This article expresses a personal opinion and it is made only after some personal experiences. Maybe you don’t agree with me, but also maybe you speak from your perspective (not mine).
In my professional experience, I’ve worked around 4 years on 2 corporations (that type of international company with 100+ employees on a location). It meant a lot for me because here I grew as a specialist. Here I had a lot of different experiences and I understood how to manage them properly.
But also during these experiences, I had moments very stressful and very close to burnout.
It was a moment when I decided to make a change to a different type of context: a smaller company (under 30 employees) with local management. Why I did this? Because it had a good reputation in the market, I liked the management and I saw that it had a low turnover rate.
I felt this change a little risky, but looking back, I think it was the best decision I ever took into my career.
As an employee, I prefer a smaller company to a bigger one. But as a recruiter, I see advantages of both contexts and I think that it depends on each of us to find what fits us best.
Here are some of my arguments for whom I prefer small companies:
- Stronger relationships. It is easier to keep in touch with a team with 10 members than with 100. And by ”keep in touch” I don’t mean to see them daily during lunch break / at smoking lunch or to talk only with people from your department. It means to know everybody from the company by their name, to know things about their families or their hobbies.
- Support everywhere. I remember my first day here and I remember how I day 3 people near me to help with accounts and accesses (and they appeared from nowhere here me) . One of them came to me and told me so naturally ”hey, I came to help you with the laptop”. And it was the first time when I met him and he came to me without any ticket or formal request :D
- Leaders close to you. When you have a problem, you don’t have to go to the next door to talk with your manager or to book a slot in his calendar. Just tell him that you want to talk to him. And also all the approvals you need on your work - they are close to you.
- More involvement in the business. In a small company, it is easier to understand business decisions and to find information about your clients. It is easier to understand how your work has an impact on business profit.
- Avoid burnout. Maybe it is not generally true, but for me, a small company helped me to avoid burnout. Probably because here I had a constant workload (without fluctuations) and a sustained development plan
To be fair, I will say also some advantages of corporations:
- Big teams bring you different opportunities to grow (vertical, but also as a side change)
- Some companies can bring traveling opportunities to clients or stakeholders
- Working for big names - some of them may be international known
- You will always have somebody else senior close to you who can teach you
- Speaking (business) English or using international tools
In the end, I will say something that I said also during other articles. A company is not good or bad by default; leaders are the ones who make it good or bad.
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