There is no one answer on how I knew it was the right one, but overall it just felt right.

To give you an extreme case, being a VP of Marketing at Microsoft would carry a lot of weight. Granted it would take a lot to get there, but that title says a lot.

If you meet tons of people and they aren’t in a position to advance your career, they can still be useful. The main advantage with getting to know tons of people is that they may know someone who can help you.

As for company size there are circumstances where a large company could be better (and of course the same goes for a smaller company). My point was in general a larger company is better, but you do make valid points about a small company.

In most cases if you surround yourself with losers you are probably going to be a loser. But if you surround yourself with successful people you’ll start “doing” so that you can be successful too.

An occupation is the field you work in – engineering

A career is the summation of ALL you have done. Its part of who you are. Skills for success are learned on the job, while in school, in the home.

Meeting LOTS of people doesn’t do much good if they are not in the position to advance your position. 10 years down the road they might be an exec, but thats a big maybe and don’t worry about where they are, what have you done to move forward. Find a mentor on the way up and ride their coattails. Focus on those that can help you not 10,000 that can’t

Large or small company really doesn’t make a difference. I am the VP of quality assurance for XYZ, yeah well nice title but tell me what you can do and did for the company and how you can help me.

Also in a small company I may have to wear a few different hats, thereby expanding my knowledge, capabilities and demonstrating that I am flexible, adaptable and have several skill sets.

And surrounding yourself with successful people and hopefully… HOPEFULLY!!!!! The way up is not based on hope it based on doing.

Overall its a good beginning to building a successful career but a few not necessarily true assumptions.

I’ve been thinking a lot latley on what exactly it is I enjoy doing. Is it programming? Running servers? Running my own company? Telling others what to do? Having ideas? Marketing? All of the above? All I know, is that I can never know enough.
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Working for small companies are great but the one problem I see is that when you go into some job interviews sometimes people have never heard of these small startups.

Maybe the best move is to mix it up and make sure you have experienced the corporate life as well as working for startups.

As for flexibility I still feel it is possible to get it with large companies, but as you stated it is much easier to find it within smaller companies.

What I do know, in the Netherlands at least, is that the switch from big to small is hard to make, the switch from small to big almost impossible. Small firms sometimes hire people from bigger firms (although the huge cultural differences generally make for a bad fit and a short ‘career’). Big firms very seldom hire from small companies, unless it’s a small company with a big name. (Never heard of it, can’t be any good applies here I guess).

In my experiance (and of course, I’m only one person), when I look at my career and to that of many of my classmates that started in big companies, I moved a lot faster. Of course, could be the person, and yes, it’s a matter of opinion what ‘a better career’ is. But I can’t help but disagree with you on the small and big company question. It’s more ‘where you belong’ (culture wise) then a sure thing.

Oh, and last but not least, like I said, more flexible and you get more chances (usually) to take control. Less politics, more chances to grow in your job (in stead of to another job).

The reason I feel you should work for a big company is that even if you don’t get to meet execs you still get to meet tons more people. Although these people may not be valuable to you today, they could be execs in different companies 10 years down the road.

You do make a good point that you won’t meet as many execs on the outside of your company, but I think that you can actually make that happen through networking (conferences, industry events,…).

As for flexibility I agree with you that there is more room with smaller firms, but there is still opportunity at larger firms. You just have to find the right fit such as Google is probably a very flexible company in the Internet space.

And lastly as for job title, tons of people are considered VPs such as a security person. But either way I would rather be the VP of security for a large company than just a “security guard” because in the future it may cause me to make more money.

I agree with Bas, I worked in a large company and corporate politics got in the way of any type of possible networking to the big guys. Also, any freedom of creativity was owned, meaning, it was my idea, but I didn’t get the pat on the back for thinking of it. Since then, I have become a “freelancer”(uggggh silly word) and have been doing it for about 7 years. How does your post apply to contractors or freelancers? How can a freelancer have a successful career?

It’s not better to work at a big company. Yes, you meet more collegues, however you usually don’t get the chance to meet high execs outside the company, because your boss will take those meetings. Working at a small company usually gives you a lot more access to the outside world.

In your flexibility point you argue you need the room to expand, usually at a small company, you get that a lot more then at a big company. Also there are a lot less ego’s (since you have less collegues to begin with) so you get more chances of building a personal brand. You get out more, you get more speaking oppertunities since there are less rules and less people to compete with, you get the name in the paper faster (since there is no PR department), etc. So the oppertunities are a lot bigger in small firms then in big ones (also less rules on blogging for example)

The second point (pay and title): well, you shouldn’t look for either (pay or title). You should look for the actual job. At a big firm, everybody is a VP (even the guards at the door of a bank are VP of security). Personaly, I don’t mind having a crappy title, when I have a good job.

You are right that a job is just part of a career. And your career should be just a part of your future for that matter.

Just my 2 cents.

I totally agree with it being hard to find a job. Even if I was trying to get a 9 to 5 job, I don’t think I would find what I am looking for. It is always hard and in most cases we have to settle.

We should have you as a guest author on the blog sometime for your input on careers, especially from someone who’s seeing it all at once (Student, Business Owner, Developer, etc).

Good point about jobs and careers being two completely different things. Their were some things you left out about that, but it was straight to the point. Good post, Neil.