Large Corporation vs Small Company - Which Is Better For Your Career?

Does working for a major corporation with name recognition matter? If you're looking for the highest salary and most promotion opportunities, it might. Let's dive into the pros and cons of working for a large corporation vs a small company.


Are you struggling with your job search? Applying for job after job and not getting any interviews? Perhaps you’ve gotten a few interviews but always seem to get passed over for the job? Or maybe you’re not satisfied with your current career and want a change. Well you’ve come to the right place.

As a corporate recruiter with over 20 years of experience hiring thousands of employees at all levels into major corporations, I’m going to spill the beans on how to get noticed by recruiters, start getting more interviews, navigate through each step of the hiring process and ultimately land the dream job you deserve.

But that’s not all - I firmly believe that in order to truly experience career success, you need to think bigger. Multiple streams of income and budgeting are crucial to forming a layoff-free lifestyle and helping you achieve your goals.

If these are things you’re struggling with, that’s what I specialize in. I’ve got a website called A Life After Layoff. It’s loaded with tips and tricks on how to get noticed, interviewed and hired by your dream company. Make sure you check it out!

I’ve got weekly videos coming at you so make sure to subscribe. You won’t want to miss a post. Join me as we explore these things, all from an insider’s perspective!
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[stephenbayer]

I started in a very small company and learned a lot and would not give that experience up for anything. However, since then I have worked for other small companies and found the environments to be toxic and conducive to people who enjoy being a "big" fish in a small pond where they can bully and mistreat others. I now work for a large, global company and it fits me perfectly. The organization is too big for any one personality to dominate and everyone treats each other respectfully.

[MatthewWeiler]

As a software developer, I've found that point #2 is the opposite.
Smaller companies are usually quicker to adopt newer technologies while larger companies are very slow to adopt new tech.
Again, this is from a software development point of view so I'm referring to the tools/frameworkds that we use to build applications and websites.

[DawnH]

I prefer a well run large corporation. The structure protects the hard working employees where as in a small business hard working employees are easily taken advantage of.

[philmarsh]

Big company: Many engineers on one project. Small company: One engineer on many projects.

[pikakac]

Small company has lots of meanings. It could be a mom and pop business, but it could also be a start-up founded by seasoned professionals with lots of expertise and connections in the industry.

[duellinksrebel]

Big companies make your resume look better

[rutavitkauskaite]

I prefer smaller companies, but not where the whole family works.

[sandwich-breath]

I’ve worked for small companies for the past 15 years and they’ve all taken advantage of their employees and had poor culture. I’m using your channel to brush up on my interview skills so that I can move to a larger company!

[alexhanson]

I like working for larger companies. The times I've worked in smaller companies there's much less structure and less organized. Often doing things way outside your role and it's hard to stay on track since you're constantly getting pulled to do something else

[freply]

Tip on getting your foot in a big company: internship or contract work. I worked as a contractor for two major automotive companies.. The pay was mediocre and its frustrating that my skills are above and beyond my co-workers while they get full benefits+higher pay. After 3 years, I was able to land a job at a major tech company making 3x as much. Sometimes when you're fresh out of college, you gotta work those shitty contract positions at a major corporation.

[PavelNNJ]

Interestingly my personal experience is that you are more likely to have a wider area of expertise in a small company. Big companies love to create silos and few people get to work across them, most people are limited to their silo responsibilities. Also I saw more "cutting edge" stuff coming from startups and being acquired by bigger guys than originally developed by big companies. Well, at least in the area of technology. Big shots, of course, look better on the resume.

[Professor__Cow]

I've worked various large and small companies. Large companies have cheaper health insurance, better retirement plans, more competitive salaries, and generally better PTO awards.

The only advantage I've encountered from small businesses is you have the potential to grow with the company.

[abryant]

I've worked in both. I don't like the politics in larger corporations. I don't like the lack of processes and procedures in small company, the lower pay scale, lack of benefits, and as you stated, the lack of the latest technology. I think I would prefer and mid-sized company.

[kazykamakaze]

In IT it's better to be in a medium sized company as you get a TON more scope of work and get far more experience in different technologies. In a Large company you only work with 1 or 2 technologies as everything is made to be in small chunks so the business can quickly replace a person when they leave the company. If you want to grow you career then most work for medium companies there is a greater chance to jump from engineer to head of a department to CTO very quickly, especially if you jump from one company to the next.

[ValentinSt]

I personally do not care if the company is small, medium or big. What I look for into the companies are some key points - Are they well established and are they keep improving throughout the years? Are they supporting people with disabilities, do they care and value the Equality and Diversity? - This is a massive big point here for me as I am a disabled and been discriminated by many companies from small to big like IBM. Last thing that is in my consideration is - are they flexible, do they offer flexible way of working such as working from home, mixture of home and office etc that supports work-life balance.

[mr.madhatter]

This largely depends on the industry your working for as well. In civil engineering, if you've worked for large companies for most of your career, your knowledge and skillset in civil as a whole tends to be far more narrow than if you worked for a medium sized company. In smaller firms, your responsibilities increase creating a much more robust understanding of engineering principles across all of civil.

[MisterDoctorE]

Im in a small company(IT), the only downside for me is that I have to do everything; many times I am juggling many balls at the same time; Serving customers, tech support, router setup, website setup, setting up connections, update servers etc... jumping back and forth between tasks. We are seriously understaffed. I sure feel the burn. Bonus: I can tell the boss to shut up when I feel like it.
It was more easy in a bigger company... but I was just a number :) But still, I will have to quit my job; wait for the covid to pass.

[bpri]

Both small and large companies have their benefits.

Positive when working at a small company, you tend to see the impact you make within the company and you get more visibility.

Negative when working at a small company, the company tends to take advantage of your skill set and the work life balance is heavily screwed towards work and not so much towards home life.

Positive for working at a large company, is that the benefits tend to be a lot better, 401k is better, pension, and health benefits are better.

Negative for working at a large company, your impact is usually small, too many people fighting for the “top spot” and social politics can be annoying. Basically you see some real slackers who talk big game getting promoted and usually the people who do the work don’t get the recognition.

That’s just my experience with it all.

[michaelh]

Small companies are usually better.

In a large company you are just a number. Everything is done with generic procedures. You are overwhelmingly judged by idiotic metrics rather than actual talent and contributions. Oftentimes, I see coworkers spending more time manipulating silly metrics rather than doing quality work. The boss is usually fine with it because your numbers make his numbers look good.

Smaller companies often let employees use their talents. Oftentimes you are actually recognized by accomplishments.

I currently work for a mega corporation that only seems to care about cookie cutter metrics. Most of us are very inefficient because we have to focus on metrics looking good. Customers really suffer and management can't figure out why customers are dropping us 🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️

[steveconsultant]

I liked working for smaller companies. A big part of it was that I got a lot of solid experience in different roles: Product development, marketing, sales, and customer support. Often all in the same week.