Uber Is Still A Company People Want To Work At — Despite Bad PR

Uber is continually in PR crisis mode, but according to LinkedIn’s 2017 Top Companies list for which people want to work for, that hasn’t deterred interest in working for the company. Uber comes in as number five on the list.

LinkedIn’s second annual Top Companies list features the top 50 most in-demand companies for job applicants. LinkedIn created this list based on job application numbers, professionals who viewed a company’s career page, and the amount of time people remained employed at each company.

The top five positions consist of Alphabet, Amazon, Facebook, Salesforce, and Uber, respectively. Uber beat out Tesla (No. 6), Apple (No. 7), and even Walt Disney (No. 9) on the list.

Caroline Fairchild, LinkedIn’s senior editor, talked to experts to see why Uber is so far up on the list and found out that it’s because of brand recognition. Josh Bersin, who studies employer brands, said people would rather work somewhere that’s known — regardless of it being infamous — because it could “propel them to the next step.” Fairchild also discovered that many former Uber employees saw employment there as a means to an end and would just put up with the terrible work culture.

Uber’s No. 5 position in LinkedIn’s list is explained by the fact that, year over year, the number of people that applied for open positions Is still up by more than 35 percent. However, there has been some backlash from all the bad press the ride-hailing company has been getting. Fairchild said that after the #DeleteUber campaign and Susan Fowler’s blog post on sexual harassment, applications dropped by 15 percent. Maybe next year Uber will fall from the top five list and replaced by another tech giant.