Corporate Survivor with Mei Phing : Career Growth In The Corporate World - Ep133: Corporate MNC vs Start-Up: Where should you work?

Episode Date: May 17, 2022

✅ Get My FREE '5-Day Career Growth' Guide + Training 👉 http://www.meiphing.com ✅ Grow your career in the 9-5 corporate world with clarity, confidence and opportunities! ⚡ 👋 Welcome to the Corporate Survivor with Mei Phing — corporate career coach, ex-corporate leader who has led multimillion-dollar projects across 43 countries and creator of the ultimate career course for 9-5 professionals, The Corporate Survivor™. On this podcast, you'll learn how to grow your career in the corporate world without getting stuck with Mei Phing's 3-step framework to gain career clarity, improve work confidence and attract new job opportunities. ✅ WEBSITE ⮕ https://www.meiphing.com ✅ FREE GUIDE ⮕ https://www.thecorporatesurvivor.co/5days ✅ COURSE & COACHING ⮕ https://www.thecorporatesurvivor.co ⚡ 📌 ABOUT MEI PHING: Mei Phing Lim is a Professional Career Coach and former Corporate Leader in the financial services and consulting industries. Mei Phing went from a shy quiet introvert to leading multimillion-dollar projects with teams from over 43 countries as the Senior Director and Head of Governance at Standard Chartered, and now teaching 9-5 professionals how to navigate the corporate world and grow their careers with her career coaching course, The Corporate Survivor™. Mei Phing has been featured as a LinkedIn Top Voice 2023, sharing expert career advice in guiding young professionals to plan, navigate and grow their careers. Mei Phing is a keynote speaker on corporate culture, work performance and career growth, and sharing perspectives on what truly takes to build a strategic and successful career without getting stuck. ✅ LEARN MORE: https://www.meiphing.com

Welcome to the Corporate Survivor Podcast, where we talk about how to grow your career confidence, build your skills and value, increase your salary, and the many lessons we learn in the corporate world. For more career support, click on over to www.meiping.com. This is Mei Ping, your corporate leader turned career coach. I hope you enjoy, like and subscribe. Hello, hello, hello and welcome to another day, another live stream and welcome back to my 30-day career live stream series where we will be exploring extremely interesting topics that will be relevant to you if you are someone who is working in a 9-5 corporate

job in a structured organization and want to climb your career ladder. So if you are new here, hi, my name is Mei Ping. I'm a professional career coach and former corporate leader who has worked in multi-million dollar companies, running multi-million dollar projects, as well as worked with people from over 43 countries. So welcome to day 17 of my 30-day career live stream. So today, I wanted to talk about the difference between working in a corporation and rather a big corporation such as a global multinational company versus a startup. Now, one of the common questions I get from a lot of job seekers, a lot of nine to five corporate professionals who is sending me messages on LinkedIn DMs or even Instagram DMs is usually when I get questions around career change.

One of the very common questions I get asked is, hey, Mipin, do you think that it makes sense if I want to transition to a different company size? Because I'm very scared and I think that it's very difficult. So the career transitions can look very different. I could have someone working in a very small company telling me that he or she feels very afraid to even apply for an MNC because he or she thinks that the culture is going to be so different and it might be very difficult to adapt. I also have people who probably are working in a completely startup environment

right now, but because they wanted more opportunities, they also wanted more money, also asking me if it makes sense to move to a global multinational company, realizing that the dynamic and the pace may be different, but because of the, obviously, the monetary benefits as well as the growth opportunities are thinking to make the change. Then on the flip side, I also have people coming to me, also clients coming to me asking me if moving to a startup would be a good idea because they feel like

the MNC or the corporate environment is too rigid and, you know, things move a little bit slower. They want to do something more exciting. They want to try something that's more dynamic and more future forward, which is the nature of most, a lot of startups as well so if you are watching live right now maybe drop it in the comments below and let me know what type of company or yeah what type of company are you currently working in right now are you working in a startup are you in an SME are you in a global MNC or you are currently on a career break right now and you are basically looking for a job and you're pretty flexible in terms of the type of companies that you want to join. So if you happen to be watching live right now, drop it in the comments and let me know. It'd be very interesting

to see where you guys are at and maybe also you can let me know also, are you planning to move to a different company type and basically basically, what's stopping you? Now, when I get questions from, you know, a lot of job seekers, a lot of 9-to-5 professionals, like I said, a lot of the times the question is around culture, the question is around adaptability, and really be able to make the transition successfully, I think is the best way to put it.

