An estimated 5,000 organisations will be competing to hire the best graduates from UK universities during the 2008-09 recruitment season, despite the downturn in the economy.

With such a bewildering choice of employment, how can graduate job hunters identify the best opportunities? To compile The Times Top 100 Graduate Employers for 2008, the graduate market research company High Fliers Research interviewed 15,381 final-year students from the class of 2008 who left UK universities earlier this summer.

The key question used to produce the top 100 league table was: “Which employer do you think offers the best opportunities for graduates?” This question was intentionally openended and students across the whole survey nominated more than 600 different employers — from the smallest local or regional businesses to some of the world’s best-known companies. The 100 organisations with the most votes form The Times Top 100 Graduate Employers.

Looking at graduates’ responses, it is clear that individual job hunters used very different criteria to determine which employer they considered offered the brightest prospects. Some focused on organisations’ public image, their business profile or their commercial success. Others evaluated employers based on the information they had seen during their job search — the quality of recruitment promotions, the impression formed from meeting company staff, or experiences through the recruitment and selection process. Some also considered the level of vacancies available or were influenced by the employer’s profile on campus.

However, many final-year students used the “employment proposition” as their main guide — the quality of graduate training and development an employer offers, the salary and remuneration package and the practical aspects of a first job such as its location or working hours.

The resulting league table is a celebration of the UK’s most exciting and sought-after graduate employers and includes representatives from every major employment sector and business type.

Finance and accountancy firms dominate the top rankings this year but things were very different when the first edition of The Times Top 100 Graduate Employers appeared a decade ago. The class of 1998 named Andersen Consulting as its employer of choice and half the top 20 organisations that graduates thought offered the best opportunities were manufacturing or industrial companies. By contrast, just four of the employers in the 2008 top 20 actually make anything.

Only three organisations have made it to number one over the past ten years. Having stormed to the top spot in 1998, Andersen Consulting, later renamed Accenture, remained there for five consecutive seasons. Its success heralded a surge in popularity for careers in consulting and, at its peak in 2001, almost one in six university graduates applied for jobs in the sector. In 2003 the Civil Service was named Britain’s leading graduate employer but was displaced 12 months later by PricewaterhouseCoopers, the accountancy giant that has now retained the number one position for five years running.

A total of 181 different organisations have appeared within The Times Top 100 Graduate Employers since its inception. Only 36 of these have made it into the rankings every year since 1998.

The most consistent performers have been the Civil Service, KPMG and Accenture, each of which has never been lower than eighth place.

A free summary of The UK Graduate Careers Survey 2008 is available from www.highfliers.co.uk

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