<p>It seems like everybody wants to work for the Big name companies.</p>
<p>When you work for the big name companies, won't u be doing more meaningless work? </p>
<p>I've always wanted to work for a big name company, but after a talk with someone yesterday he pointed out all the benefits of a smaller company such as you'd get recognized for your work, dont got to deal with all the politics, etc.</p>
<p>What do you guys think?</p>
<p>A friend of mine graduated about 7 years ago from Purdue in engineering. Really bright girl and all, went to a giant (famous) engineering firm, and absolutely hated it. All the real engineering was outsourced, and she didn't do a thing. After some soul-searching, she decided to work for a small local company and is SOOO much happier. She was about to throw away her engineering degree and become a secretary. </p>
<p>Moral of the story is..go for a small company. You won't get the bragging rights, but you'll be a lot happier.</p>
<p>Just to put in a word as devil's advocate...</p>
<p>There's a natural ebb and flow to the business world. Some times are leaner than others, and a larger company's going to have an easier time floating through the tougher times than a smaller company.</p>
<p>That's not to say that you shouldn't work for a smaller company, it's just a caveat. Make sure that they have a plan for when business isn't booming.</p>
<p>Another advantage of a larger company are training programs and human resources... A larger company may have an in-house legal team and better health insurance and other benefits than a smaller company might. A smaller company's not going to have the resources to have things like an in-house librarian to do research and pull articles from a company library. </p>
<p>A smaller company's also probably not going to have a formalized mentoring program or as structured an employee training program. Remember that when you graduate and start working, you're just BEGINNING to learn your job as an engineer! A lot of larger companies have a structured program to bring in new employees and train them to design cars or airplanes or buildings using company-developed coursework and training projects, whereas in a smaller company, you might have to figure out how to design all that stuff on your own.</p>
<p>By no means should you be discouraged from working for a smaller company; there are indeed a lot of advantages, including the possibility of more interesting work and more individual attention from your superiors, but there's no guarantee that a) you'll GET that attention and interesting work at a smaller company, and b) there's no guarantee that you WON'T get individualized attention or interesting work at the larger company, either.</p>
<p>Take it on a company-by-company basis. There are advantages and disadvantages for each size and type of company. You can't say that one is definitely better than the other unless you examine all aspects of each individual option. Check out some of the "best companies to work for" rankings that are out there... I'm sure there are listings for pretty much every field, but I'm most familiar with CE News' rankings for civil engineering firms, and they're quite helpful in finding the good firms to work for.</p>
<p>Best of luck!</p>