Heineken remains most favoured employer for Dutch millennials

DutchNews, June 25, 2018

For the third consecutive year  Amsterdam-based brewer Heineken was selected as the best employer by Dutch university students, according to a report by Swedish marketing group Universum. 

Universum polled nearly 22,000 students in Dutch universities and other institutions of higher learning for this year’s survey which covered 120 companies, the Financieele Dagblad said. 

Electric car maker Tesla is favoured overwhelmingly by engineering students who are attracted by founder Elon Musk’s green mission, Universum said. The fact that Amsterdam was Tesla’s European headquarters and the car maker had production facilities in Tilburg added to Tesla’s attractiveness. 

Building companies are somewhat surprisingly attractive to engineering students, the FD said. BAM moved to 18th place from 22nd, Heijmans rose to 24th from 36th and Boskalis moved to 30th place from 38th. The construction sector is booming, average executive ages are on the high side and many are talking early retirement, the paper added. 

The position of the top five companies was unchanged from 2017:  Heineken, KLM, Google, Nike and Apple. All benefit from the positive image of their products and services. 

Shell, long near the top, continued its long slide down the top 10. Supermarket chain Lidl, third largest in the country, PostNL and the tax office also continued to lose favour with new graduates.