Finding the Best Place to Work --- An analysis looks at best employers for earnings potential and professional growth

“It hasn't been easy to find an employer that's a good fit.

 

Job seekers often have little more to guide them than word-of-mouth, social-media chatter and websites offering glimpses of pay and benefits. Many end up churning through jobs or finding themselves stuck in a career cul-de-sac.

 

Now, a new analysis provides a potential road map. It points to companies best at hiring early-career candidates, moving employees up through the ranks and providing a stable home base for a career -- both overall, and for specific roles.

 

The Where You Work Matters List, by the Burning Glass Institute and Schultz Family Foundation, looked at the job titles and career moves of more than 12 million people working at more than 1,700 U.S. companies and nonprofits from 2019 to 2024.

 

"My hope is that this can be a nutrition label for workers -- that it can give them more agency for making better-informed decisions that are of tremendous consequence to them," said Matt Sigelman, president of the Burning Glass Institute, a labor-market think tank focused on the future of work.

 

Just 22 companies, from General Motors to the Mayo Clinic and Fidelity Investments, received top marks across the board. Many have developed specific strategies to foster employees' careers.

 

Finding the right fit is critical in a job market headlined by layoffs and hiring freezes and clouded by artificial intelligence and automation. The kind of job insecurity that once seemed the province of hourly, blue-collar jobs haunts white-collar professions these days.

 

Especially now, workers are better off at companies with track records of advancing their employees' careers, rather than those treating workers as expendable, said Rajiv Chandrasekaran, a managing director at the Schultz Family Foundation. (The foundation, started by former Starbucks Chairman and Chief Executive Howard Schultz and his wife, Sheri, focuses on issues of economic mobility.)

 

"Having mobility strength is like having done the physical training and having the whole canteen of water as you hike up that mountain," Chandrasekaran said.

 

The analysis tracked people working in 55,000 jobs and assessed their early-career opportunities, career growth and job stability -- including pay -- across 553 occupation groups. It crunched data from LinkedIn, Indeed, Glassdoor and dozens of other sources.

 

The top 20% of companies for each group were awarded a platinum designation, while the next 20% got a gold status. Companies with the most occupation-level distinctions could receive companywide platinum or gold designations.

 

The best place to work may not be obvious. Financial and investment analysts, for example, might find better jobs outside the financial industry. More tech companies than financial firms got top marks across the board for the analyst positions.

 

Other companies scoring well for financial-analyst careers: Bath & Body Works, Nike and Verizon Communications.

 

Likewise, tech companies like Microsoft and Amazon made up less than a quarter of the list's top-rated employers of data scientists. Just as many of the high-performing companies were in finance and insurance, including Capital One and Citadel Securities.

 

And most of the top-scoring companies for data scientists came from other industries entirely, including Walmart and Domino's Pizza.

 

Those working in food and beverage service should consider applying to top performers including Costco, Texas-based grocer H-E-B or even the restaurants inside Ikea's stores, according to the list.

 

Working at a top-scoring company has concrete benefits, the list's creators say. Employees at companies receiving top ranks overall are more likely to earn more, stay at least three years, be promoted within five years and land a better job elsewhere once they leave. The exact degree of benefit varies by occupation.

 

Chipotle Mexican Grill received gold overall and platinum for early-career jobs. About half its occupation groups, including cooks and food-service managers, received platinum for both early-career and career growth. More received either platinum or gold in at least one area.

 

The company credits, in part, a clear promotion structure that can bring a restaurant line worker through six roles over 3 l/2 years to a step beyond restaurant manager, where annual cash and equity generally exceeds $100,000.

 

Education programs, including tuition reimbursement available within about four months of hire, help attract job candidates, and those that use the programs tend to stick around longer and get promoted faster, the company says.

 

Job candidates shouldn't rule out a company just because it didn't get high marks overall. These employers can still score well for particular occupations. Likewise, specific jobs at platinum companies may not score well.

 

"We're used to thinking about there being good companies and bad companies," Sigelman said. "The reality is that there are good jobs and bad jobs at any given company."

 

Newell Brands, maker of Rubbermaid containers and Yankee Candles, isn't in the top-ranked companies overall, but three-quarters of its job categories got high marks for career growth.

 

The company says it seeks to identify promising employees for promotion, encourages career planning alongside performance reviews and pores over internal data to spot potential matches for open positions, even among employees who haven't applied.

 

"We used to have a post-and-pray model," said Bill Huffaker, Newell's senior vice president for talent development. Now, "we go after passive candidates."” [1]

 

1. Finding the Best Place to Work --- An analysis looks at best employers for earnings potential and professional growth. Francis, Theo; Mollica, Andrew.  Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y.. 26 Mar 2026: A11.