In the four years since I graduated I have worked at two of the worlds largest companies (7500+ employees), a medium sized (~250 employees) company that thought they were small, a small design firm ( < 10 employees) and owned my own business.  I’ve noticed a few patterns that might be of interest to those of you sporting offers right now.

1. In terms of what you will do at the company, size does not matter.
2. There has been a cultural shift in where people want to work, but a big company is still big.
3. Your direct contacts are really the only culture that matters. “Company Culture” is a big fat lie.

I’ll break it down into three articles.  Today we’ll talk about size.

Size does not matter.
Maybe I was just mis-un-edumacated, but I was told that big companies would offer more room for advancement, but that I would probably be stuck with a smaller variety of tasks under my control.  I call BS. Here is what I have seen:

Opportunity for advancement:

• The bigger the company, the older the middle management. At big company number one the sales managers probably averaged 40-45 years old.  In the medium company and one of its sister companies the sales managers were probably a full ten years younger on average.  Is turn over an issue? Does the middle management from small companies move on to be middle or upper management at large companies?  That could be an explanation.  Still, if you want to be management at a large company my observations seem to say start a small company and work your way into a position where you can leave for a large company.
• The larger company had more middle management. If you start at a small company with only a few managers you run the risk of them being completely satisfied and never moving on.  One or two of these could seriously plug your pipe to the top.  At a larger company although the competition may be higher the open positions should be more regular.  Again, this is just my observation.
• Small companies have no middle management. If you want to jump on board and get used to making decisions you could start your own business.  Assuming you do well, this success could allow you to move on as a manager or executive at a larger company.  The dangerous assumption here is that you are going to do well.  Make sure you are ready.  As good as things have gone with my company, they aren’t as fast as I would have liked.

Variety of job description:

• The smallest company(besides my own business where I do everything) I worked at started me with the most limited job description that I have seen.  I am not sure that this was due to size.  I think instead it was due to management.  The management at this company didn’t understand the processes of the workers and therefore segmented work that could have had a broader flow.  Also the scope of what this company in its entirety did was very small.
• I think that companies that are struggling financially will have opportunity to expand what you do.  The first large company that I was working for was in the beginning of an industry decline when I started there.  The result?  If I wanted to go above and beyond in any area I was more than welcome to add value.  Once I proved that this was valuable it would often be added to my job description (at least informally). Knowing how to demonstrate added value is a great way to add task variety.
• Your task variety can move horizontally or vertically. Decide which way you want it to move and look for indicators. At the small company as we demonstrated competency in an area we were often allowed to grow vertically by managing those areas(web design —> managing the design process —> managing the operations of the design team).  In the medium company vertical growth existed to an extent, but more often because of the office culture other related tasks were added.  This growth and a slow creep of the job description was more horizontal (Web editing —> Web design —> Interactive design —> Media production —> Photo/Video shoots).  In my experience the vertical growth increase my competency around a certain topic, where as the horizontal growth made me a jack of all trades.  When you interview for a position ask about opportunities to grow and learn within the position.

One thing that I have noticed in larger companies is an older sense of management.  In both large companies this were done more compartmentalized and went through their channels. For promotions, tenure was often more highly regarded whereas in smaller companies it seemed the talent level was taken into account over tenure.  I would say this is because it is easier to look busy in a large company and harder to watch each individual to identify talents.  Also, change was harder to implement. Both qualifications for advancement and speed of change are things that you will want to consider as they will affect your opportunity for advancement and your job variety.