Google gains ground as IDEAL™ Employer in SA

Magnet Communications today announced the results of its 2010 Professionals’ IDEAL™ Employer Survey, which reflects the opinions of approximately 13 400 professionals working in South Africa. The award ceremony, which brought together 60 of South Africa’s top employers, provided a major upset in the IDEAL™ Employer rankings.

Google, which has not featured in the South African survey until now, rocketed into second position, ahead of favourites, Sasol and Investec in this year’s results.  SAB retained its number one position.

Google was also voted the world’s most attractive employer to graduating students in the 2010 Universum Communications talent attraction index.  Google South Africa country manager Luke Mckend believes that Google’s popularity as an employer can largely be ascribed to its mission and culture. “Our mission is to organise the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful,” he said. “And that is something very exciting to be part of, particularly in South Africa.”

Chantel Heron, HR Business Partner for sub-Saharan Africa, who accepted the award on behalf of Google SA, said that receiving the award was an honour. “We are delighted that professionals have voted Google as their second most IDEAL™ Employer in South Africa.  We are committed to South Africa and sub-Saharan Africa and we are excited about growing our team and investment across the region.”

We’ve all heard about the free massages and the great food but Heron believes that the nature of the work that people do at Google is what really attracts employees to the company. "Google is a place where you can tackle big problems," she said. "Amongst our Googlers, there's a real sense that we are working on things that could change the world."

Google SA rocketing into second place is an extraordinary achievement,” says Peter Johansson, MD of Magnet Communications, the company that undertakes the annual student survey of IDEAL™ employers. “Professionals chose Google despite the fact that it was not on the research questionnaire’s basic list of 130 employers.”

The basic list of 130 employer organisations is compiled every year by Magnet’s research team on the basis of its broad understanding of the current employer branding environment, emerging trends and past rankings.

Every year, Magnet surveys professionals and asks them questions about their career expectations, how they perceive companies as employers and what they associate to those employers. Magnet asks professionals to select the  employers they would consider working for and then choose  the employers they would most like to work for, that is the companies that they perceive as being “Ideal”.

The Magnet Ideal Employer Rankings reflect the frequency with which these employers were selected as being ideal by the professionals who participated in the surveys. The Magnet Ideal Employer Rankings measure the level of employer attractiveness that an organization has on the recruitment market in relation to other competing employers.

Google’s innovative search technologies connect millions of people around the world with information every day. Founded in 1998 by Stanford Ph.D. students Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Google today is a top web property in all major global markets. Google’s targeted advertising program provides businesses of all sizes with measurable results, while enhancing the overall web experience for users. Google is headquartered in Silicon Valley with offices throughout the Americas, Europe, Africa and Asia. For more information, visit http://www.google.com/africa and our Google Africa Blog: google-africa.blogspot.com.  You can also follow Google's Africa team on Twitter: twitter.com/googleafrica