LinkedIn Top Companies is a series of business rankings published by LinkedIn, identifying companies in the United States, as well as 19 other countries in Europe, Asia, Latin America and Oceania, that provide the best opportunities for employees to grow their careers.[1] The lists draw on the latest 12 months of data involving actions onsite by LinkedIn's 756 million members worldwide. The Top Companies lists were started in 2016 and are published annually.
LinkedIn's lists are based on billions of actions globally by the site's registered users.[2] In 2018, the methodology focused on measuring interest in a company’s jobs and people, as well as a company’s ability to retain its employees.[3] At that time, performance metrics included the rate at which people were viewing and applying to job postings, including paid listings, unpaid ones and those linked from other sites. LinkedIn also tracked how many professionals were viewing a company’s career page, how many non-employees were asking to connect with a company’s employees—and whether employees at companies under study were sticking around for at least a year.
Academic experts such as Wharton professors Charles Bidwell and Adam Grant, along with Harvard Business School professor Francesca Gino, have advised LinkedIn on how to expand the analysis that underlies these rankings.[4] As a result, the methodology for 2021 was updated to focus on seven themes associated with career progression: ability to advance, skills growth, company stability, external opportunity, gender diversity, company affinity and employees' diversity of educational backgrounds.[5] The methodology doesn't include factors such as race or salary levels.[6]
All results are normalized to ensure that companies are measured against peers. The lists consider public and privately held companies with 500 or more employees, with the exception of LinkedIn and its parent company, Microsoft, which are excluded.[7]
In the 2018 U.S. list, companies in technology, media and finance were especially prominent, according to CNBC.[8] Among the top 10 U.S. companies analyzed by Inc., Amazon offered to prepay 95 percent of tuition, textbooks, and fees for its employees to receive training in "professions of the future." Alphabet's newest offices included sky-high dog parks, indoor fire pits, and bouldering walls. Tesla has a carpool program that lets employees drive a Tesla to work and keep it on weekends, and Comcast NBCUniversal employees get complimentary access to Universal theme parks, as well as early access to NBCUniversal movies and TV shows.[9]
In the 2021 list, according to AdWeek,[10] the COVID-19 pandemic increased the prominence of healthcare companies on the list. These include UnitedHealth Group (No. 11), CVS Health (15), Kaiser Permanente (23), Johnson & Johnson (30) and HCA Healthcare (34). Companies with active diversity initiatives also appeared prominently. So did companies that helped employees build more of a life at home.
LinkedIn's 2021 Top Companies U.S. list ranked 50 companies, with Amazon in the No. 1 spot, followed by Google's parent company, Alphabet, as No. 2, JPMorgan Chase as No. 3, AT&T as No. 4 and Bank of America as No. 5.
The Top Companies lists weren't published in 2020.
LinkedIn's 2019 U.S. list[11] ranked 50 companies, with Alphabet appearing as No. 1, followed by Facebook as second and Amazon in third. The 2018 U.S. list ranked 50 companies, with Amazon appearing as No. 1. Google's parent company, Alphabet, was second and Facebook ranked third.[12] The 2017 U.S. list also ranked 50 companies. Alphabet captured the top ranking, Amazon was listed as No. 2, and Facebook was No. 3.[13]
LinkedIn's inaugural list in 2016 ranked 40 U.S. companies, with Google earning the No. 1 position, followed by Salesforce and Facebook.[14]