2019 Global Brand Health Report

Overview

It's true: companies are only as successful as their people. And in order to attract the best and brightest, today’s innovative companies need a strong employer brand. A positive brand reputation can mean the difference between a company maintaining an all-star team and consistently losing dream candidates to a competitor.

At Hired, we're proud to provide companies with the insights they need to attract the world's most talented tech talent. We surveyed more than 3,800 top tech workers from our platform to find out which companies rank as their most desirable employers and how other organizations can compete for their attention.

Top employers in the world

*BPI: Brand Positivity Index. The more candidates interested in working for a company, the higher a company’s Brand Positivity score.

The global rankings are sourced from respondents in Canada, France, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

The local leaderboards

Hometown reputation matters. That’s why we asked tech talent to tell us which companies in their current city they’d like to work for most. For the third year in a row Shopify topped the list in Toronto, while media companies made a splash in markets like London, New York and Washington, D.C. In our survey, each company was listed in the market nearest to where they are headquartered.

Getting to know tech talent: their preferences and motivators

Three words: location, location, location. More than a quarter (29%) of candidates won’t consider commuting more than 30 minutes for a job and 65% are interested in working 100% remotely. Additionally, even with doomsday headlines around the rise of AI, the fear of AI eliminating jobs is not a current motivator around job selection, with just 4% noting it as a concern.

Elon Musk is the most inspiring leader in tech

Rank the tech leaders you consider most inspiring

1

Elon Musk

2

Jeff Bezos

3

Satya Nadella

4

Mark Zuckerberg

5

Jack Ma

6

Sheryl Sandberg

7

Reed Hastings

8

Susan Wojcicki

9

Marissa Mayer

10

Anne Wojcicki

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Choosing a job you’ll love

How to ensure you’re accurately evaluating the companies you are considering for your next role.

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Offer accepted: What tech knowledge workers want from their next job

It’s important to understand what motivates tech talent to choose one company over another, especially when money doesn’t tell the full story. With top tech talent in extremely high demand, candidates are able to carefully weigh their options, taking into account company culture, brand reputation, salary, and more. Here are the key factors they’re weighing and how to compete.

• What motivates candidates to accept a job offer?

  Though salary is still the number one driver for accepting an offer, company culture comes in second. More than 40% of tech talent said company culture was ‘most important’ when considering a new company, above benefits and career trajectory.

  What are the most important things you look for in a company?

  • Compensation (i.e. base salary)
    53%
  • Company culture
    42%
  • Opportunity to learn new skills
    39%
  • Benefits beyond salary (e.g. healthcare, equity, perks)
    26%
  • Defined career trajectory/growth opportunities
    26%

  Our Recommendation: Compensation will inevitably be top of mind for all candidates. With that said, ensure that your team has a sound compensation philosophy that supports fair pay. Beyond that, companies should lean into opportunities that allow a prospective candidate to see and experience your company’s culture, such as doing a tech lunch during the interview process or inviting them to an office event.
• What turns tech knowledge workers off from an opportunity?

  It takes more than flashy perks to entice top tech talent to join a team. Results show that the top two factors that turn job seekers away from a company is a lack of interest in a product and poor reputation (43%). Nearly half of respondents (49%) will join another organization if not aligned on the product.

  Top 5 factors that turn job seekers away

  • Not interested in their product
    49%
  • Poor reputation
    43%
  • I don’t know enough about them
    41%
  • Not interested in their mission
    41%
  • Company culture
    34%

  Our Recommendation: When reaching out to candidates, companies should share full details about the company mission and product upfront, including key features on the product roadmap to showcase their overall vision. It’s also valuable for tech talent to hear about the lasting impact the technology will have on potential customers or the world at large.
• What persuades tech knowledge workers to engage with a recruiter?

  Candidates crave a less painful hiring process as they sort through dozens of job listings and go through multiple phone screens, which is why transparency goes a long way. Nearly three-quarters (71%) of respondents say seeing salary ranges up front is the number one motivator for engaging with a recruiter.

  What would make you engage with a company that reaches out to you?

  • 71%
    
    Salary range upfront
  • 56%
    
    A recognizable company name
  • 53%
    
    A personalized message

  Our Recommendation: Leading with salary upfront saves time on both ends. For candidates, it ensures they don’t go through the process without ensuring their salary expectations match up with the prospective employer. For companies, salary transparency will help response rates when reaching out and ensure potential new hires are on the same page before reaching the final stages of the interview process.
• What increases a techies’ likelihood of responding to an offer?

  Sniffing out an automated email is easy, but appealing to today’s tech workers is not. A personal touch could be the difference between a new all-star team member and radio silence. More than half (53%) of tech workers are more inclined to interact with a company around a job opening if the correspondence is personalized.

  What would make you engage with a company that reaches out to you?

  • 71%
    
    Salary range upfront
  • 56%
    
    A recognizable company name
  • 53%
    
    A personalized message

  Our Recommendation: No one wants to feel like they got a template that dozens of other people received. If you truly want to get a candidate's attention, be thoughtful and calculated with your outreach. Companies should invest time in crafting notes that reflect the candidate's background, why the job is a great fit for their experience and if possible, including the role’s salary range upfront.

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Retaining top talent: What pushes tech talent to leave a company

In a market where candidates have the upper hand, employee retention is an ever-growing concern for companies. To take the guesswork out of what causes tech talent to leave, we asked candidates what piques their interest when recruiters come calling. Here’s what you need to keep top of mind to keep tech talent engaged at work.

