Corporate Survivor with Mei Phing : Career Growth In The Corporate World - Ep207: SME vs MNC - Where should I work?

Episode Date: March 21, 2024

✅ Watch FREE WORKSHOP, newsletter, work with me ⮕ http://www.meiphing.com ✅ Corporate Survivor™ is the ultimate career course for 9-to-5 working professionals, just like *you*, who want to enhance corporate world mindset, skillset and strategy so you can NAVIGATE + GROW your career with clarity, confidence & opportunities... 🚀 ⚡ 📌 ABOUT THIS PODCAST: Welcome to Corporate Survivor with Mei Phing — ex-Corporate Leader turned Career Coach & Founder of The Corporate Survivor™. On this podcast, Mei Phing shares her corporate world insights, experiences and wisdom so you can grow your 9-5 career with clarity, confidence and opportunities. ✅ WEBSITE ⮕ https://www.meiphing.com ✅ FREE GUIDE ⮕ https://www.thecorporatesurvivor.co/freeguide ✅ NEWSLETTER ⮕ https://www.thecorporatesurvivor.co/mondays ✅ CAREER COURSE ⮕ https://www.thecorporatesurvivor.co ⚡

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.mayping.com. This is Mayping, your corporate leader turned career coach. I hope you enjoy, like and subscribe. SME or MNC? Mei Ping, where should I work? If you're thinking about making a career change

or seeking out new opportunities this year, I'm sure that this question will pop into your mind at some point. In this episode, I want to share with you the pros and cons of working in an SME as compared to an MNC. And make sure that you stay to the end of the episode because I also share with you a very important strategy that I personally use to decide when is the best time to make the transition, whether it's from an SME to an MNC or from an MNC to an SME. So I think this will help you because this is a strategy that I personally use to grow my career every time I make a career change and how you can also do the same. Before

we dive in, I just want to make a very clear point here that regardless of where you work, whether you're at an SME, MNC, startup, NGO, PLC, GLT, wherever you're working, it is very important that you have job clarity, work confidence, as well as work competence. And that is why I've created a five-day career growth guide and training that will help you improve your work performance so that you can get recognized for your hard work and grow a career with new opportunities. You can grab it at www.maping.com and the link should be in the description below. Let's start by talking about the pros and cons of working in an SME.

My first job was actually with an SME. And the thing that you need to know, given the structure of an SME, right, means that it's a much smaller company. There are fewer headcount. That means that from a pro standpoint, you can do more things, you can learn more things and gain more skills during the same amount of period of time as compared to an MNC. Due to the lower headcount, that means that there's more work to be allocated. And in that sense, if you're someone who's keen to learn new things, it's your first time doing something,

an SME actually is a really, really good idea. It's also very helpful if you're someone who is very adaptable, very flexible and you are self-motivated and you're very independent. These are very very important qualities that you need to realize in yourself because given that the company is very small that means that usually there's limited guidance on how to do the work, what to do, and anything related to that. You pretty much need to be in a situation that you are going to figure it out yourself. Whether you're figuring out

it the right way or wrong way, that's the other point. But you need to go in with a very clear understanding that you will not get as much help as you need. That means that if you're someone who needs a lot of guidance,

you need step-by-step instructions, you need to talk to your boss a few times a day, that is not really very possible in an SME because again, there's not many people working and therefore,

you're expected to basically solve your own problems. If you're someone who is not really open to that, you really value a big challenge, then I think it's a really good idea. But I just want to give you the reality here

because I know many people in my online community telling me that after a few months working in an SME, they give up because there's lack of structure. They feel very anxious and very stressed out because they don't know what to focus on. And that is not really good for your mental health. Now, I know not all SMEs are like this, but majority definitely are. Now, the other thing to also think about is that due to the low number of headcount and staff available, it means that likely you need to do more work, right? You need to take on more workload as compared to your career level. This can be a good thing from a learning standpoint,

but this can also be a bad thing if you're someone who feels like you enjoy work-life balance and you don't want to commit like 24-7 at your job. This might be something that is kind of expected because the company is very small and they don't have anyone else to allocate the work to and eventually even if you're a junior staff, you need to do more work. Even if you're a senior staff, you probably need to take on more work as compared to someone at your level in an MNC itself. Now, the last con, I think this is actually a very big issue if you're someone who wants to grow your career as well as to grow your income. Again, back to the size of the company, because this is a small company, it means that they might not have more

