The top 10 companies finance professionals want to work for

More financial services professionals want to work for Goldman Sachs than any other organisation, according to the 2016 eFinancialCareers ‘Ideal Employer’ rankings.

In a survey of over 6,500 financial services professionals mainly from the UK, U.S. and Asia, Goldman Sachs came in first, ahead of its U.S. rival J.P. Morgan, followed by – perhaps surprisingly – Google, which ranked above every other major financial institution.

Ideal Employer – Global Top 10

The allure of Goldman Sachs is well-known – the bank attracts 267,000 job applications annually and hires just 3% – but it’s still something of a blow for J.P. Morgan, which is the top-ranked investment bank by revenue in 2016, according to data from Dealogic and also dominates the fixed income, currencies and commodities markets.

Goldman still leads the way in M&A, though, with nearly 12% of the revenues in 2016, according to Dealogic, and it’s this area of banking that still makes the headlines and holds the biggest appeal.

The importance of pay

So, why do financial services professionals want to work for Goldman Sachs? Of the people who voted for the bank as the best place to work, the majority believed that a competitive compensation package is its main strength as well as being a ‘leader in the industry’.

85% of financial services professionals who voted for Goldman said competitive salary is a ‘strength’ and 84% thought the same for competitive bonuses. Meanwhile, 82% said it was a leader in the industry, and 77% suggested it affords opportunities to work with key players in the financial sector.

Meanwhile, 78% of people who voted for J.P. Morgan said it pays competitive salaries and 69% believe it offers attractive bonuses.

How accurate are these perceptions?

Well, for a start Goldman pays its senior staff very well – total average compensation for its UK ‘code staff’ in 2014 (the latest available figures) was $2.3m, compared to a mean figure of $1.4m at J.P. Morgan. Across the bank, Goldman Sachs paid an average of $344k in 2015 – down from $379k in 2014. J.P. Morgan paid $205k on average, but its reporting numbers combine high-flying investment bankers with less well-paid corporate bankers, so it’s not an entirely accurate comparison.

Most banks in the top ten scored highly on competitive compensation. The outlier, however, was HSBC. 57% of people who voted for HSBC believe that competitive salary is a strength and just 43% said the same for bonuses.

To those in investment banking, this isn’t a huge surprise – HSBC has long been perceived as being a low payer relative to its peers. This isn’t, perhaps, entirely fair – its code staff received an average of $1m in 2014, which is in line with its competitors (Goldman aside), and the bank recently increased pay for its juniors by 12.5% to keep it in line with its peers. HSBC still makes the top 10 despite this perceived weakness.

Google’s appeal

Google, which attracts 75,0000 job applications a week, has an appeal that stretches beyond technology professionals. With an increased number of former finance professionals launching their own fintech firms, it’s perhaps not surprising that Google is attractive to bankers looking an alternative career.

Google scored highly on competitive salary – with 74% of respondents saying they were strong in this criteria – but finance professionals wishing to work for the firm are less interested in money. Instead, Google’s perceived strengths are being an innovator in the industry (86% of respondents) and its office environment (86%).

This is less about providing sleeping pods, in-house pubs and helter-skelters in the office, but more about being given the opportunity for more interesting and varied work. Google was also way ahead of financial services organisations in terms of positive culture, with a score of 80%. The bank with the highest score for this criteria in the top ten was Bank of America Merrill Lynch with 57% of respondents perceiving this as a strength.

Long hours in banking

Most investment banks have made an effort to address long working hours, particularly for juniors, but financial services professionals are realistic about the need to burn the midnight oil. Not a single bank scored above 50% for manageable working hours being a strength, but it was the industry leaders that were perceived as being particularly weak in this area.

Despite its ‘protected Saturdays’ at Goldman Sachs, which requires all analysts and associates to leave the office at 9pm on Fridays and not return until 9am on Sunday, just 13% of respondents voting for the bank said that ‘manageable’ working hours were a strength. Goldman, on average, is said to require 72.4 hours a week from its employees.

Blackstone, the top-ranked private equity firm, scored 16% on this criteria, while Mckinsey & Co, which was the most popular professional services firm, scored 20%. The perception appears to be that if you want to work for the top company in a particular sector, you have to be prepared to put in the hours.

Certainly, across the industry, financial services professionals don’t view work-life balance as being a key reason for choosing an employer. Just 52% of respondents to the survey said it was important to them, way behind factors like compensation, promotion opportunities and positive culture.

View the complete 2016 Ideal Employer Global Top 30