• by Laurie Sullivan  @lauriesullivan, December 7, 2016

Glassdoor has published its Employees' Choice Awards, highlighting the best places to work based on more than 2.1 million anonymous company reviews.

Bain & Company took the No. 1 ranking for the third time (2017, 2014 and 2012), and is among only three employers that have made this list for nine consecutive years.

Tech companies took many of the accolades for the best places to work. Those that manage to create a work and family life balance seem to have the highest scores.

Facebook helped to catapult Facebook into the No. 2 spot. "I'm a 55 year old working in a company where the average age is 28, and I've never been happier. I have always wanted to work in a company where I wasn't the proverbial square peg, and after nearly 30 years in the work force, I believe that I have found the company that complements my ideology for how a company should operate," according to one reviewer.

The No 3 spot went to Boston Consulting Group, Google took No. 4 based on its good-quality free food, excellent health insurance and 401K retirement plans. World Wide Technology rounds out the top five.

Other tech companies on the list include LinkedIn at No. 8, Adobe at No. 9, SAP at No. 15, MathWorks at No. 16, Salesforce at No. 17, and Intuit at No. 20.

Apple appeared on the Top 50 list at No. 36, and Microsoft at No. 37.

The top five "Best Small & Medium Companies to Work for in 2017" began with Greenhouse Software at No. 1, Illuminate Education at No. 2, Entelo at No 3, SailPoint Technologies at No. 4, and SeatGeek at No. 5.

Winners are determined based on company reviews shared by employees during the past year. Eligibility requires an organization to receive at least 75 employee reviews during the past year. This year the awards features six categories honoring the Best Places to work in the U.S., Canada, UK, France, and Germany.