As per a survey conducted recently by graduate recruitment outfit TALENTBANK in Malaysia, for women looking for their first job after graduating, salary and bonuses come first, and career development comes second while it is the reverse for men.

The survey revealed that the two are the top five factors undergraduates looked for in their first job, besides learning and development opportunities, flexible working hours as well as company culture where the preference for both genders is the same, as per TALENTBANK founder and chief executive officer Ben Ho.

The parallel survey was conducted by the recruitment company when 28,000 undergraduates voted in the 2nd Annual Graduate Choice Awards (GCA) where they picked the top five most attractive employer brands, namely — Maybank, Petronas, Maxis, Samsung and PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC).

Undergraduates from more than 100 universities voted for their preferred employer brands from a total of 83 companies across 23 categories.

Ben noted that the big number of votes for employers this year compared with 11,000 last year indicates that undergraduates were beginning to discover the importance of their voice as far as employer branding is concerned.

“From an employer’s perspective, the higher participation by undergraduates is an indication that young people are paying more attention to what companies do to brand themselves,” he added.

The results thought not very surprising, are an indication for the industry as to what undergraduates in Malaysia are looking for which can help them better fine-tune their TA processes.