Introducing the Awards
Now in their tenth year, The SAGEA Employer Awards celebrate the achievements of South Africa’s leading graduate employers. The awards are decided entirely by successful job hunters, who have received confirmed job offers from graduate employers.
How the Awards are Researched
The SAGEA Employer Awards 2019 have been developed as part of The SAGEA Candidate Insights Survey 2019. The survey was carried out on behalf of The South African Graduate Employers Association (SAGEA) by the specialist student and graduate research company, High Fliers Research Ltd.
Launched in 2010, the survey is conducted on an annual basis to help SAGEA members to review the success of their graduate campaigns and help plan their future recruitment programmes. Research took place from March to May 2019, using an online questionnaire and during this time 2,168 candidates responded.
The Graduate Employers of Choice 2019
Each survey participant was asked to name up to two organisations whom they felt had the best graduate programme in specific sectors or industry groups with which they were familiar. There were no lists of organisations to choose from – their responses were entirely unprompted – to help ensure that no preconceptions or assumptions were made regarding a predefined group of employers which candidates may associate with specific sectors. Survey participants were most likely to vote for specific organisations based on the programmes and roles available, the training & development, the overall reputation of the organisation or the appeal of the brand, product or services. The leading employer and two runners-up were recorded across 24 separate sectors and this formed the basis of The Graduate Employers of Choice 2019.
In the accountancy sector, PwC gained more than a quarter of the vote. Between them, Standard Bank, First National Bank and Nedbank gained more than three-fifths of the votes within the banking sector. Once again, the legal sector was very closely fought, with very few votes separating the top two employers.
Two organisations secured first place in two different sectors: Sasol gained the most votes in both the chemical & pharmaceutical and engineering or industrial sectors, while Unilever secured first place for both the FMCG and manufacturing sectors.
Aspirational Employer of Choice 2019
Candidates were asked to name the one organisation they most aspired to work for, irrespective of their current skill-set, degree, qualifications or job offer. While more than 300 organisations were mentioned, PwC was the Aspirational Employer of Choice for 2019, followed by Google and Investec Bank.
