Best Companies to Work for

Every year Fortune Magazine comes out with a list of the 100 best companies to work for. I've worked at a couple of companies that have made this list in the past, Sun Microsystems & EDS (neither of who have made the list recently). And I would have to agree that Sun does not belong on that list anymore. The cost of benefits keeps increasing for the employer and the job satisfaction I've had has steadily decreased lately. Sun does have a great telecommuting program, although it may hurt many groups more than it benefits them. Well this year with my changing jobs to go work for Microsoft (# 50 on this years list), I am once again part of a company that made the list. I'm not sure that it matters a whole lot, but there is some mental happiness in the fact that someone else thinks that where I work is a good place to work. In the stats for Microsoft, they are given high accolades for their top notch benefits, especially paying 100% of health care benefits (This is a big deal as I have a new baby). I also found it interesting that they hired 5203 people last year, and received 947,250 applications for employment, so only 0.5% of applicants get a job there. That apparently does not include people, like myself, who did not apply for a job, but were recruited directly by Microsoft. Anyhow, nothing too interesting, but it is somewhat satisfying to be somewhere where other people want to be as well.