The top 5 companies Malaysians want to work for

Oil and gas companies dominate the ranking of the top companies Malaysians want to work for.

Petronas has emerged as the number one company for job seekers, followed by Shell and Google Malaysia. Maybank and Sime Darby round off the list of the top five employers, according to a survey by Jobstreet.com.

Salary was the resounding consideration that determined which companies employees classified as their favourites - whether they were fresh graduates or experienced professionals.

Besides salary, the priorities of graduates and experienced managers remained surprisingly similar, with both wanting good benefits and incentives, quality of leadership and management, and a solid work environment or culture.

The only variation was in their second most-wanted criterion in a top company, with graduates looking for support for training and L&D, while experienced staff were more concerned with the company's reputation.

However, the respondents weren't too optimistic about landing a job at their dream employers; 46% said that they have no time to apply, or that they did not hear back from the company after expressing interest.

Even so, a majority (88%) said they would resign from their current company, if they were given an opportunity to work in their preferred company. The top reason Malaysian employees want to quit their current jobs was found to be "leadership quality."

"One employee commented that managers are frequently people who have been noticed for having a high level of technical capability, but this does not always amount to having strong management skills, which resulted in lack of leadership quality," the study said.

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Salary was the second biggest reason to resign, with a majority of respondents stating their current employers did not reward them an increment, despite their better performance and having worked for the company for over two years.

"By going to a more recognised company, candidates believe that they could get greater opportunities for salary advancement."

Other reasons that employees listed for dissatisfaction were poor working environment and culture, lack of bonus and incentives, and lack of career growth.