Top 100 Most Desired Employers in Romania – Announcing 2021 Study Results

June 16^th, 2021

Catalyst Solutions has just released the results from its 16th annual Most Desired Employers Study.

The study was conducted on the Romanian market, between December 2020 and April 2021, on a sample of 14,347 respondents with Business, IT&C, Engineering and Social Sciences profiles. The results were announced, for the first time, during  EBcon 2021 , the international Employer Branding Conference.

With an extensive history of 16th years, the Most Desired Employers Study provides each year critical insights into the perception of the Romanian employment market, providing employers with a direct understanding of their target group behaviour and expectations in relation to local employers.

Each year the ranking of Top 100 Most Desired Employers in Romania is established nationally, based on 14,347 unassisted answers of respondents who were asked one simple question: who are the top 5 employers in Romania for whom they would like to work for.

As we can notice, 30% of the top picked employers in 2021 turned out to be technology companies, and 15% are automotive companies.

* Source: Catalyst Solutions, 2021 Most Desired Employers study

After 9 years, Microsoft returns to first place at the top of respondents’ preferences. This is how they comment on this achievement:

According to our respondents, the IT industry remains the preferred industry, in which both Romanian students and professionals would like to find employment in 2021.

Compared to previous years, we can observe a decrease in the popularity of the Automotive industry. On the other hand, we should keep in mind that Automotive is a much more attractive sector for experienced candidates rather than students.

At the same time, more and more respondents in comparison to last years results, admit that the industry in which the employer activates is not important in making the employment decision.

Regarding the main criteria taken into account by candidates when choosing a future employer, we found out that a friendly working environment, followed by job security and support in professional development matters the most for entry-level candidates. At the same time, for professionals, the most important criteria are the recognition of performance by the employer and the salary offer.

Considering the current situation, this year we added a new category to our survey. It helped us to assess the impact of working from home in accepting a new career opportunity. Unsurprisingly, the flexibility of employers towards work from home policy positions them as more attractive among candidates.

As the numbers portray, the decision of both students and professionals to accept a new job will be greatly influenced by the possibility of a mix between office work and the option to work from home, 73.9% – students and 68.1% – professionals.

When it comes to the most popular information channels about employers and jobs, we can see that this year LinkedIn is gaining a lot of ground among entry-level candidates (44.6% in 2021 compared to 28.3% in 2020), even though in previous years this channel was used mostly by professionals.

Referring to the last years, we notice great communication efforts from companies focused especially on social media platforms. That’s why we considered it important to analyze which social channels our respondents prefer to use in order to be up to date with the news about their favourite employers. So, in addition to LinkedIn (62.1%), students prefer to stay up to date using Facebook (59.8%) and Instagram (39.3%). Meanwhile, 3 out of 4 professionals prefer LinkedIn as the main channel to keep up with their favourite employers, followed by Facebook and YouTube to a much lesser extent.

Asked what content categories would be most interesting when looking for information about an employer, both segments analyzed would prefer to access information about the benefits and advancement opportunities within the organization. We notice that for the respondents at the beginning of their career it is important to find tips to prepare for the selection process, but also communicating candidate profile suitable for the job. On the other hand, respondents with over 3 years of professional experience would be interested to know how the balance between personal and professional life within the company and information about how the company culture is managed.

Also, both segments of respondents mentioned that they would prefer to obtain the above information, first of all, by reading articles (students – 67%, professionals – 73%). While for students the next desired form of obtaining information is participation in events, professionals prefer content that can be consumed in a maximum of 30 seconds.

The results of the 2021 Most Desired Employers study are based on information collected following an online questionnaire between December 2020 and April 2021. The study involved 14,347 respondents with higher education, both juniors and experienced candidates from all over the country, with academic profiles in Business, IT&C, Engineering and Social Sciences.

Following the data collection, the processed information is centralized in the form of differentiated reports depending on the interest of the candidates for certain industries, the academic background and the level of experience. Available report types: Business, Engineering, IT&C, Retail, FMCG, Outsourcing / BPO.

For more information on the structure of the reports, interested parties can request more information at: angajatori@catalyst.ro