Employers Worldwide

LinkedIn is not even ten years old. The networking site was launched in 2003 and by now has more than 135 million members in more than 200 countries. According to the company, there were nearly two billion people searches on LinkedIn in 2010 and about double the amount only a year later. Especially for recruiters, LinkedIn is a valuable tool that allows them to find job-seekers, headhunt employees and see who is connected to whom. To make a LinkedIn profile strong enough for recruiters and companies to become aware of it, there are a few tips to be followed.

Small and medium sized companies have often been overlooked by job seekers in the past as they can’t offer the same salaries at the start as the big corporations. This initial downside, however, turns itself around quickly, as employees can advance their careers much quicker.

Western students are now finding jobs in China more easily, reports China Europe International Business School (CEIBS). Its 184 members of the 2011 graduating class received 1,500 job offers from 480 companies.

Companies like Facebook made headlines in the past looking only for top talent. A wrong approach says a bestselling American author who claims “great people are overrated”. Good teams are much more valuable than single stars, says William C. Taylor.

Five of the top ten desired employers of MBA’s this year are consumer technology companies. Long-standing service firms like McKinsey, Bain, BCG, Goldman Sachs and Blackstone were joined by likes of Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon, and Ideo.

One of the greatest challenges managers and business leaders worldwide are facing today is to attract, retain and develop talent. At the fourth annual conference of the European School of Management and Technology ESMT in Berlin international experts in business, economy and science discusses success strategies in talent management. MBA-Channel.com talked to some of the speakers.

Companies like Facebook, Google and Zynga are so hungry for the best talent that they are buying start-ups to get their founders on board. Some technology blogs call the move “being acqhired.” The companies doing the buying say it is a talent acquisition, and it typically comes with a price per head.

Investment banks are once again the top destination for student jobseekers. A survey of final-year students at 30 sought-after universities finds that among those already looking for jobs, investment banking is the most popular choice – with 8.5 per cent applying. Experts say that at least three banks are rumoured to be paying 50,000 pounds in starting salaries before bonuses. All of the banks were back on campus in the last twelve months, promoting themselves hard. Most of the best-known names of the City of London are recruiting at 2006-07 levels.

MBA & Company was founded two years ago by a group of MBA graduates who understood that during the economic downturn companies did not have the funds available to use expensive consultancies. It has evolved into a means for companies to gain access to talent in a manner that reflects their needs. Today MBA & Company takes advantage of the surplus of top-tier talent from the world’s leading business schools who haven’t yet found their dream job by using a web site to match up grads with of companies that need consulting but don’t want to pay the premium that McKinsey, BCG and the other the big-name brands demand.

Morgan Stanley is one financial-services firm in New York to cut its bonuses by 10 to 30 percent in 2010. Salary and recruiting experts say other big Wall Street banks will follow suit but the scale back in compensation should not affect recruiting.

In Germany, Volkswagen promises to create 50,000 new jobs in the coming years and in the US, Ford Motor Co. will invest 600 million US-Dollar to overhaul a Kentucky plant. Meanwhile in India, BMW has launched its most inexpensive softroader, the X1, where pre-launch bookings of 1,000 units have already sold out.

The big consulting firms want to hire up to 50 per cent more consultants in their Swiss offices. A substantial portion is expected to be recruited abroad. Brilliant graduates are courted by the consulting firms these days. Accenture’s chief Thomas Meyer admits: “It’s a stressful situation for our organization looking for that many new employees and integrating them.”

KPMG is hiring 8,000 new staff across Europe over the next three years, signalling a recovery in the corporate services industry. The recruitment drive will take KPMG’s workforce from 30,000 to 38,000 across Europe and from 11,000 to 14,000 in the UK.

Africa might become a turf for business schools and MBA candidates in the near future as the image of the “hopeless continent” is changing. The African economy is growing, many regions and sectors are booming. With the exception of 2009, Africa’s economic output has been growing by 5 per cent annually for years and for 2010 the IWF expects a surplus of 4.3 per cent for the continent and 5.3 per cent for 2011. Investors are queuing to bring in more foreign capital, not only from Europe or America but also from Brazil and China.

Aon Corporation, the world’s biggest insurance broker and on the employer-of-choice-list of many MBA candidates, plans to cut 1,500 to 1,800 jobs globally as it integrates businesses after the acquisition of consulting firm Hewitt Associates Inc. The Chicago-based company said expects the integration to generate annual savings of about 355 million dollar in 2013. Aon Hewitt, the consulting subsidiary created by Aon’s CEO Gregory Case has about 29,000 employees.