• What motivates tech knowledge workers to quit?

  It comes down to two factors: compensation and challenging work. Inevitably, a higher salary is top of mind for every candidate and for the third year in a row, base salary is the top reason why employees leave their jobs. The second reason, cited by 56% of tech talent, is the opportunity for new challenges and problems to solve.

  Top 5 reasons employees leave their jobs

  • Higher base salary
    75%
  • New challenges and problems to solve
    56%
  • Better location and commute
    42%
  • Not feeling valued by my current manager
    39%
  • Higher title
    32%
  • Well known company
    27%
  • Larger team with more resources
    16%

  Our Recommendation: One way to retain talent is by creating a transparent compensation structure so that employees understand how their salaries are determined and what the timeline is for raises and promotions. This way employees are assured they are being paid fairly throughout the course of their career and are less tempted to go looking because you are investing in their career growth while keeping them engaged in their current role.
• What causes tech workers’ eyes to wander?

  More than half (57%) of talent say that career development or training opportunities would persuade them to engage with a recruiter, so making this a priority can help companies hang on to their best people.

  What makes you take a recruiter call?

  • Feature projects/technology they work on (63%)
  • Opportunities for career development/training (57%)
  • Talk about the team I’d be working with (53%)
  • Show benefits/perks (44%)
  • Describe what makes their culture unique (40%)

  Our Recommendation: The technology industry is fast moving and ever changing, and so is tech talent. In order to keep up, companies should invest in career development programs or offer specific trainings that will help employees advance. For example, hosting trainings for mastering new programming languages or carving out time (and money) for employees to leverage education stipends are ways companies can prioritize their workforce’s skills growth.
• What role does management play in retaining tech talent?

  As the old saying goes, people quit managers not companies. In fact, 39% of employees say not feeling valued by their manager is a top reason for leaving their job.

  Top 5 reasons employees leave their jobs

  • Higher base salary
    75%
  • New challenges and problems to solve
    56%
  • Better location and commute
    42%
  • Not feeling valued by my current manager
    39%
  • Higher title
    32%
  • Well known company
    27%
  • Larger team with more resources
    16%

  Our Recommendation: Evaluating someone’s management style can be difficult, but putting in place reasonable expectations, such as requiring bi-weekly 1:1 meetings between managers and their direct reports or encouraging managers to praise publicly and critique privately, can go a long way. Hosting managerial trainings that cover goal-setting and employee advocacy can also help managers improve their relationships with team members.
• How do commute and location affect tech workers’ interest in a job?

  The way people work is changing, and many companies are embracing cultures that value results over time in the office. This is in line with employees’ values: 42% of respondents say they’d leave their current role for a better location and commute, and another 65% say they’d be open to working remotely 100% of the time.

  Top 5 reasons employees leave their jobs

  • Higher base salary
    75%
  • New challenges and problems to solve
    56%
  • Better location and commute
    42%
  • Not feeling valued by my current manager
    39%
  • Higher title
    32%
  • Well known company
    27%
  • Larger team with more resources
    16%

  Our Recommendation: Companies can appeal to this desire by allowing the option to telecommute, permitting work remote days, and offering flexible office hours.

Conclusion

At Hired, we’re on a mission to get everyone a job they love — at a company they’re excited about. A strong employer brand can make or break a company’s hiring and retention efforts. Showcasing factors that tech knowledge workers care about beyond compensation, such as flexible work environments and career growth opportunities, can give companies a much-needed competitive edge in the battle for the best tech talent.

Where you work is one of the most important decisions you can make. Employer brand takes the guesswork out of job searching for candidates when it provides an authentic window into an organization’s culture, values, and mission. That’s why an effective employer brand can’t be developed in a vacuum; it requires cross-functional collaboration and buy-in between talent, HR, marketing, and the C-suite. In short, it should represent the heartbeat of your company and be the foundation of all your hiring efforts.

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Methodology

Hired surveyed more than 3,600 tech knowledge workers, who were provided a list of top local companies who have recently been hiring for tech talent and asked them to rate their level of interest in working for each company. The highest-scoring local brands were added to a larger global list of companies that were then evaluated by a geographically diverse set of tech workers. To evaluate top brands in local markets, we relied on rankings from local survey respondents only. For global insights, we took both the global rankings and the location of companies’ offices into account. The Brand Positivity Index combines survey respondents who would ‘love to work’ and ‘might like to work’ at a particular company. Lastly, we asked a series of questions to determine what factors make respondents prefer some companies over others, and what companies can do to make sure they will be considered by top tech talent. All markets surveyed include: Austin, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Denver, London, Los Angeles, New York City, Paris, San Diego, San Francisco, Seattle, Toronto, and Washington, D.C.

About Hired

Hired (hired.com) is a marketplace that matches tech talent with the world’s most innovative companies. Hired combines intelligent job matching with unbiased career counseling to help people find a job they love. Through Hired, job candidates and companies have transparency into salary offers, competing opportunities and job details. This level of insight is unmatched, making the recruiting process quicker and more efficient than ever before.

Hired was founded in 2012 and is headquartered in San Francisco, with offices in the United States, Canada, France, and the UK. For more information, news, and tips for job candidates and employers, visit Hired’s blog.