Data are based on ELECTUS (Education-for-Labour Elicitation from Companies' Attitudes towards University Studies) research project, which is carried out in 2015 by the University of Padua in partnership with several other Italian universities with the aim of study the recruiters' preferences in selecting new graduates who apply for a job position in their companies. In particular, data are related to the research coordinated by the University of Milano-Bicocca. Data are collected through a CAWI questionnaire administered to 471 companies in Lombardy, divided into two parts. In the first one, recruiters are asked to choose and rank four possible profiles of new graduates for five different job vacancies. In the second part the entrepreneurs are asked about their socio-demographic features. The project has adopted an experimental research design using the conjoint analysis method, i.e. the generation of different joint combinations of attributes related to the potential candidates for a specific job position. In this way, instead of directly asking entrepreneurs to express a preference on the characteristics of potential candidates for the company's job vacancies, the context of choice of the candidate with the most suitable profile was simulated in a more realistic way. Data are related to the preferences expressed by the interviewees concerning five job vacancies: Administrative Clerk, Human Resource Assistant, Information and Communication Technology Professional (system analyst), Marketing Assistant and Customer Relationships Manager. Candidates' profiles were constructed taking into account six attributes: Field of Study, Degree Mark, Degree Level, English Knowledge, Relevant Work Experience and Willigness to Travel on Business. For more information on method, research design and data collection process see the Methodological Notes.

471 companies (recruiters). Self-selected sample of companies registered on the Portal of Almalaurea and belonging to the Job Placement office of the University of Milano-Bicocca. Each company received a request for participation to the survey with instructions for filling in the questionnaire. The recruiters actually interviewed were self-selected by independently filling in the web questionnaire.

web-based self-administered questionnaire (CAWI)