobs marketplace than he or she would know a year or two after joining the workforce, and that the survey is spread too thinly to be truly representative.
Viel disagrees that these are flaws. "If it is true that they are less clued in about the modern marketplace, then this makes it even more important for companies to carry out successful branding work in order to attract them," he says.
"When a company wants to do this at a European level, things become a little more difficult, of course, because of the intercultural differences. Knowing exactly how to behave in Ireland or Belgium, for example, can actually cause problems when designing an international brand strategy, as big differences will need to be taken into account.
"One of the main side benefits of this study is that it allows people to get a feeling for the cultures of the particular markets. When serving a pan-European market, people socialised in one country need to get a general overview."
Companies focusing on the local student population also need to bear in mind the nomadic nature of the newly graduated generation.
When asked if they have any interest in working abroad, 68 per cent of Irish respondents said yes - the same as the European average - while only 12 per cent said they would prefer to stay in their home region.
