Where You Work Matters: New Workforce Data Reveals the Truth About Career Mobility
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In a labor market where entry-level roles are shrinking and AI is reshaping hiring, understanding which employers truly invest in their workers' growth has never been more critical. That's the mission behind Where You Work Matters, a groundbreaking workforce analytics project that grades 1,750 of America's largest employers based on actual career outcomes.
On the latest episode of You Should Know, host William Tincup sits down with Matt Sigelman, president of the Burning Glass Institute, and Rajiv Chandrasekaran, Managing Director of the Schultz Family Foundation, to unpack the findings and what they mean for HR leaders, workers, and job seekers.
The project draws on a database of 12 million career histories across 1,800 companies, measuring promotion velocity, retention, pay growth, and regrettable turnover. As Sigelman explains, the goal is to cut through employer marketing claims and focus on empirical outcomes: "If two people start in the same role at directly competing firms, how likely are they each to move up? How likely are they each to stay? How does their pay change over time?"
The conversation challenges conventional HR wisdom. Tincup argues that regrettable turnover—not raw turnover—is the metric that matters, a point Sigelman and Chandrasekaran affirm, adding that transparency benefits workers too.
The research exposes surprising findings: only 22 of roughly 1,750 companies earned Platinum ratings across every category. Of the hundreds of firms employing financial analysts, just 27 rated as great across early career, growth, and stability stages, and only six of those were in banking or financial services. Standouts included General Mills, Liberty Mutual, and Nike. At Whole Foods, food preparation workers fare surprisingly well because prepared foods drive margin.
Chandrasekaran cites conversations with CHROs at top-rated firms who point to intentional manager conversations about career trajectory as the practice that separates leaders from laggards.
With the disappearance of entry-level jobs flagged in a recent Harvard Business Review article, the project offers a new tool for the class of 2026: an occupation finder that surfaces roughly 6,000 highly rated entry-level openings.