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Top1. Introduction
Employer branding emerged as a marketing strategy to attract and retain talent, post-globalization. This largely refers to “As the ‘sum of the company’s efforts to communicate to existing and the prospective staff that it is a desirable place to work” (Lloyed, 2002). “The employer as a brand influences how current and potential candidates interact with a company’s brand image as an employer” (Ambler & Barrow, 1996; Ewing et al., 2002). It is indeed a strategic tool across all the sectors to attract and retain the best suitable employees in the organization. For many years now employer branding has been playing out as a long-term security needs for talented employees to attract and retain them for a longer period.
Engineering graduates currently are more prone to get identified as a part of the reputed brand or the social groups with more possibilities of the upgrade in the future. Therefore, employer branding for employees overall has comparatively got much attention but the employer branding perception of engineering students that influenced their choice of the branches based on working for the top brands and the employer branding strategies has been overlooked. In the previous literature also, the various researchers have tried to understand the employer branding attributes based on criteria of choosing both the firm-related as well as the job-related attributes “which significantly effect a candidate’s job application decisions, based on “intention to apply’ and ‘best companies to work for” (Saini, Gopal, & Kumari, 2015).
According to most of the reports claiming to study engineering graduates are generally more positive about all the sectors than the average, with IT, consulting, and automobile being ranked as their top three in terms of employer attractiveness.
As per the 2020 Randstad report (Global) on employer branding for engineers:
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The “U.S. Bureau of Labour Statistics” expects employment growth for engineers, with nearly 140,000 new jobs until 2026. Whereas the expected new jobs for the civil engineers are around 23%, closely followed by the mechanical and industrial engineers (each representing ~18% of new wave jobs).
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The current trend for many engineering workers is to further specialize and become more knowledgeable in a specific area, therefore there is a need to focus on the internal training programs, and decreased further education might represent an influential factor when choosing their future employer.
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When compared to the global average, employees in this sector are more interested in a job that allows them to grow professionally, with the difference between what engineering professionals want vs global results representing one of the highest gaps.
For instance:
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Attractive salary and benefits (57% (2019), has increased to 62% in 2020).
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Job Security (44% (2019), has increased to 46% in 2020).
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Work-life balance (45% (2019), has remained the same 45% in 2020).
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Career Progression (35% (2019), has increased to 44% in 2020).
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Financially healthy (34% (2019), has increased to 40% in 2020).
The findings of Randstad's report elaborates on the expectations of engineering professionals seek like an attractive salary and benefits, work-life balance, financially healthy, career progression, pleasant work environment, job security, interesting job content, gives back to society, very good name, and uses the latest technology.