How To Get a Job At The World's Most Desirable Companies

Haydn Shaughnessy

LinkedIn’s list of the 100 most in demand employers is a fascinating group of well known brands. But did LinkedIn manage to create a good list and is it relevant to you?

The list is topped by Google and has folks like Apple running close behind, so no surprise there.

However there are some tips on job seeking, arising from the list, that do have a surprising emphasis  – the power of networking with existing employees of a target firm. I think this is part of the LinkedIn effect on employment. More below.

The list was compiled, obviously, from the activities of people on LinkedIn, so first things first. This is a list that reflects people “connecting with employees, viewing employee profiles, visiting Company and Career Pages, and following companies.”

There’s no question this is a big data triumph, which has tapped into some 15 billion transactions on the site. I see a couple of anomalies.

In Australia, the list is topped by Rio Tinto, the mining company whose employment practices provoked protests ahead of this year’s Olympic games. In Canada the list has RIM at number 3. I can’t help thinking that RIM is a tough place to be right now.

In the USA Google, Apple, Facebook andSalesforce.com are all in the top 5, which makes you think, in the USA at least, the list is biased towards tech companies. Microsoft, which appears at number 3 in the global list, does not appear in the top 5 of US companies – or I am reading these lists wrongly.

The rankings are somewhat biased towards North America with 70 of the top 100 being North American companies. 26 are from the EMEA with only 1 from Latin America. I guess that’s also an insight into who uses LinkedIn.

31 of the US companies are from the West coast, with 19 from San Francisco. Almost 20% of the worlds most popular employers are therefore from this one city.

So, LinkedIn wants you to use the list to discover your company’s talent brand power. But is there a way we job seekers can use it?

Clearly, the top companies are where all our competition is going to be. And the easy answer, go west young folks, is something we already know. LinkedIn, however, has followed up with a series of posts on how to get jobs at these stellar companies.

The first in the series is Expedia, a company doing great things to externalizing its activities.

Read the rest of the Forbes article for more advice and tips