ITWorldCanada.com has the scoop on a survey of 27,000 Canadian university students, the results of which are pretty interesting:

The study found that two of the top five places to work were tech companies: Google and Apple. According to DECODE partner Eric Meerkamper, “The brands that were chosen are considered to be authentic and innovate; part of some new and important values emerging in the workplace. All of these organizations are places that resonate as being stable and secure. This is an important variable considering the substantial debt load many students will carry upon graduation given rising tuition costs.”

You could essentially distill this down to “people want to work somewhere cool.” And a lot of what’s cool is admittedly perception more than it is reality. Is that fair? Not particularly. But I’d argue that’s almost unavoidable. Think about this question, and answer honestly — would you rather work at Exxon Mobil or Google? Deloitte or Apple? Ernst & Young or Nintendo?

People tend to gravitate towards the younger, hipper companies, even if there’s really not a huge difference in individual experience at the entry-level. And what makes these companies seem “young” and “hip” are actually small things, which don’t have to impact your bottom line. In fact, employers can make their businesses instantly more Y-friendly through just a few small changes to their corporate culture.

Here’s five to get you started:

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All the way from the United Kingdom, it seems we’re not very good.

Of course, this kind of thing has been circulating for years now. There’s really only two types of Gen Y article. The ones that say we’re brilliant, and the ones that say we’re awful. And doomed. This is the second kind.

“A particularly striking finding is the definite assessment AGR members make that Generation Y graduates tend to be ‘less loyal to the business’ that employs them,” the study said, with some employers complaining that young recruits are “self-centred”, “fickle” and “greedy”.

I love how businesses can blame their EMPLOYEES for for not being loyal. That’s kind of like an electronics store blaming their customers for not buying enough electronics. Or to put it another way: doesn’t it make sense for the onus to be on the employer to FOSTER loyalty in their employees, rather than just expecting their employees to have the quality of ‘loyalty’ for no real reason?

My own personal experience tells me that it is extremely possible for a Y worker to feel loyal to an organization. You just need to give us a reason first.

I can’t really argue with ’self-centred’, ‘fickle’ and ‘greedy’, though.