More than 150 government officials and representatives of the business community gathered in Beijing on Friday for the 11th ChinaHR Best Employers Award Ceremony.

The event was organized by ChinaHR.com, a leading Chinese recruitment website, with the aim of highlighting the 50 most popular employers in China, based on a recent survey conducted by the company.

According to the survey results, the five most popular employers are China Mobile Communication Company Ltd, Bank of China Ltd, Baidu Inc, Lenovo Group Ltd and Microsoft China Co Ltd.

The survey polled more than 100,000 employees and university students looking for work, and asked people to identify their preferred employer, industry and location, and whether they preferred private or public sector employers. Specific rankings in 16 industries, including hotels and restaurants, construction, education and culture, were also given.

The list of 50 most popular companies reflected preferences for jobs in finance, the Internet, real estate, communications, and energy and chemical resources.

About 30 percent of the companies on the list are in finance and the Internet. The financial sector is seen as being well paid, while Web-based companies are seen as developing steadily and providing a good service to customers.

In a break with previous years, 30 percent of the top 50 employers are State-owned enterprises. More than half of the surveyed university students would prefer to work in government departments, institutions and State-owned enterprises because these jobs are considered more stable.

Among university students hunting for a job, 15 percent are aiming to work in Beijing, with 5.1 percent preferring Shanghai and 1.7 percent targeting Guangzhou. The percentage of university students willing to work in the three cities is less than in 2012, but Beijing is still the most appealing of all locations.

"The survey is a perfect platform for job-seekers and employers to find excellent employers and to present the strength and culture of the enterprises. Therefore, there will be perfect matches between the two parties," says Ciaran Lally, CEO of ChinaHR.com.

"It's incredible how China's economy had continued to grow in the past few years. Online recruitment in China is promising, so we see huge opportunities in China," says Leslie Buckley, chairman of Dublin-based Saongroup, which acquired ChinaHR.com in February.

Lally points out that micro blogs are a very useful tool in recruitment because job seekers and employers can exchange information in a meaningful way.

"Online is becoming more and more dominant as a way to search for and find a job in the world. In recent years, as there are so many jobs online, we moved from the phase of searching for a job to trying to find the right job. ChinaHR allows the companies to use our technology to make the right decision," Lally says.