You are just out of your college, have a degree in your hand and now you have decided to join a start-up. Your friends have got jobs in popular multi-national companies. Your family and friends doubt your choice, leaving you confused. You start doubting your decision about joining a start-up. But should you? Here, we are discussing some of the major benefits of joining a start-up.
Major benefits of joining a Start-up
Starting your career
The initial years of your career are exciting and important. Most people know what they want to do and become after a few years, but do not know how to do that. The initial four or five years is a time which is filled with discovery- of one’s expertise, of taking the risks, and even making some mistakes. With varieties of options in the market, most of the time freshers are confused between joining a start-up or taking the corporate route.
Several studies have proved that over 60% of the CEO’s took a small role or moved to a small firm to take on greater responsibility and took chances to build something group up and made a huge impact. Various small organizations and start up’s have assisted many CEO’s build skillsets and got their achievements in the limelight.
Here are a few things that assisted them:
- Taking a huge leap- Over one-third of them took a huge leap by taking on huge roles, even when the roles were outside of their knowledge. Huge breaks do not land on one’s lap. Most people must chase it. Some of the ways to find big challenging roles include joining a start-up firm, requesting your bosses to give you challenging opportunities and be willing to handle complex issues.
- Going into a big mess- Over 30% of these CEO’s intentionally took on challenges and help their teams to come out of the mess. These situations assist people in showing their leadership qualities.
Join a start-up and learn these:
More responsibilities and more learning
Most of the start-ups have small teams, which signifies more responsibilities are assigned to every member. One can learn more than a single skill. Also, it is a great opportunity for anyone just out of the school to explore his or her strong points, to whittle a niche in certain skill sets and to find out where is one’s strength.
Wide opportunities
Start-ups are made of small teams. Each team member has different roles. There are no roles that are fixed to a team. Working at a start-up offers flexibility to seize opportunities and take on challenging professions to prove oneself.
Opportunity to learn from innovators
Entrepreneurs are those who come with an original and innovative solution when they find a problem. The founders of start-ups have a different approach towards work when compared to those who have never established their firm. You will learn a lot from the founders while you work with them.
Learn these skills when you work in a start-up.
- Decision-making
Some people have in-built decision-making quality, but some must learn. Start-up’s need to be fast, flexible, and agile to the changes in the job market and must align themselves with plenty of opportunities. All these are dependent based on taking decisions. As a start-up is made of small teams, every person in the team is an expert to take decisions.
- Handling failure
For most successful companies, failure has been regarded as the stepping stone to achieving success. So, those who join a start-up, know that the chances of a start-up being failed are much more than it is becoming successful.
- You will get to wear various hats at the same time
You might be a software engineer at a start-up but you might also be a marketer, designer, or SEO expert at the same time. Most of the start-ups have blurred boundaries between various functions and roles which lets employees perform different jobs at the same time.
For the middle-aged employee in a conventional company, this might confuse. But for young people, this is one of the major benefits of joining a start-up. Switching between various roles and juggling responsibilities not just makes you aware of your capabilities but also lets you explore various functions of your industry early on in your career.
- You will get more freedom to take decisions and initiatives
This is another one in the list of benefits of joining a start-up. In most start-ups, the roles are distantly defined but there are no fixed job descriptions. Also, there are a few hierarchical restrictions. All these means you have more freedom to take decisions, initiatives, test ideas, and experiment with different strategies that might be helpful for your company. Such freedom is rare in large scale and multi-national companies where you need several approvals and need to go through different procedural cycles before you try anything new.
- Your talent will be tested under pressure
Most corporate workers have fixed or the same kind of activities that they daily and generally leave their workplace by 5 or 6 PM. However, start-up life is very much different. Employees in a start-up are expected to work on various projects and meet strict deadlines even if it means putting in additional hours every day. Things happen faster and there is a lot of uncertainty in the scope of various tasks and projects. This might not sound exciting to a corporate employee who is 40 years old but for a start-up employee who is in his 20’s, this is perfect for accelerated learning and career development. Working under strict deadlines will improve your skills and develop your decision-making skills. It will make you much sharper.
You will learn leadership skills
Generally, it takes years for fresh graduates in a corporate job to get into managerial positions where they are held responsible for handling other employees. However, start-ups, throw you in the deep end instantly. In a start-up, even new employees are given leading roles and are made responsible for attaining important business objectives. Unlike large corporations where every function has well-documented SOPs, start-ups enable their employees to find their way. Instead of telling you what are your responsibilities are, most start-up managers would just give you an objective and ask you to find a better way to attain it. This added empowerment and trust will help you to become a good leader at an early stage of your career.
Your work will have a direct effect on the company
Not finding your work significant enough is one of the major sources of demotivation for the corporate staff. Most start-ups have a small workforce and all of them function closely together. So, no matter in which department you are, everyone can see the result of your hard work. If you do something good for the company, you will be praised by your peers. If you make a mistake, everyone will know about it. Either way, you will not be left doubting.
Get promotions more frequently
It can take you many years in a multinational company to get to a managerial position. However, at a start-up, promotions are not restricted to yearly reviews. Even new staff can make their way up to the ladder and enjoy their roles and benefits that just senior corporate workers get.