Now, let me share with you some of my experiences, you know, working, you know, startup versus SME versus corporate. And throughout my more than 10 years of working experience in the corporate world, I have actually worked in all these type of organizations before. And I can share with you a little bit about my own experiences. And maybe you can, yeah, maybe you can consider it for your own. And towards the end of the live stream, I'm also going to share with you what is that one commonality between all these companies to make sure that you can actually be successful regardless of whichever type of company that you choose to work in. Now, let's talk about the beginning of my career. So many of you don't know, I'm

actually a chartered certified accountant. And when I graduated in year 2008, 2009, I actually took an internship in a startup and it was actually an events management startup. So I think one thing that you need to realize is, you know, I say that, you know, the experience I had in 2008 versus what I'm doing right now, basically, you know, my career coaching venture is a bit of a startup as well, is that if you're a person who needs a lot of structure, if you're a person who needs a lot of handholding, a lot of guidance, then the startup culture is not going to be right for you. If you are a person who is very rigid, you like to know exactly what's going to happen in the future, you want to have that detailed step-by-step on what exactly is going to happen, probably being in a startup, working in a startup will be extremely frustrating because it probably is not just you. The owner, you know, himself or herself are probably still trying to figure it out. So if you are that kind of person, then it's going to feel very frustrating every day

and it's probably, you know, a working environment in a startup that actually can induce a lot of nervousness and anxiety that may not be healthy for your mental health, right? So I'm not saying that you need to be a certain kind of person to work in a startup, but I think it's really, really important to understand your own personality. And I always, like I always tell all my clients that understanding

your personality is very important because sometimes you may get into a job that is just not suitable to your personality. And therefore, you are not setting yourself up for success. So that has been my experience, you know, more than 10 years ago, working in an events management startup. And obviously, right now, in my own current company, for my career coaching and training, it is also a startup as well, where there are so many things moving at the same time, but at the same time, we also want to be able to progress forward. Now, it can sound very confusing to people who are just moving from an MNC or moving from an SME to a startup because the mindset is growth, the mindset is speed, the mindset

is agility, and it's really not for everyone. So if you're a person who has a very strong skill set, you know exactly what you're good at, you can adapt fast, you can take minimal instructions but still able to execute to top quality, then startup environment likely is going to be extremely rewarding for you. So after startup, before we kind of go into the corporate world MNC, there is the other type of companies as well, and that's the SME.

So, SME is the small and medium enterprises that probably has slightly less team members or staff working in there, but also extremely critical companies as well. And some of these SMEs may not just be operating locally, they could be operating across different regions, different countries. So there are still multiple opportunities. But the beauty of SME is that things are sometimes not as rigid. So therefore, you may find some space for creativity in terms of execution and implementation. However, the then other challenge around SME is that they may be understaffed sometimes. So SME is kind of like an in-between between the corporate and startup. So I think that if you want to join an SME as a bit of a stepping stone, it's actually a really good thing. So for example, for me, when I first graduated in 2008, 2009, the first full-time job that I joined was as SME, was at an SME.

The only problem was that SMEs generally do not pay as well. They may not necessarily have the best benefits, but you do learn a lot because you may be able to handle more in terms of portfolio, in terms of like getting exposure, you probably can try a lot more things and that helps depending on the kind of like career growth and specific experiences that you may want as well. But I do think that, you know, my personal experiences in an SME is that if you do not plan your career, it's very easy to actually get stuck in an SME. And from there on, it may not be the easiest path to move to a MNC

because you don't actually have MNC experience. So I think, you know, if you're in an SME right now, you really want to think about like, where do you really want your career to be? And is it one of your goals to join MNC? So I do get a lot of comments from you know nine to five working professionals who have been in the SMEs for some time and asking me if is it really a date and can they actually get into MNC and can they survive? Yes you can

but I think you need a very clear framework and this is actually something that I teach in my online course The Corporate Survivor at www.thecorporatesurvivor.co. And this is actually something that I teach in my online course, The Corporate Survivor, at www.thecorporatesurvivor.co. So this is definitely a program that I recommend to anyone who is actually trying to join an MNC. Whether you are planning to join, you can equip yourself

with the right knowledge, the right perspectives and mindset before jumping in. Or if you have been in an MNC for some time but you're still trying to figure out the entire jigsaw puzzle I would still also recommend this course because I have worked in companies of different types for throughout my entire career as I said from startups to SME to MNC and basically running my own company so I've kind of like gone through the entire path so definitely this course is designed with you in mind.

As long as you are a nine to five working professional in the corporate world, you'll find a lot of value in helping you transition into your new career for success. So moving to the last company type, and obviously that is the global MNC, the global multinational company, which has a lot of entities, presence across different countries, different regions as well. So I have been working in MNCs for a very long time. And I've also worked at the regional level, at the global level,

and working with people across 43 countries. Now, MNCs are highly desirable because the company brand name is good, the pay is good, the benefits are good, and just overall opening a lot of doors of opportunities. Now, the biggest challenge then in MNC, actually, aside from your technical skills, actually, it's your soft skills. And this may come as a bit of surprise to you and you may be thinking, Mipin, why would you say MNC would really care so much about my soft skills when it takes a lot of qualification to actually join?

Now, that's a very good question. And I think the main reason is because of the nature of the MNC, it's a huge company. So therefore, there are multiple functions, multiple departments, and obviously a lot more people as well. And therefore, if you truly want to be successful in the MNC and what I truly define as the structured, slightly more bureaucratic corporate world, it's very, very important that you see the entire jigsaw puzzle as to how everything is connected and what is your role within this entire jigsaw puzzle. Now, this I find is something that a lot of people don't realize or they don't know how to see themselves within the process and they also don't see how the entire machine is connected.

And that actually creates a lot of problems because even though you may join MNC, you may have the nice business title, you may have the nice company name, but you are not actually maximizing the opportunity because you probably lack the soft skills to develop a strong network, right? Networking, you are probably not communicating

with the right people or you are not building relationships with the right people and all of these can actually advance your career. But the problem is that in order to do that, how can you actually do that? How can you suddenly, you know, build relationships with people and so forth? First, obviously, strategy. Second is really understanding, like like i said the dynamics of the corporate world mindset the culture how do you fit in the jigsaw puzzle the next part is then then you need to understand people aside from understanding yourself now you're going to deal with like way more people than you know who you would normally deal with at a startup or an sme so understanding people personalities people dynamics going to be super duper important because if you can't get along with people, it's going to feel very uncomfortable because at an MNC, it's a huge company, right?

So in order to do something, it's really, really important to be able to communicate, to plan things, to really kind of like get together to get something done so just some things to think about and of course in order to do all that you want to do a job well done because competition is stiff right it's not just like a few of a few of you it'll be hundreds of you fighting for the same promotion fighting for the same increment fighting for the same recognition and in order for you to do that then that's when all the soft skills come in. Your ability to communicate, your ability to build relationships, to build your network with stakeholders, your ability to manage expectations, critical thinking, contributing through creative thinking, making decisions, showing leadership qualities, productivity, self-organization,

project management, time management you know agility flexibility like all these things sound so easy but it's really not the easiest to implement but it's going to be super super super duper important so really objectively consider kind of um where do you want to be and and i i would say that the good news is the good news is regardless of whichever company that you choose to join, you know, am I good enough to survive in MNC? And what if I go to a startup and I fail because I'm very rigid? It actually all starts from understanding the structure of the company and how do you fit in the structure of the company? So if you are not clear, then I highly recommend that you get that career clarity

before, you know, making the move. You get that career clarity before you make a decision that you may regret. Because recently, I have had a couple of one-on-one career consultation sessions from, you know, with my clients who made a career switch to a different company type, like I said, startup to MNC or SME to MNC, and they are actually struggling. And the commonality I notice is, so why are they struggling? It's because they are trying to apply the way that they are working in their previous company to an MNC. It doesn't work like that because it's not the same company, right? It's not the same company. It's different mindset, different group of people, different structure, and so forth.

So what I then recommended to them, and rather the angle of the discussion we had was what really got them motivated to join the MNC. And like I said, usually it's growth opportunities, more money, better increment, better opportunities, and so forth, which they are all very clear why they got into the MNC, right? But the process, the problem then is how do I survive in this new career which they are all very clear why they got into the MNC, right? But the process, the problem then is,

how do I survive in this new career that I am so excited about? But right now, just after one to two months, I'm feeling so stressed out because it's probably outside of my comfort zone and I don't know what to do. So, you know, like I said, in consultation sessions, we really need to get clear on like, actually, what do you want? Because that is the inner motivation that will drive you forward. But I think in terms of the next step, this is actually the three-step framework that I teach. So the first step is that you need to get clear on the corporate world. So what is the

corporate culture? How is your organization organization structured and how do you fit in this organization once you are clear on that then you're going to plan out what you're going to do in the first 30 days of your job so if you have not done what i recommended in my online course in in terms of the first 30 days of your job then you're probably going to struggle after 30 days or you might think that it's not the job for you, which is just because you didn't set the foundations correctly. And of course, the other more important portion, as you're getting to know the new company, is really identifying your key stakeholders and learning about their personalities and work habit, because this will actually allow you to work better with them.

So phase one of the program is all about getting clear of the corporate world. I think that it's truly underrated. A lot of people don't realize it's important, but it's super duper duper duper important. Then once you are clear on the structure, kind of how you fit, how you can add value, then only we're going to move on to phase two, that is getting confident with corporate skills. Now, corporate skills may differ slightly in terms of technical skills, depending on the size of company that you're in, but the transferable skills are not exactly going to change. So what do I mean by transferable skills, right? So

communication, you know, self-leadership, managing expectation, building relationships with stakeholders, productivity, critical thinking, organization skills, all these are not going to change. The nature may change slightly, but it is not significantly going to change. So the challenge then I ask my clients and rather my students in my online course, The Corporate Survivor, when we have our bonus free one-on-one session is, what do you think has changed because if you're you're telling me that you're struggling with communication at an MNC right now I want you to really think about have you already been struggling with communication in the smaller company and if you're telling me that you're very disorganized in the MNC right now I again want you to think back as to have you already been disorganized in your

previous company and right now because it's obviously it's an mnc like i said there are more people that you're working with and therefore the problem sort of like blows out of proportion because like a small problem is just going to snowball once you increase more pressure on it because once there are more stakeholders then more complexity it kind of becomes worse so you know i challenge you to really think about has this soft skills problem been recurring for a long time meaning that you have been trying to escape and not upskill yourself hoping that changing a company is going to solve the problem but then actually does not and i think to move from a startup to MNC or SME to MNC and not really building that solid foundational skill set,

particularly the transferable skills and soft skills, is going to basically set yourself up for disaster. Now, after you have improved your skills, and that's the part that actually takes most of the time, in terms of my clients and students, I usually tell them that you need to get started but you should also need to be realistic and keep practicing because it's not something that it's gonna you know magically improve overnight you're gonna get better but you're gonna start developing and building the skills but reaching the mastery

level it's kind of a bit of a journey and as you experience and you tailor it more and for those of them who work with me one-on-one even after being in the course still working with me one-on-one then it's some it's a process that I can help monitor and pivot and adjust your feedback so once that is done then that comes the next thing comes the fun part and the fun part is what I call getting visible with personal branding and that is in phase three now that you have demonstrated that you know what your value is in the MNC, you know how you can contribute, you have good skills, you have expertise, you have knowledge. Basically, foundation is 100% solid. Now you are ready to get visible. So now you can tell people about the hard work that you have been doing, getting recognition, making sure that you get paid for the value that you bring to the table,

make sure that you get the increment that you want or that pay rise that you want, and also opening up more new opportunities for you to show some leadership skills and so forth. So getting visible in personal branding is usually the third phase because it's really, really important to make sure that you are step one, phase one, you are clear on the corporate world, then you are confident with corporate skills, then only you move on. So this three-step framework

also applies if you're in a startup. And it's also very important to recognize that it also fits into the startup because if you go into a startup and you don't know what your role is, it's going to be very disastrous very soon. Because most of the time, like, you know, bosses in startups and people in startups don't actually have the time to handhold you,

to go through a few step-by-step because the nature of startup is very dynamic and things move very quickly. And most of the time, they are understaffed, right? So you really need to be very independent and really make sure that you are very clear on what your role is and how you can contribute. And then after that, once you're clear on that, then you need to then assess your skills. So the skills that you have been applying

in a different company type, right? Now that you're in a startup, which ones needs to be elevated further? Usually, usually speaking, the critical thinking, the productivity, the organization adaptability, these are probably the skills that need to be elevated further. So then it's time to reassess your entire skill set and see whether are there any that you have gaps

and specifically the ones that are really critical for startup, like I said, productivity, adaptability, those things. How can you elevate that to make sure that you can deliver results as fast as possible and as accurate as possible? So all these are actually really, really important. And therefore, I always, always talk about the three-step framework to get clear, get confident, and get visible. And if you have been following me for some time,

you'll know that this is the thing that I emphasize all the time because like I work with clients who are working in 9 to 5. And 9 to 5 doesn't mean it's just global MNC. 9 to 5 also means people working SME, people who are working in a startup. As long as you are in a structured organization where there's a hierarchy, that's a 9 to five that's a nine to five and that's the reason why i created this program because i've been getting questions from hundreds and thousands hundreds of clients that i work with you know since i became a career coach and i also noticed that the questions and the problems are quite similar in terms of the corporate culture the structure the skill set and i think that it's really really important that

if you want to be successful in your career if you want to be successful in your career change, you want to be successful in your career transition, you should set yourself up for success. There is no point going in blind. And when things don't work out, you will feel very upset. Your reputation is going to get damaged and you're forever going to feel like you are not good enough and there's something wrong with you.

No, there's nothing wrong with you. The only thing that you didn't do was to have the right mindset to get the help that you need to understand how the corporate world actually works. That was the only thing that you didn't do, right? And then rather you go in blind and try to magically figure it out. And honestly, I can tell you it's not easy to magically figure it out. It took me a very long time as I move up the corporate career ladder to really see every part of the puzzle because I was at the top. I was able to see every single part. And I used to work with teams from over 43 countries.

So it was at that point that I could figure out the entire machine. So therefore, nowadays, it's actually a lot easier for me to teach it to my clients as well as teach it to my students in my program because I feel like it's a knowledge that everybody should know and it is kind of complicated. And that's why there are multiple video lessons to make sure that everything is very clear. Okay, so thank you so much if you have been listening live so far. If you found today's sharing insightful,

definitely drop me a comment and let me know. Let me know also if you're considering, you know, to move to make a career change, right, either to a startup or an MNC, definitely let me know. So we have a little bit of time left, so let me probably answer a couple of quick questions if I see any. All right, so I'm seeing a question here. In a startup, is the work environment very unstable? Yeah, 100% because that is the nature of a startup, right? It's almost like a business testing phase where it's intense. There's a lot of things to be done.

And sometimes, even though the big vision is very clear, the day-to-day direction may not always be very clear. And therefore, as I said, if you really want to be successful in a startup, then you must have very, very solid skill set. If you don't have a solid skill set, you are definitely going to struggle in a startup because in an MNC, right, maybe you can still get help.

If you don't know how to do it, probably somebody else will do the work for you and help you out. But in a startup, it's very difficult because the nature of the size of the team is normally smaller and then everything is a lot more dynamic. Everything moves a lot faster as well. So you probably will not be able to get the help that you need due to the nature of a startup. All right, so I'm seeing another question here. Is it important to understand ourselves before

you understand what type of organization that we plan to go in yep as i already said you know in multiple sessions as well it's really important to understand yourself because sometimes we do pick jobs or you know join companies join functions that are just not suitable to our personality and therefore you are actually not setting yourself up for success but having said that i will say that at the end of the day passion is the most important thing and if you really want to work in a certain company you really want to work in a certain industry or certain team then you need to be ready to put more effort if you feel that this is something that is not very natural to you you need to put more effort if you feel that this is something that is not very natural to you. You need to put more effort to succeed. You probably need to spend a bit more time trying to upskill yourself to make

sure that you can be successful. So I'll give you guys a very practical example here before we end. So as I said, you know, a lot of people don't know, I'm actually a charter certified accountant, ACC and FCC of the UK. And just like many graduate accountants, when I graduated, I worked in an audit firm at the beginning of my career. Now, me as a person, I'm a person that I don't have very good attention to detail. And if you've been following me for some time,

I talk about it sometimes. And I think that for me, because I'm not naturally like a very detailed person, but I knew that in order to succeed in the auditing world, you know, attention to detail is like the most basic skill that I needed to have. So when I first joined the audit firm, it was actually really challenging for me

because I felt that I was doing a job that I was like not naturally good at. And it was actually really frustrating. But you need to tie it to your bigger goal. And my bigger goal is that I knew that I wanted to do X number of years in audit and I wanted to work on certain portfolios and all these other things. And therefore, it was very important for me to upskill myself and specifically close the attention to detail gap.

And that was something that I had successfully done over the years. And in fact, you know, in fact, like 10 years, right? I mean, when I joined Audit, it was like in like 2009. That was a long time ago. And in the later part of my career, when I made it to Senior Director at Standard Chartered, right? I was actually managing a lot of regulatory projects that required a lot of attention to detail. I mean, if you guys are, you know,

anything that's legal compliance and regulation, normally everything is super-duper detailed. And to me, one of the biggest compliments that my ex-boss, my ex-business CEO gave me, which I still remember until today, is that she actually told me that, oh, Mei Ping, you're such a detailed person, right? And, you know, I

really trust that everything will be okay the moment you have reviewed it and you tell me it's okay. And to me, that was actually a really, really big compliment because, like, for me, it's like you don't know how much effort I put in to upskill this and

to a point that somebody actually thinks my weakness is my strength, I think that was the day I'm like, yep, it was right. The decision to upskill was correct because the fact that I had both big picture and attention to detail opened up so many doors for me because I could zoom in and zoom out and kind of take the balance judgment. So what I'm trying to say here is I think it's really important to sort of understand yourself,

but also if you truly want something and truly want to grow in your career, it's really, really important to also address your weaknesses and continue to upskill if you want to continue to have more opportunities.

Okay? All right. So probably I see a few more questions, so I can probably answer a few more quickly before we end today's live stream. Okay, so let me have a look. Thank you, Mei Peng. Currently in a global MNC,

offered to join SME with higher pay, but the responsibilities isn't what I want as part of my career growth. Now, this is probably not so much around the size of the company. And I think that this is a question around what kind of responsibilities or rather what is the next phase of your career will look like. So I don't think this is a company size sort of issue,

but you may need to reconsider like what is the next phase of your career look like. All right. All right. Next question. When my organization asked me to or put me in a situation to work 10 or 12 hours a day and how do I deal with it? All right. So today's live stream is not so much about the how many hours to work, but I would highly recommend that you check out yesterday's live stream where I was talking about work-life balance and how you're able to kind of like be more efficient and more effective in order to have

that work-life balance that you want. So I highly recommend that you check the live stream yesterday for day 16. I think you'll find a lot of value in that. All right. Okay. So thank you everybody for joining today's live stream i hope that you guys um learn something in terms of the differences but i think my biggest advice here is you know really understand what you're getting yourself into but regardless if this is really what you want always make sure that you set yourself up for success by going into the role with the right mindset ready to upskill the skill set as necessary and always having a visibility strategy

so that you do not remain stuck regardless of whichever company that you decide to join. So with that, I thank you all for joining me live and for sharing your questions and your feedback. And if you want to catch the replay

of these live streams, you can check it out on YouTube or Spotify. I'll be uploading all the episodes. And if you want to catch the replay of these live streams, you can check it out on YouTube or Spotify. I'll be uploading all the episodes. And if it's your first time here and you want to check out any of the previous episodes, you can also check it out on Spotify as well as YouTube. In the past 16 days, I've talked a lot about interview mistakes.

How do you find motivation? How do you choose between work-life balance, how do you be more efficient, like all these very interesting topics that if you're a professional working or 9-to-5 job in the corporate world, I'm sure that you will find a lot of value. So with that, I'll see you tomorrow

at 9pm Malaysia, Singapore and Hong Kong time. Until then, enjoy binging on the rest of the livestream episodes. Bye!