SMALL COMPANY VS BIG COMPANY

Just wanted to hear some of your opinions good or bad about small company vs large company.

Thanks in advance for any responses

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win2k8

I have experience doing both small and now large companies. I will list some stuff in each based on my personal experience between large and small:

Small:
1. I knew "everyone" in the company, from the janitors and groundkeepers all the way to the CEO.
2. I had a lot of responsibilities in terms of I.T related
3. no corporate benefits or great pay
4. Got almost instant access to servers/computers/routers
5. Not organized training, you basically observe the former guy and your it then.
6. A lot more pressure and expectations on yourself

Large:
1. A bit harder to network with people in the company because it is so large in terms of size.
2. Your role will be smaller in terms of relation to the organization as a whole.
3. Great corporate benefits and pay.
4. Will have to wait longer though to get approval of access depending on policies.
5. Organized hands-on and class-room type training, including certifications etc..
6. Not as much pressure on yourself as an individual.

This is just based on my experience of course, it could be very different based on other peoples experiences between a large and small company.

royal

I worked for a very tiny IT company as well as my current company which have over 1,000 employees across several states.

Smaller IT Company:
1. I knew everyone as well.
2. Lots of responsibilities. Expected to know a lot more than feasible due to the lack of people.
3. Lack of benefits including retirement benefits.
4. With no experience coming in, I immediately gained access to the company's entire infrastructure (Enterprise Admin).
5. No training. I had to figure out how to do everything on my own.
6. As I said in number 2, we had a lot of pressure and expectations. IF we didn't know how to do something, we were ridiculed.

Larger IT Company (My current employer):
1. Since my company has over 1,000 employees, it's hard to know even 10% of the employees.
2. My role is much smaller and there are many people to help in time of need.
3. Pay is much better and offer many more benefits.
4. Lots of training available. CBT Nuggets, internal training, Microsoft Partner training, etc.
5. Pressure is substantially less.
6. The environment is very positive.

This is from my experience, but of course the situations vary depending on company and their values. It seems from working at a larger company, there are many more opportunities for you to educate yourself and better yourself; whether that may be through books, training, other engineers to learn from, etc.

blackmage439

I'm sort of in a middle position. I work for a school district, as a sort of all-round I.T. tech.

Only work with one other guy at a single school.
Stress-free environment, at least for now.
Slow during summer months.
Friendly staff.
Simple implimentations of software and hardware.
Full benefits package. (Probably not as great as a corporation's, but it's better than nothing.)

seuss_ssues

Working for a smaller company will probably get you experience in more areas of IT. Small companies generally have a few people that oversee all aspects of the information infrastructure (server admin, network admin, desktop support, web programming).

Where at a large company you may only be responsible for one area or even a peice of one area (user administration in a windows environment).

Also i do agree with large companies having better benefits. The comparison between my last job and this one are unbelievable. Pay, vacation, holidays, health/eye/dental all drastically better.

RATTLERMAN

i worked in the school system for 3 years... teachers are a !@#$%$ to work with but the work itself was easy. i work for the state now the work is easy but i am not challenged here anymore
plus the politics of state govt is horrible too many egos to massage.

looking to make a move to a stable environment that will pay more and give me more to do

TechJunky

I have worked for a couple big companies doing IT.

GCI (General Communications Inc) and IBEW (International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers)

Both companies had politics that were horrendous.
Both companies expected a big return for a low amount of pay.
Both companies allowed me great experience
Both companies raises and promotions were pretty much given out via senority, and or yearly based.(not based on technical abilities.)
Both companies had excellent benefits/pay.
I would work 8-5 and they were very strict on breaks/leaving early or arriving late.

I am currently working for a small company.

Hands on experience is amazing here.
I am expected to handle all tasks from design to implementation
No politics whatsoever
Raises and bonuses here have been excellent
I am the head IT guy, so no more real advancement other than experience.
No health benefits, which to be honest sucks. They have excellent travel compensation, and the pay is decent, but about 3-5 dollars less than most starting job positions in a big company with my current title.(However, I do less work because we are a smaller company)
Leave time is pretty much whenever I want to take off. Also, I can come to work late/leave early pretty much anytime.

Overall, I am defiantly pleased with my current position over the other two larger companies. It would be a dream job if they offered health benefits and paid me about 4 dollars more an hour.

Gabe7055

I have worked for small companies, medium companies, and very large companies. Right now I am working for a VERY small company and it's not bad. The workplace is very relaxed I can wear shorts and a t-shirt into work and I get along with and know everyone. Bad parts are it is more stressful as you are the only one you can depend on and like has been said before you are expected to know everything from projectors to Cisco switches. As a email administrator going into this new role is sort of odd and yes you are sort of looked down on when you say I don't know about this certain technology. Pay sucks as well.

