Gary Zhou 
Tesla said in its 2021 Impact Report that it received 3 million job applications from potential employees last year.
“By attracting, developing, and retaining excellent talent, we’ve developed a pipeline of diverse and exceptional candidates while fostering an inclusive culture that supports them once they become employees,” Tesla said in the report. “Whether it is through our direct hiring opportunities, internships, or workforce development programs, interest in joining Tesla’s mission is at an all-time high. We had more than 3,000,000 unique applicants globally in 2021 alone.”
Tesla has received an increase in prospective employees over the past several years. In 2019, Tesla received around 750,000 job applications. In 2020, this number grew to around 2,250,000 applications, with 2021 seeing another increase to around 3 million.
Tesla said it encouraged more applicants to join the company through a number of new outreach programs and initiatives:
“We expanded access to hiring opportunities for underrepresented communities by centering diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in our hiring process. We did so by increasing gender-neutral language in our job descriptions, broadening our sourcing efforts, revamping interviewing guides, building community partnerships, educating on unconscious bias, and facilitating training for recruiters, hiring managers, and interview panelists.”
The automaker, along with Elon Musk’s aerospace entity SpaceX, is highly attractive for recent engineering graduates, according to a 2021 Universum survey. SpaceX was the top choice among graduate engineers, while Tesla ranked number two. Nasa, Lockheed Martin, and Boeing rounded out the top five. The first automaker outside of Tesla to land on the list was General Motors, which ranked as the 17th most attractive place to work. Ford ranked 20th.
Tesla is a highly attractive company due to its revolutionary status as a major disruptor in the global automotive industry. While Tesla is widely credited with catalyzing the EV movement as a whole, it has managed to revolutionize a number of other relevant topics, including manufacturing. CEO Elon Musk has been one of the most well-versed CEOs in history from a standpoint of understanding the complete process of building a car from start to finish. Musk has focused on manufacturing efficiencies to help Tesla gain momentum and grow at an incredibly fast rate. “Tesla will be absolutely head and shoulders above anyone else in manufacturing. That is our goal,” Musk said in 2020.
Nearly all parts of the Tesla manufacturing process involve engineering, but the vast need for specialists in each field is what makes Tesla so special. While industrial engineers can make further advanced in manufacturing, software engineers can help Tesla improve its Autopilot and Full Self-Driving suites. There is no shortage of engineers needed to accelerate the world’s transition to sustainable energy.
