America’s Most-Wanted Employers

Where do undergraduates most want to work? Google, the Walt Disney Co., Apple, Ernst & Young, and the State Department.

And where do M.B.A. students want to work? Google, McKinsey & Co., Goldman Sachs, Apple, and the Boston Consulting Group, according to a survey by Universum Communications, a research firm.

The survey found that M.B.A. students' top career goal was a tie between being competitively and intellectually challenged, and having a work-life balance. Those goals were followed in order by being a leader or manager, being entrepreneurial or creative/innovative, and being dedicated to a cause or serving the greater good.

There's no mention of money in that list, which suggests that M.B.A. students think that there's more to life than a five-figure bonus—or that sizable incomes are taken for granted, and no one would bother calling them a "goal."

That Google is on both lists is a testament to the growing importance of workplace massages. OK, probably not. Rather, it's a likely testament to the importance of working in a place that prizes innovation and rewards great ideas.

As more companies adopt four-day workweeks and take up telecommuting to help get employees out of their cars, these recent graduates may find that unendurably high gas prices will afford them the work-life balance they desire.

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