The likes of Google and Apple may have the fancy employee perks and a slide in their office, but that doesn’t necessarily make them the best option for graduates wanting to break into the tech industry.
Sure, there’s no doubt that a free lunch would be nice and a stint at one of the top tech companies would sound pretty cool on your CV, but with wider brand recognition comes higher competition and for many job seekers the thought of working at one of the tech giants becomes a faded dream.
But that doesn’t mean that they have to ditch their dreams of breaking into tech and joining a newer, smaller startup may in fact be the best thing for their career. Here’s why:
1) Experience
In this day in age where you need experience to get experience, it can be much tougher to get your foot in the door of a large organisation, such as the Googles of the world. Smaller startup businesses, however, embrace graduates and are more than happy to offer internships and entry level roles to individuals who are on the hunt for their first job. You may decide that you love working for a startup, but if you’ve still got your heart set on a Fortune 500 then working at a startup could work as a good stepping stone to achieving this.
2) Responsibility
With fewer pairs of hands in a startup, than a larger organisation, employees have to take on multiple roles and help out in every way possible. For this reason you are forced to take on a lot of responsibilities quickly, in order to adjust and keep the business running smoothly. Everything you do in a start-up will have a direct impact on the business and are therefore more likely to receive the recognition for your hard work.
3) Learning
With great responsibility comes lots of learning opportunities. Smaller companies don’t really have the time to mother new employees and you will be expected to learn on the job. This isn’t a bad thing though, as you will quickly be introduced to all different aspects of the business to make up for having a smaller team and therefore will pick up all sorts of new skills and experience.
4) Influence
You are given a lot more freedom in a startup to get your work done in a way that you feel works best and therefore there is much more room for innovation and creativity. All employees are encouraged to have an input in a startup environment, so you will have much more say about how the business is run and shaping your work environment. There is also a much lesser sense of hierarchy in a smaller team and you are likely to find that you are working alongside people of all levels of seniority, including the CEO.
5) Flexibility
Startups are often a lot more relaxed than corporate organisations when it comes to the working day and time off, so there is a lot more room for flexibility in terms of the hours you work, or the option of working from home if necessary. Startups are more about getting the work done, than the hours that you put in.
6) Culture
The company culture can have a huge impact on how happy you are in a job, so you want to find one that suits you. Working in a startup often means that you are able to shape the culture around you. Larger organisations will have pre-formed company cultures that have existed over the years, with the coming and going of different employees; however with a smaller team, you are your colleagues will have a direct impact on your working environment and you are able to provide feedback and ideas about how it can be improved or changes to make sure that everyone is happy.
7) Future
With new technology appearing all around us, you never know what’s going to be the next big thing. Your new startup could even grow to be the next Apple!
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