Google has come out on top in a survey about the attractiveness of U.S. companies among prospective employees.

    The U.S. Professional Survey, conducted by employment data and consulting company Universum, interviewed 6,698 college graduates below 40 who have had between one and eight years of professional work experience.

    Those involved in the survey were asked to choose between one and five companies from a list of 200, though they could also choose a company that wasn’t in the list.

    Almost 20 percent of the respondents cited Google as the company they would most like to work for, followed in second place by Apple (12.7 percent). Facebook was also a popular choice, with 8.9 percent of respondents choosing Mark Zuckerberg’s social networking giant as the ideal place to work. When the survey was first taken a year ago, Google was top of the three then, too.

    The top 100 included around 15 tech/Web firms, with Amazon in 6th place, Microsoft in 8th and Sony in 9th.

    Firms in the financial services sector were thought less desirable* among respondents compared to a year ago, with Bank of America Merrill Lynch, for example, dropping from 48 in the list to 77.

    In a similar study conducted recently by Universum looking at desirable companies among workers with a business or engineering background, Google again performed well, coming out on top in both categories. Apple also made the top 10, taking the number 9 spot in the business category, and the number 7 spot in the engineering category.

    Universum’s study was conducted between June and September.

    (SD-Agencies)