The Internet is full of advice on how to prepare a resume and rehearse top interview strategies and so on. This article is not another contribution to how to land your dream job. It's about how to know what that dream job is in the first place. Being adept at landing the job isn't much of a virtue if you're landing a job at the wrong firm.
Whatever aptitudes, skills and work history you have is what it is. How you choose to market it is how you choose to do so. My question is, are you choosing to market yourself to the right companies? Elsewhere, I've give my list of the most elite of the best companies to work for . Knowing that though won't solve for you the question of the right fit.
Size Matters
Whether or not you've previously weighed it as a consideration, company size does make a big difference in both the quality of your work experience and the standard of success implicit in your employment.
First, consider the virtues of small companies, with fewer employees there are few layers of organization, which means the opportunity for a more immediate encounter with customers, suppliers and collaborators. As well, you'll be able to have much closer personal working relationships with your peers. This is a distinctive work experience; the feeling of family can be quite palpable. An additional benefit, very valuable to many people, is the opportunity to directly enjoy the fruits of your labor. The consequences of your work are experienced in a way not available within big, impersonal businesses.
It is certainly true that big companies aspire to compensate for this cost of scale by attempting to cultivate a team spirit in their various departments and divisions Sometimes there is notable success in these efforts. However, in such a context, your team's accomplishments will always be conditional upon those of other departments and divisions, over whose work and efforts you and your team have no influence. So, even the best intended efforts at such scaled team building can never really capture the immediate and tangible experience of gratification from meeting challenges and achieving success experienced from work at a small company.
On the other side of the coin, though, for some people the large company is the place to be. It provides benefits and opportunities that are simply unavailable in smaller businesses. Larger size means more employees, which, due to scope of management limitations, usually mean more managerial layers, which means many more rungs on the executive ladder to be climbed, for superior compensation and benefits. Increased size also offers greater opportunities for professional specialization. At the same time, though, it can provide escape from a specialization that has grown stale. Lateral moves can open up new career possibilities without compromising seniority and tenure.
And if you have any of the adventurer's spirit in you, nowadays it is common for very large companies to be involved in geographically dispersed business. Working at such a firm may offer the chance to travel and even to live in excitingly difference cultures and societies. This can be a once in a lifetime opportunity for your children to experience the world. It is common for such firms to provide language training, schooling and other forms of family support should you make such a move for the company. And of course let us not forget the bottom line: usually larger companies can provide larger salaries and almost always more extensive and valuable perks and benefits.
Structure Matters
In addition to the size of a potential employer, it is important to take into consideration its structure and how that will affect your own work experience. At one extreme end of the spectrum are highly regimented, hierarchical firms, with precisely delineated job descriptions and chain of command.
The other end of the spectrum has very differently structured companies, such as the video game producer Valve. These are businesses conceived as fluid, adaptive association arrangements. Their success depends upon very high levels of employee enterprise and innovation. Indeed, in some of these firms, such as Valve, there is no chain of command hierarchy. Initiative and responsibility are generated from within a culture of collegial collaboration, supervision and accountability.
Sometimes those who feel a more natural fit with one structure or style than another are prone to dismissive moral judgments on those attracted to the other kind. Aside of the obvious vanity in such judgments, they reveal a short-sightedness about the virtues of organizational diversity. Such different business methods exist precisely because different strokes suit different folks. The point isn't to denigrate those different than you, but to figure where in that tapestry of possibility you will fit most productively and comfortably.
Perhaps you thrive most when tasks are clearly prescribed? Are you stressed when blindsided by problems which you had no idea were going to be your responsibility? Are you anxious when given vague instructions or encounter unclear expectations? If so, no matter about all the great perks you may have heard about at some of the flatter structured firms, it's probably not the place for you. No number of ping-pong or massages tables will be adequate compensation for a work life that feels constantly distressed. That's not a recipe for either satisfaction or success.
The inverse set of considerations, though, are equally true: those who feel inhibited by authority, inspired by new challenges and revel in the roughshod work world of endless improvisation are not going to thrive in a button down firm of clearly delineated and firmly enforced processes and responsibilities. The increased security and stability that they may offer, likely isn't worth the price of the organizationally conservative culture. Such people will find their satisfaction and greatest success in the more fluid, flat structured organization, where they will be provoked into creative spontaneity adaptation. These are the companies most likely to encourage and reward such people's boundary defying style of intellectual curiosity.
Remember, this is not about what's right and wrong or good and bad here. It's about what's right or wrong and good or bad for you. Companies of different sizes and structures possess different characteristics. Your success and satisfaction at work is much enhanced by ensuring that you're working in an environment that gets the most from and gives back the most to you. This short review has been intended to aid you in making the better choice for your own dispositions and long term success.
