Young professionals no longer chase fast career growth
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More than 8,000 students from 40 leading universities in Russia told what really important for them when choosing an employer. The results are surprising: what was yesterday considered the key factor for success, today is left behind new values.
Stability, reliability and flexibility are becoming priorities
For the first time in five years stability and reliability of company has become the second most important factor in important factor in the choice of employer, overtaking the traditional criteria such as “Valuable experience for future career” (ranked second in the last year Balance of work and personal life continues to remain one of the key priorities of young people. For the second year in a row this factor falls into the top-3 and with each year gains a increasing share of respondents (35% in 2024 as opposed to 43% in 2025 year). A new trend in preferences of young professionals – flexible schedule of work. In 2024 this factor has become one of the majority priorities for the majority of students. More than 40% of respondents expressed willingness to work in hybrid format,With 60% of they prefer the option with two days of work from office, and 50% – with three. For the first time in five years of study the opportunity of remote work gave way to flexibility of work schedule. Fast career growth in 2023 year was in the top-3 factors and since since the pore has lost 13 positions. So achievement has become less prioritized, while it has become more important for young people to understand how they can grow and develop, while maintaining a comfortable tempo and balance with personal life. When talking about career activities, the obvious leader among students has become case championships and hackathons. For example, while in 2023 year 58% of students chose online courses, in 2024 year this number has decreased to 32%. In place of this case championships and hackathons are the second and third place in popularity among students. For IT professionals these events are especially attractive, interest increases by Monetary expectations at internship also increased by – by 22% in 2025 relative to 2024 – and amounted 46,5 thou. rubles (in last year 37,8 thousand). Wishes for salary on internship on all courses in average on 70-80% lower, than on the first staff job. We conclude that businesses are beneficial to hire student interns, especially in conditions of deficit of staff. Salary expectations in the state in 2025 increased by 16% relative to 2024and amounted to 79.4 thousand rubles. Freshmen bachelor students want more money (76.6 thousand rubles.), than the students of the second and Majors, in turn, expect substantial increases in salary immediately after graduation from fourth course – 86 thousand thousand dollars. on the first course of the mastership and 96 thousand. in second (+7% and +20% to fourth course). For the first timein fouryearsthemanagementfieldovertookIT and becamethetop-1in popularity.In thisnicheprofessionprojectmanagerismore popular thanproductmanager. In IT top-3professions:backend-developer(with strongdistance),frontend-,testerand fullstack-developerwith roughlyequaldistributionofvotes.In marketingyoungpeoplemostwanttoworkin therolesofmarketingmanager,marketing-analystand PR-manager. Financialsphere,whichwasin top-3in lastyear,haslostpopularity,droppingto threepositions.Maintaining the trend of comfort
Flexibility in schedule of work displaced remote
Transparency career growth is more important than speed
Case Championships and hackathons are growing in popularity
Salary expectations of freshmen are higher, than than those of second and third year students
The most attractive professions in the opinion of students
