How we pick them

Think of it as a popularity contest for companies: Every year research firm Universum Global ranks the most desirable employers, based on where undergraduate students around the world say they'd most like to work after graduation.

To pick the World's Top Employers for New Grads, Universum surveyed nearly 94,000 business students and more than 88,000 engineering students at more than 1,300 colleges in the world's 12 largest economies between the months of December 2012 and May 2013.

Students were asked to choose the five companies they would most like to work for from a list of top employers in each market, based on market presence and recruitment activity. They also have the opportunity to write in the name of a company if it was not included in the list.

The rankings are based on how many times the company was selected as one of five ideal employers.

To appear on the list, employers must rank in the top 90% of Universum's rankings in at least 6 of these economies -- the U.S., China, Japan, Germany, France, U.K., Brazil, Russia, Italy, India, Canada and Australia. Results are weighted by GDP, so a high rank in the U.S. has a larger influence than one in, say, Italy.

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