Whatever aptitudes, skills and work history you have is what it is. How you choose to market it is how you choose to do so. My question is, are you choosing to market yourself to the right companies? Elsewhere, I've give my list of the most elite of the best companies to work for . Knowing that though won't solve for you the question of the right fit.
Size Matters
Whether or not you've previously weighed it as a consideration, company size does make a big difference in both the quality of your work experience and the standard of success implicit in your employment.
First, consider the virtues of small companies, with fewer employees there are few layers of organization, which means the opportunity for a more immediate encounter with customers, suppliers and collaborators. As well, you'll be able to have much closer personal working relationships with your peers. This is a distinctive work experience; the feeling of family can be quite palpable. An additional benefit, very valuable to many people, is the opportunity to directly enjoy the fruits of your labor. The consequences of your work are experienced in a way not available within big, impersonal businesses.
It is certainly true that big companies aspire to compensate for this cost of scale by attempting to cultivate a team spirit in their various departments and divisions Sometimes there is notable success in these efforts. However, in such a context, your team's accomplishments will always be conditional upon those of other departments and divisions, over whose work and efforts you and your team have no influence. So, even the best intended efforts at such scaled team building can never really capture the immediate and tangible experience of gratification from meeting challenges and achieving success experienced from work at a small company.
On the other side of the coin, though, for some people the large company is the place to be. It provides benefits and opportunities that are simply unavailable in smaller businesses. Larger size means more employees, which, due to scope of management limitations, usually mean more managerial layers, which means many more rungs on the executive ladder to be climbed, for superior compensation and benefits. Increased size also offers greater opportunities for professional specialization. At the same time, though, it can provide escape from a specialization that has grown stale. Lateral moves can open up new career possibilities without compromising seniority and tenure.
And if you have any of the adventurer's spirit in you, nowadays it is common for very large companies to be involved in geographically dispersed business. Working at such a firm may offer the chance to travel and even to live in excitingly difference cultures and societies. This can be a once in a lifetime opportunity for your children to experience the world. It is common for such firms to provide language training, schooling and other forms of family support should you make such a move for the company. And of course let us not forget the bottom line: usually larger companies can provide larger salaries and almost always more extensive and valuable perks and benefits.
Structure Matters
In addition to the size of a potential employer, it is important to take into consideration its structure and how that will affect your own work experience. At one extreme end of the spectrum are highly regimented, hierarchical firms, with precisely delineated job descriptions and chain of command.
The other end of the spectrum has very differently structured companies, such as the video game producer Valve. These are businesses conceived as fluid, adaptive association arrangements. Their success depends upon very high levels of employee enterprise and innovation. Indeed, in some of these firms, such as Valve, there is no chain of command hierarchy. Initiative and responsibility are generated from within a culture of collegial collaboration, supervision and accountability.
Sometimes those who feel a more natural fit with one structure or style than another are prone to dismissive moral judgments on those attracted to the other kind. Aside of the obvious vanity in such judgments, they reveal a short-sightedness about the virtues of organizational diversity. Such different business methods exist precisely because different strokes suit different folks. The point isn't to denigrate those different than you, but to figure where in that tapestry of possibility you will fit most productively and comfortably.
Perhaps you thrive most when tasks are clearly prescribed? Are you stressed when blindsided by problems which you had no idea were going to be your responsibility? Are you anxious when given vague instructions or encounter unclear expectations? If so, no matter about all the great perks you may have heard about at some of the flatter structured firms, it's probably not the place for you. No number of ping-pong or massages tables will be adequate compensation for a work life that feels constantly distressed. That's not a recipe for either satisfaction or success.
The inverse set of considerations, though, are equally true: those who feel inhibited by authority, inspired by new challenges and revel in the roughshod work world of endless improvisation are not going to thrive in a button down firm of clearly delineated and firmly enforced processes and responsibilities. The increased security and stability that they may offer, likely isn't worth the price of the organizationally conservative culture. Such people will find their satisfaction and greatest success in the more fluid, flat structured organization, where they will be provoked into creative spontaneity adaptation. These are the companies most likely to encourage and reward such people's boundary defying style of intellectual curiosity.
Remember, this is not about what's right and wrong or good and bad here. It's about what's right or wrong and good or bad for you. Companies of different sizes and structures possess different characteristics. Your success and satisfaction at work is much enhanced by ensuring that you're working in an environment that gets the most from and gives back the most to you. This short review has been intended to aid you in making the better choice for your own dispositions and long term success.
About the Author:
Thomas Ryerson's writing at the Best Companies to Work For blog is a tremendous resource for job hunters and career changers. Also, for anyone considering a leave of absence from work to pursue an MBA, his piece "Is Getting an MBA the Right Decision for You" is a must read.
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