In the last post we asked if you should work in a startup or if you are a better fit for the corporate world. Together, we explored in the first part of this blog the pros and cons of working in a startup. Now it is time to look at the corporate world. As such, we want to find out what it takes to work in the corporate world.

In 2020, there were over 9’000 companies in Switzerland with more than 250 employees. As such, they are seen as large corporation. Almost 1’800 of these companies are domestic, where as more than 4’400 are domestically controlled but working internationally (find all the data here). Therefore, chances are high that you will find an exciting opportunity for yourself in the corporate world.

However, are you the right fit for a large corporation? What does it take to fit into the corporate world and thrive in your job? Let’s find out if you are a corporate rebel!

The traditional corporate world

What do you see, when you think of a large corporation? The typical picture of a large corporation is a company which is highly hierarchical, many bureaucratic processes and slow changes, right? While this might still be true, companies have realised that they have to change as well to attract talent. They became more flexible, created intrapreneurship and focus on flatter hierarchies.

Additionally, large corporate can offer further advantages. As they have more resources on hand, they are able to offer additional education and mentoring or learning from expert and management. So let’s find out, what are the pros and cons of working in the corporate world.

Why you should work in a large corporation

Nowadays, large corporation are offering amazing opportunities to their employees. These are three aspects, why you should work at a corporate:

• Learn from the best
  Large corporation are successful because they have one advantage; they attract experts. Why is that so? A large corporation is able to provide the right environment for experts to apply their skills and expertise. And as such, everyone who joins these organisations have the opportunity to watch and learn from the best.
• Access to resources
  While startups have the focus on interrupting existing business models, they often lack access to all the resources. This might not be the case with large corporations. Not only will they have gathered enough resources, such as data, over time themselves, they also have the means to get additional resources to support projects or even innovation.
• Growth opportunities
  Large corporation are taking care of all the aspects of their business, from innovation, development, to sales and markting. This gives employees the opportunity to change careers into a different area without leaving the company. Or if you ever wanted to work abroad, look out for an international active company and find out how you relocate to another country.

If you are person, who wants to grow and learn from the best, then the corporate world might just be the place for you.

Why you should NOT work in a large corporation

There are good reason to work for a large corporation, but not all of us will enjoy and flourish in this working environment. So let’s see, what are the reasons to not work for a large corporation:

• Inflexibility
  For large corporation to work seamlessly without any errors, a thought through system has to be set up. There are so many dependency to watch out for that a certain inflexibility has to be in place. While it helps the company to run smoothly, it makes working there sometimes cumbersome. As such, implementing any changes will take more time and there will be less room for trial and error.
• Hierarchy
  We all know that large corporation are traditionally highly hierarchical. Even though some younger companies are applying new management models, such as holacracy, most companies are still following the hierarchical management model. While this gives many opportunities to climb a career ladder, it also means that decision making is rather slow and you will be given less responsibility unless you have reach a certain management level.
• Innovation
  It is the general reception, that only startups are innovative. This is far from the truth, as large corporation are investing heavily into innovation. However, these corporations have often their own innovation lab or team with dedicated employees working on it. Therefore, if you are not part of the lab or team, your scope to propose and implement innovative changes are limited.

Are you looking for an innovative and fast changing environment? Do you want to decide fast and implement changes quickly? Then the corporate world may not be the right place for you to work.

What did you decide?

Now that you have seen both sides, how do you decide? If you still not sure, if a startup or a large corporate company is the right place for you, you might want to try both!

Looking for a new job in the startup or corporate world? Check out our SKILLS FINDER Project and sign up now to get found for your next job!