Where do you want to work? Where do you see your career taking you? A lot of people will not say that they want to be but one cog in the huge machine that is an enterprise-sized business.
However, there are some real benefits for working as a member of a team that is outrageously big. These benefits include a few of the things you can learn and take with you when you work with a smaller brand or even start your own business.
In this blog post, we take you through the main areas and points that you can learn from working for a large company.
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Reputation Matters
When you work with a big company, you learn that people have certain expectations of them, as well as their smaller competition, based on size and recognition alone.
As such, when you start working in a smaller business, you bring knowledge of the stigma, as shown at http://rethink-business.com/culture-economy/stigma-small-business/. This is a stigma that you have to fight, and the advantages you can offer that those bigger companies cannot (such as specialisation to the individual needs of different clients.)
Importance of Professional Branding
Start-ups tend to scattershot branding to some degree, while bigger companies utilise tools that ensure branding is consistent across the board. For instance, they will use brand style guides and tools like https://www.templafy.com/enterprise-document-management/ that ensure that all documents are formatted the right way and double-checked before they’re put anywhere near publication.
The branding of big companies is something that any business can achieve, even without the money to match their marketing budget. Therefore it’s worth picking up a few of those tricks while you’re there.
T-Shaped Skills
Most positions you can take at companies of all sizes will offer you the opportunity to develop skills that can aid in your career. However, in enterprise companies, you are likely to work across multiple facets of a skillset. This helps you build what is known as T-shaped skills, as described at https://collegeinfogeek.com/become-t-shaped-person/.
These are a skill set that gives you a “jack-of-all-trades” versatility, but with a specialisation in one of the skills related to that base. If you plan on heading a team within a startup or even starting your own business, you already have the ability to wear many hats.
The Need for Reflection
One of the big differences between big and small companies is that the latter has to be flexible to make sure they can respond quickly to market demands. The former, on the other hand, almost always moves at a snail’s pace, making sure that most of the team is on board before any major changes to the business or products are carried out.
Neither is inherently good or bad, but working in big companies does show you that sometimes waiting on a decision is the right thing to do and you shouldn’t chase any and all whims.
So long as you never lose sight of your own eventual career goals, never underestimate the strength of trying out different professions and work environments. There’s a lot you can learn.
Have you worked for a large company before? How did you find it and were you able to learn a lot from them? We would love to hear your thoughts in the comments below!
Take care,
Jessica xo
