Where do your students want to work today?

I found this very interesting:

Most popular employers among US computer science students: Microsoft, IBM, Intel, Apple by ZDNet's ZDNet Research -- Microsoft captured the top spot in Universum Communications survey of US computer science students, with 41% of college students willing to work for the company. IBM was #2 with 39%, Intel was #3 with 20%, Apple was #4 with 19%, Amazon was #5 with 16%, Cisco was #6 with 15%.

Frankly I didn't know that IBM was that much of the radar these days. I also expected Google to be higher on the list. Looking into this some more it appears that Google was at 5% but was there as a write in and not on the default list students were given. But what is clear is that students are looking at their options. They are also still looking at Microsoft. Personally I think that is all good. Microsoft is a great place to work and we can always use sharp new people.

One thing that I encourage teachers to do, especially high school teachers, is to encourage students to look beyond the jobs at big companies. While it is great to work for big companies a lot of smaller companies also offer lots of interesting projects. But when students do look at large companies they should look beyond the hype in the media. I think that is one of the wonderful things about blogs - you can read them to find out what a company is really like. And doing your homework about a company not only makes it easier to decide where you want to work but it makes it easier to actually get a job there.

- Alfred Thompson