Small company vs MNC

David6330

Which would be the better option for an engineering graduate?

Both companies manufacture machinery. The MNC has sites on four continents and sells worldwide. The small company is located in Holland and sells across Europe.

Pay is roughly the same.
Both jobs will be in the UK.

The MNC will be better for career progression. Smaller company will be better in getting experience in different areas.

Any other pros and cons?

CatFromHue

how big are the design teams and what is their make up?

the mnc might have a big design team with a lot of electrical eng but none or few mech engs.

the small company might have a smaller design team but more mech engs, or no design team just 1 mech engs.

try and find out who you would be working with and what is their background. you dont have to be too specific just ask are there other mech engs (or whatever engineer you are) or who would i be working with/for?

also see if they have a training plan or would there be a mentor for you as a graduate?

David6330

@ CatFromHue

The small company have 5 mechanical and 1 electrical engineers all doing design work. There is also a head engineer who I say is a mechanical engineer.

With the small company I will be learning on the job and from my understanding there is no structure in place, just turn up for work and deal with everything as it happens. I will be working in R&D covering pretty much everything.

I don't know much about the MNC's engineering team. Its going to be big but the area I will be going into will be vehicle development concentrating on noise/vibration testing which is much more specialised than with the small company.

I am finding it diffucult as both companies have their pros and cons. At the minute I am leaning towards the small company as I feel it will have more variety from day to day.

CatFromHue

how much do you want to specialise in vehicle development concentrating on noise/vibration testing?

the small company seems to have a big enough design team for you to learn off and if you are working in r&d that could turn out very interesting as well.

David6330

At the moment I don't really want to specialise in anything yet. I would like to try my hand at a few things and then decide. It looks like the small company is the way to go.

CatFromHue

how do the job specs compare?

Mr. Loverman

David6330 wrote: »

Any other pros and cons?

MNC's are full of people who only care about their career and would jeopardise your job if it will make them look good.

Small companies tend to have a lot more people who care about the company/doing the right thing.

CatFromHue

the only person who would jeopardise my job to make them look good ive ever worked with was in a small company.

Mr. Loverman

CatFromHue wrote: »

the only person who would jeopardise my job to make them look good ive ever worked with was in a small company.

Sure, but in general MNC's tend to be highly political and full of people who will do anything to better their career, regardless of the consequences for the company.

G-Money

I don't work in the same industry as the OP but I have worked for both MNC's and small companies and hands-down, I prefer MNC's any day of the week.

Small companies are ok but you can get roped into doing all sorts of stuff that's not related to your job and it frankly can become quite annoying. For example I worked in one place where if the receptionist was off or on her lunch break or whatever, the phone's would ring around to everyone's desk and you'd have to play the role of receptionist. Same thing would happen when they got deliveries. It did my head in as I was there to do my own job, not someone else's.

I prefer a MNC as personally I find there's a lot more options to move around career wise. With small companies they sometimes can be quite inflexible regarding budgets and if you want to go learn technology X, they possibly do not have the ability to offer that. But then, that's just my own personal opinion.

Ardent

Mr. Loverman wrote: »

MNC's are full of people who only care about their career and would jeopardise your job if it will make them look good.

Small companies tend to have a lot more people who care about the company/doing the right thing.

Sorry, but that's frankly rubbish. In my 15 years of working, I have found exactly the opposite to be true.

Also, an MNC will offer better job/career protection as well as protection from bullying/harrassment due to various frameworks you don't often find in smaller companies.

bbam

Ardent wrote: »

Sorry, but that's frankly rubbish. In my 15 years of working, I have found exactly the opposite to be true.

Also, an MNC will offer better job/career protection as well as protection from bullying/harrassment due to various frameworks you don't often find in smaller companies.

I've worked in both over about 20 years..
Small companies can be great but can be a bit ping pong and no long term strategy, business or personell. Turn up, do your job and most likely no development plans to speak of.
MNC's will be more organised in general, will do the HR thing much better as theu have more to protect... You can get the benefit of working in a small team within a MNC and have basically the best of both worlds...

However it sounds like OP wants more general experience so the small firm may offer just that... It's not like the MNC's are going away, you can always do that in the future..... nice problem;)

fret_wimp2

Ardent wrote: »

Also, an MNC will offer better job/career protection as well as protection from bullying/harrassment due to various frameworks you don't often find in smaller companies.

Not true at all. I have just been made redundant from an MNC, and contractors on my team actually have 6 months left in their contract, where all the full timers will be gone by next week, so extra security is complete rubbish.

With regard to the protection from bullying/harrasment, this may be true to a point, but HR depts are so large they become unweildy so i dont find your argument completely accurate.

Finally, ive found that in a MNC, people are not out to do a good job ( generalization i know but happens more often than not). people just want to send mails and reports to higher levels of managment, in hope of being noticed and getting promoted.

In a smaller company there is less of this type of politics, as your dependent on doing a good job for your customers to stay around, and not just pleasing upper managment.

These points i just made are generalizations, but they are what i have found based on experience.

mooner

My background is as an engineer in a different industry. Having worked in MNCs and small businesses. The resources and structure of an MNC can be fantastic, but your learning/development can be very limited in scope. The small company will give you a more rounded exposure typically - and that does include answering the phone and cleaning the kitchen sink. I'd go for the small company myself. Both can be frustrating and rewarding, you need to figure out which type of environment works for you.

fret_wimp2

mooner wrote: »

My background is as an engineer in a different industry. Having worked in MNCs and small businesses. The resources and structure of an MNC can be fantastic, but your learning/development can be very limited in scope. The small company will give you a more rounded exposure typically - and that does include answering the phone and cleaning the kitchen sink. I'd go for the small company myself. Both can be frustrating and rewarding, you need to figure out which type of environment works for you.

I agree with this. in my current MNC, if i want modifications made to a server, i just make a request to the server team. if i want a patch installed, i just call the patch team, if i want a server rebuilt, i just call the server build team.

All i need to know is that a task needs doing, and who will do it. I dont need to know any more than that. I find this severly limiting as i dont get experience in new areas.

For some people, they love this, they are good at administration type work and delegation. for others its just not hands on enough and you dont learn quickly enough.

Mr. Loverman

Ardent wrote: »

Sorry, but that's frankly rubbish. In my 15 years of working, I have found exactly the opposite to be true.

MNCs tend to be PLCs so they can't have their owner working for them, i.e. MNCs are owned by the shareholders. This fact alone proves small companies where the MD is the owner, etc., will more than likely be run by someone who is doing what's genuinely best for the company. He isn't some weasel trying to build his career.

MNCs are full of weasels. Their career building is #1, even to the detriment of the MNC.

I have been working for 15 years also, and have worked for AOL, Microsoft, Oracle, PTSB, Sun Microsystems, and AIB. I have also worked for some small companies.