Our 2025 Ideal Employer report, based on over 15,000 responses to our global survey, is out. We had a clear winner: JPMorgan. But the data had a deeper story to tell.
We also asked all of our survey respondents whether or not they had worked for their chosen Ideal Employer before (or currently). Many did, and some interesting patterns emerged among those that did and those that did not.
Like last year, Ideal Employers are overwhelmingly aspirational – most people have not worked for the employers they voted for. Just 28% of respondents to our survey said their Ideal Employers were organizations they’re working for now or had worked for in the past.
However, respondents were more likely to select a firm they were familiar with as their first-choice Ideal Employer. 34% of first-choice Ideal Employers were ones that respondents had actual experience of working for, compared to 21% of second choice ideal employers.
As the chart on this page shows, the top three slots for Ideal Employers based on the choices of employees who’ve worked at firms are the same as the top three slots for employees overall: JPMorgan, Deloitte, and BlackRock.
But beyond the top three, however, the ranking diverges.
EY and HSBC ranked far better among employees who’ve worked there than employees who haven’t. For example, experienced employees at HSBC ranked the bank better for flexible work, as well as its impact on their health.
By comparison, Boston Consulting Group ranked worse among its experienced employees. People who worked there gave it poor marks for compensation versus the perception of outsiders. However, insiders said BCG was more flexible and less harsh for their health than outsiders supposed it to be. KPMG also ranked worse with experienced employees, who struggled to belong at the firm and felt a toll on their physical health.
Even at our top three firms – JPMorgan, Deloitte, and Blackrock, we found that respondents with experience of those firms rated them differently than outsiders. At all three firms, the biggest differences were for flexible working perceptions: insiders perceived their flexible work policies much more generously than outsiders did.
Interestingly, we noticed that some industries were better perceived from within than outside. These include boutique investment banks, private equity firms, and electronic trading firms. Sectors that were better perceived from outside include professional services firms, hedge funds, and asset managers. Bigger investment banks were seen broadly on par by insiders and outsiders.
Generally, the bigger an employer was, the closer their insider scores were to outsider perceptions. This is quite obvious; the more employees a firm has, the weaker its grip on their secrecy is. Big companies have a lot of people willing to talk about them because a lot of people work for them.
Have a confidential story, tip, or comment you’d like to share? Contact: +44 7537 182250 (SMS, WhatsApp or voicemail). Telegram: @SarahButcher. Signal: sarahbutcher.22 Click here to fill in our anonymous form, or email editortips@efinancialcareers.com.
Bear with us if you leave a comment at the bottom of this article: comments are moderated intermittently by human beings. Sometimes these humans might be asleep, or away from their desks, so it may take a while for your comment to appear. You must take sole responsibility for comments you post on this site. We will take reasonable steps to weed out anything that we consider to be offensive or inappropriate.