Young professionals... think smaller if possible

In late 2009, I was gearing up for my upcoming college graduation and was extremely proactive in my attempt to kick off my career. I've never been one to wish away my life but at that time, I was incredibly eager to get going in my career. Although "those four years" were some of the best, as everyone had promised me they would be, I was growing tired of the redundancy of school and was more than ready for the real world. 2009 was a bizarre time though and very few companies were stable and even fewer were actually growing or consistently adding to staff. My job hunt was not a successful one. In fact, I left school with a degree in business administration (and strong grades) but the first few weeks of my summer were spent installing windows hoping for an opportunity to land a sales gig once a position opened up within the company I was working for. While window installation is certainly an impressive craft and the work helped me afford my now-wife's wedding ring, it wasn't what I had in mind after four years of hard work in college preparing for a career in business.

Fortunately, an opportunity in recruiting found me later that summer. A company that was defying the odds of the economic downturn took me onboard and showed me how to work very hard. It was a company quickly approaching $1B in revenue and although I learned a lot there as a young professional, the amount I learned working with a $1B enterprise absolutely pales in comparison to what I learned working my next gig at a five-person start-up executive search firm. I took a pretty big risk in making this move. I had spent four years very successfully producing at the first company I worked for and was making an abnormally great living for a 26 year-old, but I wasn't growing as a business-person. I knew that if I kept working there, I'd be sucked into visions of dollar signs instead of experiencing continued learning and growth. In my opinion, that risk was well worth it. Corporate America can certainly provide a great living. I am in no way advising young professionals to simply steer clear of an opportunity with a big company. That said, I hope young professionals don't get caught up in the prestige of "size" and miss out an opportunity with a small business. Here are some general thoughts on things I learned about taking a risk on a small company...

-- Rounded experience and gained versatility are two major things you may get out of working at a small firm. When I worked at a large company, I had one or two main responsibilities. Big companies will give you your job and everything else is delegated across other departments or people. Sometimes in large organizations, if you try and take on something that someone else is responsible for, you may even be reprimanded for doing so - because that's someone else's job! Not at a small firm. You must learn how to be versatile and as a result, you become very well-rounded. At the start-up I worked for I got opportunities to recruit, sell, improve internal operations, work with big clients AND small clients, work with C-level customers, create written proposals, write legal contracts, help with marketing materials, and the list goes on.

-- Learn how to make opportunities happen versus watching opportunities come in the door. Many large companies are extremely reputable by name... there may be "prestige" associated with the company simply because it's huge. This is typically not the case at a small organization. You learn how to pick up the telephone and make things happen for yourself and for your company which is an invaluable skill, especially if you're in a role that involves selling.

-- You are much closer to the people who lead and make big decisions. I am 6 years into my career and currently working for a $60M+ company. We're certainly not tiny, but we're not enormous. I sit three doors down from our CEO, two doors from our CFO, and one door from our COO. These are people who are making big time decisions around the strategic direction of our company and I get to spend quite a bit of time with them learning and absorbing how they do things. Unless you have a "title", you typically will not have that opportunity with a large organization especially as a young professional. I was the number 1 producer at my first company and never met the CEO.

-- "But I can make more money at a big company!"... false. First off, the biggest mistake you can make as a young professional trying to build a career is to allow money to drive your decision-making. Since that's out of the way, I'll also tell you that just because a company generates a larger amount of annual revenue absolutely does not mean you get to see more if it in your earnings. Sometimes, it's the opposite. Smaller firms have far less overhead costs so you may even see more money at these companies especially if you directly affect revenue generation.

-- You get to learn how a business is built and how culture is shaped. When you work with a smaller company you have a first-hand opportunity to learn how certain decisions are made in order for the business to grow. Sometimes you may even get a chance to be a part of those conversations. As a result, you have strong optics and sightlines into the shaping of that company's culture. Often times at larger organizations, culture is already well-established which is great but you don't get the chance to see it "in the making".

-- Your contributions have a bigger impact on a small business. Making an operational change at a very large company that saves it $1,200 per year in operating costs may not feel very gratifying and could possibly even go completely unnoticed or unrecognized. But if you do the very same thing for a small business, the impact is far greater. It is a great feeling to know that your daily contributions are having a major impact on the success of a business. This is called fulfillment and lots of us lack it in our careers.

These are just a few of the things I've learned from taking the plunge into small-business employment. It was a scary transition for me at such a young age but I could not be happier about the decision I made to give it a try. Again, I would never advise a young professional to turn their head at an opportunity with a large company. But I do hope that our young professionals aren't shying away from small businesses!