I often hear employers struggle with how much time, effort, energy, budget etc. they should spend on building their brand. In the Gen Y space, we asked candidates what they thought.

91% of Gen Y told us they believe a company’s brand is important when applying for job and internship opportunities. They also believe recognizable brands convey growth, potential and stability. When asked why they want to work for an established brand, Gen Y responded:

• 76% said an established brand offers growth potential
• 74% said it will build my resume
• 73% said it will provide greater job security

Fortunately, only a small fraction (8%) of respondents said they wanted to work for an established brand simply because “my friends will think it’s cool.” Any higher and I would begin to worry about this generation.

We also heard 42% of Gen Y prefers to apply to companies which they / their friends / their families have heard of before, signifying that brand awareness is critical for employers. Take a quick pulse and if many Gen Y haven’t heard of you, which could be the case if your company is in business-to-business markets, then you have some work to do.

Taking brand loyalty even further, 39% said they would take a job with a well-known company solely to have the name of the employer on their resume. Now that says a lot about the power of brand.

So if you find yourself wondering about whether to invest in your employer brand, refer to these stats and remember that your brand drives the hiring results and the preference that you seek.

Continuing on the Career Influences survey from last post, I also wanted to share what the 1100 students and grads said about what had the most influence on their majors and careers.

• 37% said the information they were exposed to (specifically industry info) had the most impact on their choice of majors
• 41% said school, work or other experiences (specifically internships) had the most impact on their choice of careers

I also found out that 60% of students believe they have majors that are directly aligned with their preferred career (good for them!).

32% (the largest group) want to learn about possible career paths from employers through experiences - project work, competitions and internships. They want to “experience” what it is like to work for a particular employer - even if it is just sampling the kind of work that the company does. We do some of this with employers through our Exclusive Experiences program, but there are so many ways this can be done, from mini-competitions to problem-solving challenges.

Perhaps even more importantly, 51% of respondents want to be inspired (people, goals and challenges associated with career paths) AND be informed about careers (information about growth opportunities and career paths). Employers, listen up: remember to keep both in mind (e.g. marry the eloquent speaker with some interesting facts) when creating career outreach programs to maximize the appeal of your career opportunities.

Many employers are starting to reach out to students as early as high school. Others like NASA have educational programs in place for kindergarteners on up. This got me wondering when do students make decisions about majors and careers. And what inspires them? To address these questions and many more, I fielded a survey, received over 1100 responses from college students and grads, and this is what I learned.

• 54% decided their major in college
• 46% decided in high school or earlier

Of the 54% who decided their major in college, 68% proceeded to change their major. Of the 46% who decided their major in high school or earlier, only 19% went on to change majors. That’s pretty amazing, that means ~37% of all respondents knew what they wanted to major in before college and stuck to it.

Even more incredible, for those employers who are worrying about STEM (science, technology, engineering and math), 61% of respondents in the engineering, sciences and technology career paths, decided their major in high school or earlier, and 89% of them stayed with the same major.

Those are pretty compelling facts to cultivate talent as early as you can - for some employers, reaching freshmen may be sufficient; for others, you may need a high (or even middle) school strategy as well. Clearly, waiting for senior year is too late!

(stay tuned, the next post will cover key influences on majors and careers)