Large companies do pay better and there is more of a chance to advance and play with new technology. However large companies can vary from company to company. The large company I worked for had alot of political issues and as has been said the size of some of the egos can take up a entire data center.

Personally I was the most happiest in a medium size organization. Small enough to be relaxed but large enough to have a good budget and other IT staff to help you. Sadly like the problem with some mid sized companies there was no chance for advancement. People that have good positions in mid sized companies tend to hang on to them very tightly.

elover_jm

Small Company (i for at present) : 1.More a general job role.
2.More comfy not too demanding, i get lots of time to study.
3. Like a family.

I never worked for a big company

Random21

TechJunky wrote:

I have worked for a couple big companies doing IT.

GCI (General Communications Inc) and IBEW (International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers)

Both companies had politics that were horrendous.
Both companies expected a big return for a low amount of pay.
Both companies allowed me great experience
Both companies raises and promotions were pretty much given out via senority, and or yearly based.(not based on technical abilities.)
Both companies had excellent benefits/pay.
I would work 8-5 and they were very strict on breaks/leaving early or arriving late.

I am currently working for a small company.

Hands on experience is amazing here.
I am expected to handle all tasks from design to implementation
No politics whatsoever
Raises and bonuses here have been excellent
I am the head IT guy, so no more real advancement other than experience.
No health benefits, which to be honest sucks. They have excellent travel compensation, and the pay is decent, but about 3-5 dollars less than most starting job positions in a big company with my current title.(However, I do less work because we are a smaller company)
Leave time is pretty much whenever I want to take off. Also, I can come to work late/leave early pretty much anytime.

Overall, I am defiantly pleased with my current position over the other two larger companies. It would be a dream job if they offered health benefits and paid me about 4 dollars more an hour.

I'm in a small company at the moment and everything you mentioned about working in big company is exactly how it is here..but minus the big paycheck.

Currently i cant find any pro's working here other than it have nice people.I'm frequently pressured by a IT manager who doesnt know anything and everything what was set up around him.Ugh i need a new job...

TechJunky

Nice thing about leaving a big company... You are pretty much just considered another number to the company and they will move on with life.

However, working with a small company, if you decide to leave they have to hire someone else who is highly skilled and leaving puts a burden on them due to the fact that there are not that many people who know the system as in depth as a big company due to the lack of employees.

I would find a job that you love to go to work and the rest will fall in place.

I currently love everyday of work and dont regret making a little less in order to enjoy doing what I do.

After all atleast 8 hours of your day is spent at work, might as well enjoy it!

manic

how do you guys manage to find these jobs? i am trying to get my foot in the door and with a HS diploma, A+ and NET+ it almost seems impossible to get any work in the field i am trying to get into...sorry for the off topic but what gives?

I think tomarrow i am going to see if CompUSA is still looking for a tech...

cgrimaldo

Gabe7055 wrote:

Personally I was the most happiest in a medium size organization. Small enough to be relaxed but large enough to have a good budget and other IT staff to help you. Sadly like the problem with some mid sized companies there was no chance for advancement. People that have good positions in mid sized companies tend to hang on to them very tightly.

I agree. I work in a medium size organization. Well, sort of. The corporation that I work for is one HQ out of state and has one large data center. From there, they have remote facilities all over the states like the one I'm at.

They give me the ability to make locally based decisions about I/T and if I ever need help/guidance etc, I call up to the CORP I/T guys for some help. Also, because of the work I have put in over the last two years, CORP I/T trusts me more with task they didn't before. I have more permissions and I take part in alot more projects, data-gathering, beta-testing, etc.

Like everyone else has said, find a job that has the type of culture that you thrive in. If you don't, you may get good pay, hours, the nice title or any other combination of things but it might never get better if you don't actually enjoy your job and the enviornment you are in.

blackmage439

manic wrote:

how do you guys manage to find these jobs? i am trying to get my foot in the door and with a HS diploma, A+ and NET+ it almost seems impossible to get any work in the field i am trying to get into...sorry for the off topic but what gives?

I think tomarrow i am going to see if CompUSA is still looking for a tech...

I agree as well. It's not very easy to find an entry-level job nowadays, depending on when and where you live or apply. I had a rough time before I landed my current job. I was interviewed for two jobs that I basically had no chance of getting. People were not calling me back. Most of the jobs were helpdesk positions, which I really didn't want to do. It was hell... But now, I have a good, secure job that pays decent, not great, just decent. And the funny thing is, I thought when I applied that there was no way I was getting the job. However, the interviews were very relaxed, and the staff is great.

