Starting your career: Multinationals, SME or a Start-up

By: Vishwanath Pai

When you complete your formal education you certainly wish to have a job. You may have done your Engineering, Post-Graduation etc. and there are ample opportunities. Suppose you are seeking a job in the industry then everyone or most of the job seekers wish to have a job in large corporations. But everyone may not succeed like some of their peers.

In large corporations one may be getting fat CTC, status of being in such companies, may be frequent foreign visits etc. But it may not be rosy forever. In some corporations one may not get to work on the projects immediately but may have to wait in the bench. This bench period vary and even the cut in pay, insecure feeling, frustration etc. is immense. During this bench period creativity, zeal, urge etc. of a technocrat may be lost. There are examples of many people who were on the benches for quite a sometime left the job voluntarily.

OK now let us assume you are into projects without being on bench and you will be a member of a large team. Your job is specific and you may become expert in doing the similar things. Since you are part of a team, independently you are not doing anything else. This continues, you climb the ladder and become manager and now your job most probably is to read the appraisals, talk to your staff, grant/not grant their leave etc.

After few years company assigns you a tag of stagnate, not productive, not efficient etc. and you are in the list of employees who will be kicked out (it happened in many companies recently). When you are out of the company you really do not know what to do because for years you are part of a team and you may not be knowing all the alphabets of a project process.

Contrary to this you are selected by a start-up or SME, just join if you want to showcase your talent, creativity, enhance your knowledge, to learn the tricks of the trade etc. In such companies you are not just a member of team but you are integrated into the team and you will be able to learn all the process. Your learning curve is faster. You have the better chance of growth in terms of knowledge and position.

Moreover even if you are to leave the organization then you are confident than your peers in the larger organizations. You still stand a chance to work in other organizations and climb the ladder as your basics, experience is valuable.

I will quote an example of two of my students who were classmates

One started his career in a start-up, did lot of projects and now heads the software division of one SME and draws a salary of INR 1,20,000/- per month. He is satisfied with his work and has lot of offers.

His classmate got selected in a multinational and was on bench for quite a sometime then assigned with a project in a large team. Not satisfied with the environment left that and joined another company. Now draws a salary of INR 70,000/- per month. He is still not satisfied with work environment,salary etc. and gives interview week after week even after eight years.

"A piece of advice: Do not wait for multinationals or larger organizations, even if you get into a start-up or a smaller organization join without any disappointment for not being into the larger company, you may climb the ladder faster and become more confident ….So do not lose the opportunity."

This article emerged as a result of my discussion in Bangalore on 18-4-2015 with Mr. Sudhir my classmate an independent consultant of IT technologies and Mr. Amar my friend a dynamic business man 

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