All entries for Thursday 23 May 2013

Is It Better to Work for a Large or Small Company?

Writing about web page http://lifehacker.com/is-it-better-to-work-for-a-large-or-small-company-496172191

A Lifehacker reader asks: Is it better to work for a large or small company? It was so exciting to see what is sort-of-almost like my research question discussed on the Internet that I felt compelled to blog about it. It's an interesting issue to consider as over a third of graduates work in small or a medium-sized business.

Source: HECSU Blog

Lifehacker's advice highlights some of the pros and cons for each, summarised below.

The large companies have structure, perks and internal career development going for them, but the downsides include a slow pace of change, not knowing all the staff, and being stuck in a team of depressing people. Lifehacker acknowledges that this last point can occur in any company, but maintains that it can be more damaging in a large one.

On the other hand, in smaller companies your success can be more visible, they are more flexible, and you are likely to do a variety of tasks. The flip side is that your failure is also visible, the perks are smaller, and there may be no clear way of dealing with complaints.

I thought that this was quite an interesting question, because it assumes that size affects how people work. But is it all a matter of size? Some of the comments point out that how well a company is doing and what the managers are like also affect work. It's quite interesting to read the discussions and the readers' own experiences, which elaborate on some of the points in detail.

Without wanting to jump too far ahead of my own research, similar themes are emerging from interviews with Futuretrack graduates, and I am looking forward to analysing the data.

Have you worked in a small or a large company? What have your experiences been like? Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments.

: 23 May 2013 15:30 |  Tags: Graduate Labour Market Sme |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem