How to join a 'bigger' employer

[rdfcpete]

Guys,

Keen to find out the best approach to increasing chances of landing employment at 'bigger' companies, say more than 100 employees?

My last three employers including the current one have all been companies with less than 35 staff. I'm a little fed up of the small business mentality now.
I want a new challenge and a larger company appears to consistently give better opportunities and overall better employee benefits, in my short experience. I'm experienced in the IT industry.

I know many of you are employed or contracted with house hold names and brands.
Where should I be looking?

Appreciate any hints or tips.
Thanks 

[Poverty]

Erm its fairly easy, keep an eye open on the job market, perhaps get the help of an agent, and generally be proactive in consistently checking for openings in the companies you want to work for

[andrewparker]

I guess it depends on the industry, but in my experience the grass isn't always greener on the other side.

[Hedge]

^

What he says. 

[keano]

Coming from a recruitment consultant. Albeit, for the white collar rail industry. Your cv needs to be absolutely direct and to the point.

Just tangible evidence of where you have worked in the past and what you brought to the company before hand. No one, and I mean no one reads the bit about been a good team player, punctual and waters your mum's flowers at the weekend. Just keep it short and sharp :)

Perhaps look at getting your cv advertised with a specialist IT recruitment firm. They always aim to get you the best job for the best money, as it's in their interest  

[DFish]

Big companies get the same politics and mudslinging as small I've found. Just easier to hide in big companies though.

Fish

[sub39h]

no experience myself, but my gf is an accountant and she used an agent to switch jobs from a family practice to an industry job for a large retailer

i would probably echo the statements above about the grass being greener tho. i don't agree that bigger is always better

[Degudodger]

Having worked for large international companies for the last 13 years (Virgin Media, Arqiva, IBM and a provider of Automotive software) earlier this year i made the decision to resign from a stable job and move to a smaller company, in this case a small yet highly profitable software reseller with less than 50 employees in the UK. Given the state of the economy the move was a gamble but i can say that after three months i'm glad i made the jump.

[Apollo]

The CV comments are spot on take that advice, to add to it I would say don't be worried about applying for every single job in your area of expertise and certainly aim higher than you think you can go.  Several friends lately have applied for jobs higher than they would normally go, the companies did not give them the job but instead offered them other jobs on the back of the interview. Jobs which had yet to be advertised, larger companies have the ability to do this.

The grass is not always greener - As mentioned, larger companies can certainly leave you feeling like just another worker.  Smaller companies tend to look after staff better, more a family so it's a bit of give and take.

Get your phone out, or laptop, and call or email the companies you are interested in working for. 

[Tamiyoman]

Have to echo, a lot of the comments on here, having worked for some of the larger financial companies (LloydsTSB, AIG, RBS, as well as 2 of the largest independant offshore brokers) the grass is deffo not greener, with larger companies the benefits do tend to be better, but they work you much harder and its expected you will do way MORE hours than contracted for the same money and at the end of the day your just an employee number, smaller companies tend to reward you better "Emotionally" and generally a nicer enviroinment to work in, I am self employed now and would recommend that route to anyone.

[ConeKiller]

I work for a major company and would swap it for a smaller one any day!!

your just a number at the end of the day, I wont prefer to work in a smaller company with 20 odd employees!

[Deako]

I work for a massive UK bank, and the same BS still goes on. Mid year and end of year reviews are a con. Everyone is rated according to a "curve" and even if nobody in my team of 10 (in IT Service Delivery) deserve a low performance rating, at least 2 people "have" to get it. Which affects everything including your bonus and payrise.

Benefits are good though. 4% of your salary to spend on what you like, some tax free, some ni free, some free from both. I take Cycle2Work as it suits me.

However, due to the state of the economy and massive headcount reductions. In the 5 years i have worked here, there have been 0 promotion opportunities in my department. Due to a rather large merger, all our payscales were restructured. Now i would need 2 promotion grades to even get a sniff of a half decent payrise, yet if i moved to the wider business, i could get a job with about 5% of the responsibility for more money and a better pay grade.

Personally, i look after 300 servers including systems of Citrix, VMWare, Fibre channel SAN, all server patching. But i am paid the wage of someone working on level 2 desktop support.

This is the big thing stopping me moving to another company at present. I get good overtime on a monthly basis and im On-call 1 in every 5 weeks for 24 hour support. It helps me bring home another £10k a year on top of my salary.

[SteveP]

Currently working at a pretty big company but will be moving to a much smaller one in the near future so am looking it at from the other way.

Can only echo a lot of a comments from guys above, but I would say, depending on the type of role, it can help in rounding some different skills working at a bigger company and it doesn't hurt to have a big name on the CV either 

[Degudodger]

For me the crunch came when i changed departments and was told by my line manager that my face didn't fit so i took the opportunity to leave. Where i work now may not be perfect but no two days are the same and you are encouraged to suggest ways to improve processes, and challenge the way things are done. You also have to wear many hats. For instance i am currently Project Managing our £1.2m office move, the logic being I am a Software Project Manager therefore i should be able to PM an office move. I have eight years experience in building telecoms installations for the Vodafone, O2 and the Emergency services so it isn't exactly new to me but its a completely different box of frogs to what i do day to day.

My salary has increased by £10k but i only get 21 days holiday and no perks what so ever but the training package is pretty good.

[tony_danza]

I worked in IT for BT for 14 years - through the hayday of £15/share and all the Bolly you could eat, to where it is now, which is completely on its arse.

On one hand, you get to mess with a network on a scale you can't really imagine being in small business. Not only their's, but their customers too. You learn at a staggering rate of knots and gain huge experience. I worked all over the UK, travelled abroad and had a lot of good times. Private healthcare and a final salary pension weren't to be sniffed at either.

On the other hand, you are indeed a number, and when they slash and burn to offshore, you're just a wage bill and out.

Luckily I escaped, some of the lads I worked with are pretty much being either left to rot or bullied out of the company (because they can't do compulsory redundancy due to an old clause in the contracts). It's rotten to the core. Of course this happens elsewhere, as Deako alluded too - many places are stagnant, fine if you want to tick over for a decent wage, no good if like you you're looking for opportunity.

I now work for a big bank, I've been exposed to more in 18 months than I did in the previous 5 years at BT and I'm really getting on well. I had over £10k of training last year, and the culture is very much 'if you want to learn and progress, we'll push you on'.

My advice, if you're in IT, then there's pretty much all the contracting you can eat in London at the moment. Ignore what the Daily Mail says about the downturn, it isn't affecting London and IT. I've been tapped up a fair bit recently and a lot of others I know too by agencies offering jobs. Easy £500/day for bread and butter stuff. Get in with a decent employer and get experience. If you like the big bad world of Blue Chips, then hop on and ride it!