Career Advice For Freshers: Working In Start-ups Vs MNCs

As an individual, there will be innumerable points in your career where you will feel the need to make a choice between two things. Indeed, many of the times it will be very difficult for you to make a pick. In such cases, the best thing that you can do is evaluate the pros and cons of the given options and then arrive at a feasible result. The biggest career options that one encounter are the ones that come up right at the beginning of their career. That is because, at that juncture, the career choices you make will decide the course of your career for the next 3 decades.

These days, the biggest dilemma that fresher's face is choosing the type of organisation that they must join; whether it should be an MNC or a start-up. Indeed both have their own set of advantages and disadvantages and it is very difficult for us to pinpoint which is better over the other.

The answer to that is subjective of each individual situation. To help you make your pick, this article talks about the advantage of both start-ups and MNCs. Read through the lines and then make your career decision.

Advantages Of MNCs

• Discipline

As compared to a start-up, an MNC is more rigid about the rules and regulations and has a more disciplined take on work. There is a clear organisational hierarchy and every individual is accountable for their work and they are supposed to report the progress of the same to their boss.

This type of highly organised structure of job distribution inculcates a sense of discipline in a fresher. Once they take to this type of a disciplined lifestyle, succeeding in their respective careers becomes a child's play.

• Career Opportunities

Working in an MNC will take you places if you want it to. Most MNCs have offices in multiple locations and allow its employees the option of working from the location of their choice. Also, if, after a certain number of years of experience, a person wants to shift domains, they have the privilege of doing so within the multinational organisation.

Most MNCs allow their employees the option of both vertical as well as horizontal movement within the firm. Thus, if as a fresher you are unsure about where you see yourself ten years down the line, then the smartest thing to do would be to join an MNC as that would give you the opportunity to grow in the direction of your choice.

• Job Security

Most MNCs provide their employees with gratuity, provident fund, medical insurance and other employment benefits. Very rarely would you find the same in a start-up. In the world of private jobs, MNCs offer the maximum amount of social security.

Thus, as a fresher, if you are looking for long-term job security and a career that will pay you well to be able to take care of yourself and your family, then MNCs are where you should pursue your first job.

• Diverse Culture

Typically, multinational corporations have a diverse workforce with people from various ethnic and racial backgrounds participating in the same. As a fresher, this gives you a broader experience and you get to experience how people with different perspectives can work together as a team.

You also learn to collaborate with people who are not the same as you and, as a result, you grow both professionally and personally. Over the years, finding the middle ground becomes your forte and the company moulds you into becoming a leader yourself.

Advantages Of Start-ups

• Learning Opportunity

In an MNC, what you do is a part of the greater task at hand. More often than not, employees are not even aware of the application of the thing that they are working on. However, that is not the case in start-ups. Here an employee is involved in the entire process - right from making the initial plans to delivering the final product to the client.

This type of an all-inclusive work environment is an ideal learning opportunity for people who have no experience but are filled with an intense desire to learn.

• Better Work Recognition

Since there are a lesser number of people involved, there is practically no chance of your work being ignored by others. No one else can come and just steal the credit for all the hard work that you have put into something.

Bigger organisations often see their employees fall prey to intellectual property rights violation wherein a person in the organisation takes the credit for the hard work put in by someone else. Thus, working in a start-up will give you greater intellectual satisfaction and that forms the basis of mental satisfaction for many people.

• Multitasking

In a start-up, there will not be dedicated people for every small role. In such a situation, a person will have to take up a number of tasks and functions that are not restricted to that of their official functions.

In the process of doing things like these, a person may end up discovering their own hidden talents. This type of multitasking will also make them more flexible at the professional level and that will be a major accelerator in their career path.

• Responsibility

Working in a start-up means that you will have to build something from scratch and take complete ownership of your actions. You cannot really expect to have mentors here who will give you knowledge transfer sessions. This makes a person more responsible and brings out the best in them.