If you are in the early stages of your career, you may be wondering about the relative benefits and risks of working at a small startup company versus a large, well-established corporation. Which is the best career path?
The answer really depends more on you than anything else. Both venues offer strong potential for your professional growth, but depending on your psychological makeup and other factors, you may wind up feeling out of place if you don’t fit well into your work environment.
[See: 25 Best Jobs That Don’t Require a College Degree.]
As you decide which path to follow, it is important for you to assess your own level of self-confidence, risk-tolerance, entrepreneurship, flexibility, desire and need for consistency, a mentor and more.
Typically, startups will have less than 75 or 80 people working at them. The organization will be virtually flat, without multiple levels of management and oversight. That will give you more opportunity to experiment, but less tolerance for failure.
Everyone will have a key role to play in the development and marketing of some new and disrupting product, process or service. That means you must take ownership and responsibility for whatever your share of the work will be. And, you will have the satisfaction, if things turn out well, of knowing that you had a significant hand in the company’s success.
On the other hand, if you prefer to be one of a number of people on a specialty team, all working on the same aspect of a problem, you may want to gear yourself toward a larger company. You may gain a greater sense of collegiality with your peers, as well as a more clearly defined career path that you can follow as you develop your skills and gain greater experience. While the whole company may not be riding on your shoulders, neither will your contribution to the end product be as noticeable.
[See: The 25 Best Jobs of 2018.]
At a basic level, understand that compensation is determined differently by these two types of organizations. With little money to burn, and no (or little) cash flow yet if the company hasn’t launched (or only recently launched) a product, a startup will likely offer a very modest salary with promises of long-term riches in the form of stock options if the company does well. It is a risk, and it may be worth taking — or not.
Don’t underestimate the risk intrinsic to every startup. No matter how grand the idea or vision of a leader may be, it is a long way from there to successful development, production and successful marketing of his or her product.
If things don’t go well for the company, as is the case more often than not, you may leave without much to show for it. On the other hand, of course, is the example of the initial successful employees of former startup superstars like Amazon, Google or Microsoft who did quite well for themselves.
Are you prepared to do whatever is necessary for your company to succeed, including working late at night and on weekends because there isn’t anyone else around who can do what you can do? Are you the kind of person who is self-confident, and wants to be on the cutting edge developing or being a part of new and disruptive concepts, technologies and products? If you can deal with high stress and the uncertainty of success, you may have the right psychological profile for a startup.
[See: Don’t Be That Guy (or Gal): 8 Networking Turn-Offs.]
Larger companies, on the other hand, will likely afford you greater opportunities to be mentored by your boss or someone else with considerable knowledge and experience, and this can be a big boon for you in the long term. Also, they tend to have deeper financial resources, which provides you the assurance of continuous paychecks.
When you take an honest self-evaluation of your own psychological profile and understand the limits of your own willingness to take financial risks, you’ll see for yourself whether a large company or a tiny startup is the best place for you to make a valuable contribution.
Happy hunting!
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Startups vs. Big Companies: Which Is Better for Your Career? originally appeared on usnews.com
