It is not an easy task to rank the best employers of new graduates, even when they are narrowed down to a particular region. After all, professionals look for different features in their jobs and will place more value on certain job attributes than would other employees. This is certainly a good thing as otherwise, everyone would be fighting for the same role.

Even so, some publications have tried to research and list the best employers in particular regions or industries. In this article, we will explore some examples of top American companies that recruit university graduates in the US.

America’s Best Employers for New Graduates by Forbes

In September 2019, Forbes and market research company Statista published their ranking of the top 250 US employers for fresh graduates. They surveyed 10,000 Americans who had less than 10 years of professional experience and worked for organisations with at least 1,000 employees.

So, who took the first place in 2019? The American chain of grocery stores Trader Joe’s, headquartered in California, claimed the prestigious spot in the latest edition of the ranking. Social networking site LinkedIn and multimedia and digital marketing software company Adobe ranked second and third respectively. While there are certainly many noteworthy examples from the ranking, Forbes put special focus on LinkedIn – the company that has climbed nine spots since last year’s publication.

Christina Hall, the chief people officer at LinkedIn, described in detail the multi-layered efforts of the organisation in providing the best possible employee experience. According to her, these efforts often go far beyond the culture within the workplace and should positively impact the recruiting strategy as well. LinkedIn’s three internship programmes – business, creative, and technical – aim to provide diverse opportunities to a wide range of students in the US. “We do around 50 internship programme events across seven offices around the world,” Ms Hall says for Forbes. “A big part of that is making connections between interns and more senior leaders at the company so that they can learn, network, and build real relationships.”

Read: Make Your Career Plan in Graduate School

The company is also keen on providing American employees with a rich learning environment. LinkedIn’s mission of connecting the world’s professionals “to make them more productive and successful” has just as much value within their offices. Time and space to grow is essential even for experienced employees, but even more so for recently recruited graduates. “Our newest hires are incredibly aware of how the workforce has changed from what it was for their parents,” notes Christina Hall.

Employee culture is important but does LinkedIn take care of the more tangible aspects when hiring university graduates? According to Ms Hall, the company reimburses student loan repayments of up to USD 2,000 a year for new US employees. This means that even graduates who have invested a substantial amount in their studies will be able to rely on some additional financial support after completing university.

Top Companies and Jobs 2019 by LinkedIn

While LinkedIn is certainly dedicated to providing a rewarding employee experience, let’s not forget that the organisation also publishes some useful research of its own. University graduates from the US who are interested to know more about their employment opportunities can take a look at LinkedIn’s list of top employers, published earlier in 2019.

Every year the social networking site for professionals reveals the 50 companies where Americans currently want to work. Their methodology is to analyse the anonymised actions of US LinkedIn members across four main attributes: interest in the company, engagement with the company’s employees, job demand, and employee retention. It is also important to note that LinkedIn and LinkedIn’s parent company, Microsoft, are not included in the list from the start. Moreover, separate reports are published for the workforce in Australia, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Japan, Mexico, Brazil, and the UK.

Read: The Latest Employment Trends for Masters Graduates

According to the publication, the top three spots where most US LinkedIn members want to work are the three tech giants – Alphabet (the parent company of Google, YouTube, Nest and others), Facebook, and Amazon. University graduates specialised in Engineering or Information Technologies will be glad to find out that these are among the job functions with the most new hires in the three leading corporations. These results are in line with the booming growth of the tech sector in most parts of the world. In fact, tech and IT companies are heavily represented further down in LinkedIn’s top 50.

Companies that value learning

Students and graduates who would like to delve deeper into the best features of the top US employers can take a look at LinkedIn’s “What may surprise you” column. It reveals curious new facts and trends about each company. For example, The Walt Disney Company covers the education costs not only of its full-time employees but also those of part-time workers: “Disney now pays full tuition upfront for part-time workers who are earning their high school diploma, college degree or are going back to school to learn a new skill.” Accounting firm PwC is also among the US employers who invests resources in the education of their workforce. Employees can pay down their student loans with the help of PwC by getting up to USD 1,200 a year for a period of six years.

While your perfect post-graduate employer may not be in any of them, rankings can be a useful tool for getting to know the current trends and movements in the local job market. If you are looking for employment inspiration, the best course of action is always somewhere in the middle. Try not to limit yourself to company rankings but learn what you can from their most relevant insights.