SAP Voted Most Desirable Employer, Google And IBM Following

Students of computer science in Germany find SAP to be the most desired employer, with Google and IBM in second and third place.

A survey conducted by German computer magazine Computerwoche (CW) and the Trendence institute Berlin with 5,000 students of computer science shows SAP being the favourite employer on the market. CW reports about the reasons for these companies being the top three of the students (in German).

The winner: SAP
Besides being Europe’s most successful software house, SAP’s success is mainly attributed to its continuous and engaged HR outreach. Even top management appears at recruiting events or teaches at university like head of human resources Claus Heinrich. He is especially proud of the fact that SAP never had to lay off any employee due to sinking revenues.

We wish for a continuous partnership - a developer often needs a year to be fully trained and integrated. Employees are not just a resource which can be rearrange.

[…]

Trust is a fundamental value for us. It may sound pathetic, but we believe that employees are more engaged in their work and use entrepreneurship and passion in their daily work when they understand it is contract for life.

It strikes me that in a time when everybody pushes for the exact opposite as in “you will change your job!”, SAP’s position does makes a lot of sense, as the SAP system itself is so complex to work with, that training time is just longer.

Leaving SAP though means in many cases just changing the company, as you have been trained for a position in nearly every major company there is: because SAP is likely to be used by them. No wonder that students vote for SAP first, if you are at all interested in this financially attractive future, you do train at the core of it all.

CW continues to report that Mr. Heinrich would like to see more enthusiasm from his future employees, as local programmers seem to need the same kind of motivation as their colleagues in Bangalore - more competitive spirit and less lamenting would be good.

The new kid in the charts: Google
Innovative and cool is the image of the second placed company: Google. Benefits like free food, service offerings and alike (not only in the Valley, but also in Germany) helped Google to jump from zero to second place. Google is perceived as being very innovative and has a very positive image among the students.

150 employees work in Google Germany and 50 positions are open, though the selection process is tough.

Markus and I have noted before that Germany is big enough to be “self sustained” - and that goes for many areas. As such I find it surprising to see Google being the number two in this result. Not so much because I think Google is unattractive, but because I am not sure students are aware of the requirements of this employers. I think there is a reason why those 50 positions are not filled yet, and it is probably not the lack of submissions.

Old rival, third place: IBM
Third place is IBM, winner of last year. HR work is called solid and classical, though with innovative accents, one example being their recruiting centre in Second Life.

Head of HR Christoph Grandpierre acknowledges that they too have to fight for the best talent. Special bonus for working at IBM in his view is the chance to engage in international projects as well as being able to profit from flexible solutions for work time and place. Most important criteria for a new candidate is that they are willing to work on future technology as well as solutions for social relevant problems.

Students are demanding, but realistic about expected work hours
Besides asking them for their favourite employer student where asked additional questions, for example expected payment. The number for their first year pay check was given as 42,600 Euro which is 800 Euro more than last year. Students are very well aware of the lack of man power in the industry, but they are aware of their to be expected work time: 43.6 hours per week.

But money is not the only factor students are interested in - they expect reasonable answers on topics like work life balance, but do not expect the “job for life” but are aware of having to move on.

A good overview of the situation in Germany
The article gives a good snap shot of the situation in Germany, though one has to take into account some grains of salt with this. Completely missing for my taste is an outlook on how those students intend to see their future career in regard to international work and projects, and seems still very German centric.

Without access to the real numbers of this survey it is hard to tell how many of all students have voted for these top three - it would be a pity if this was everything on the horizon of the students: big old German based corporations and one funky Google.