A word of caution: be very careful when dealing with retail establishments. They care first and foremost about turning a profit. Despite what they may say, you are still just a number to them. I went for an interview with Circuit City recently for what I was led to believe to be a computer tech position. When I got there, I was informed that I was going to be performing some tech work and mostly sales (yuck). When I explained that was not the position I had applied for, the interviewer didn't even seem to care. Very unprofessional. If I can help it, I will NEVER apply for a position at a retail store ever again.

In response to the above posts about medium-sized companies: I would consider a school to be like a "medium-sized company". I have only one coworker I can turn to for help, yet I'm not expected to carry the burden of much right now. The biggest difference is, my boss said that he first looks to internal candidates when staffing upper-level positions, so my outlook looks promissing.

Just keep looking, and something will definately come to you. One thing to keep in mind as well: always look within your means. If something sounds too good to be true, or out of your reach, it probably is. Unless you're an expert at selling yourself, don't overstep your bounds.

Good luck!

manic

Thanks for the insite. You arnt the only person to tell me that it would not be unlikly for me to apply to a retail store and get stuck in sales...I think my other problem is i am too honest.

Trailerisf

I started work for a small 2 man show... Within two years (no real previous work exp) I am a 50% owner in the company and my base salary is low 6 figures.

We are an outside IT company. We sold over 1 mil in hardware last year besides the consulting @ 125/hr.

For me, there is no way I'd want to work for a huge corp. I work on so many different areas each day. It keeps me challenged.

amyamandaallen

[/quote]I'm in a small company at the moment and everything you mentioned about working in big company is exactly how it is here..but minus the big paycheck.

Currently i cant find any pro's working here other than it have nice people.I'm frequently pressured by a IT manager who doesnt know anything and everything what was set up around him.Ugh i need a new job...[/quote]

Errrr???? I cant remember writing this????

Kaminsky

The other thing not mentioned here is the reputation you carry having worked for a big corporate and then decide to move lower. Peoples expectations of what you can do outside of the corporate are usually way beyond that of someone coming from a smaller company even if they both have the same knowledge and experience. They carry the reputation of the large corporate with them.

I have no idea why. Just human nature I geuss but you will typically find the person from the smaller company has had a wider experience and more workload and on smaller pay whilst, the corporate guy would be typically treated as just another number expected to do a much narrower range of work for much more pay with 10 other people sitting next to them doing exactly the same narrow range of work. If the corporate guy has to do something they are not trained to do, they typically won't do it unless the company trains them first wheras, the smaller company guy just dives in and starts learning it, knowing their company usually won't give them any training on it.

Whereas the smaller company techie is making sure they put in first time fixes so that the job stays fixed so that they don't have to spend time later on it due to their large workload. The corporate guy is more attuned to providing workarounds to initially alleviate the problem whilst the proper fix gets dealt with at a later date. This is all down to the SLA driven mentally of the corporate where their profits will be hit if a call is not off the stack within a certain amount of time. It's about managing sla timers and getting calls off your stack's sla timer as fast as possible with little thought as to whether the fix is a temporary one or a permanent one.

There are tricks employed, which I am sure many of you have come across, where they send the call back to the user (and off their stack) requesting further information (screenshots [who hasn't heard that one?], extra examples, can the problem be got around a different way?, checking with lots of other users to see if they experience the same problem, that sort of thing) in order to progress the call whilst they work on the call without their clock ticking.

They usually send a call back out of hours or just before lunch where the user isn't around or is just about to go somewhere and will provide the information at a later time. This delay in user response allowes the corporate guy extra time to look at the problem and get it fixed without their sla timer expiring. SO, no penalties with extra time to work on calls = more profit! The other side of this is that when corporate higher ups measure how much time is spent for an individual to fix a fault, it is a much lower time as a lot of the time, the call is with the user even though the call is still being worked by the corporate techie (remember about the timers?). This leads to great response times and much better company reputation which, again = more profit.

More money, lots of ongoing training, nice expenses and personal/family benefits but treated like just another number with no acclaim for doing a good job for handling remote faults that have little affect on you versus less money, very little training or expenses and almost non exhistant benefits for handling numerous local faults that have a constant bearing on your personal local reputation with the possibility of being acclaimed as the one who fixed the problem.

It comes down to what sort of techie you want to be.

Of course, the above is sweeping generalisations I have experienced from working on both sides of the fence for the last 15 years. It's just to give an overall idea of the distinctions.

Edit: Oh... I forgot to mention the yearly bonuses for handling SLA timers well and making your manager/department look good. These can typically be anywhere from 5% - 20% of your yearly, already high, salary which come in very handy when looking where to go on holiday or what new car to buy that year.