opportunities for you to grow your career. There might not be more space for you to climb the career ladder, to move from executive to manager or manager to director. And that also means that they might not have more salary or additional increments or pay adjustments to give you as compared to a bigger company. So all this could be an issue if you're someone who really cares about climbing the career ladder, you want to grow your career, you want to grow your income, there might be a point where you get stuck. Not because you're not good enough, but it's because the company really has no space and they don't have the

budget or capacity to take you in. These are some things to consider if you want to start working as an SME or continue your career in an SME. Next, let's talk about working at an MNC. An MNC is a global multinational company that has more than 200 employees regionally or globally. If you are someone who enjoys structure, you like things to be structured, you like to have processes, clear departments, clear policies and procedures, working in an MNC actually is really suitable for you. That means that you will not be experiencing chaos. There will be very clear guidance, very clear steps on the things that you need to do, the KPIs that you need to achieve, and likely you will be dedicated a clear senior or a boss, a manager or a team leader who will be managing you from a workload perspective,

as well as giving you guidance to help you to continue to deliver your key performance goals. Working in an MSC is a much more structured environment. In a way, you are still learning, but your learning is way more structured, meaning that you will learn how to work from an end-to-end standpoint for a specific project, specific engagement. You are not just focusing on the speed. You're not just focusing on the efficiency. You're also focusing on the effectiveness. Given that it's a much bigger company, that means that you may have more opportunities to grow your career within the same team or more mobility within the broader team or within the company as well. These are some of the options available. And the next thing is that an MNC,

given it's a much bigger company, likely has more budget for salary increments or job promotions. These are usually the pros that many people are extremely excited to work in an MNC and you might be the same as well. Now, let's also talk about the cons because there's no perfect job. There's no perfect job, there's no perfect company. With pros, there also comes cons. If you're someone who is very junior and you start working in an MNC,

there is a risk that you might get trapped at the exact same career level. The reason, again, is down to the structure of an MNC. And because things are so structured, that means that whatever that you're doing, you might be doing the same thing again and again and again,

month after month, year after year. Unless you learn how to get visible and speak up, and these are definitely things that can be learned, you might get stuck doing the exact same thing, which then means that you are not really gaining more skills. You might be gaining more years of experience, but your years of experience, you're kind of like doing the same thing, which can be a bit of a problem if you are looking for a career transition or you want to look for career growth a few years down the line of working in this same MNC. Other con is that you might get a bit too comfortable

with the exact same role and therefore, it kind of like stops your growth mindset a little bit and eventually you may feel that whatever salary that you're making, that's as much as you can make because it creates a little bit of fear

to try new things, to move to a new company because you got too comfortable with the amount of experience and exposure at this same company. I want to make a very clear point here that just because an MNC has more opportunities does not necessarily mean there's more opportunities for you. Because there are more employees, more team members, that means there's actually more competition. If you're someone who prefers to keep quiet, you don't want to learn how to speak up, you don't want to learn how to get recognized, communicate, sell your value, then you may eventually get stuck as well. Because other people who have learned how

to communicate, they learn how to sell their value, they learn how to get recognized, they will likely progress ahead of you. And this is something that I personally experienced as an introvert in my first year working at an MNC. So I thought that keeping quiet and doing my work is enough, but clearly it is not enough. The good news is that if you are someone who is willing to improve your communication skills, improve your ability to communicate with your bosses, your colleagues and stakeholders, I think there's huge opportunity for you to grow your career and to grow your income. And this is something I've also personally done. So definitely proving to you that it is absolutely possible.

As I've said, there'll always be pros and cons, no matter how big the company is, no matter how good the brand name is, whether it's Amazon, Tesla, Nestle, whatever. It's something that you need to take note of in terms of like the dynamics and the nature

and the structure of the company so they can actually maximize your experience in that company itself. Let's finally talk about which is the best option for you. Now, you might be thinking, hmm, Mei Ping,

both SME and MNC sounds interesting. I still cannot decide. What if I work in SME first? Is that a good idea? Or Ping, both SME and MNC sounds interesting. I still cannot decide. What if I work in an SME first? Is that a good idea? Or what if I work in an MNC? Is that also a good idea? Now, let me share with you personally what I have done to grow my career.

And this is a long-term career strategy that you can also implement in your career. Now, here's my advice. If you are someone who is working at an SME, you want to make sure that you are exploring opportunities within an MNC every two to three years working in an SME. You want to make sure that you are exploring opportunities within an MNC every two to three years working in an SME. Now, this is really important because not every skill that you learn in an SME is translatable and transferable to an MNC. Now, this is really the reality. I don't

want you to get stuck after working for eight years in an SME to then realize that it is impossible for you to move to an MNC because you don't know how to sell your value or maybe what you're learning in this very chaotic environment is not something that an MNC wants to hire. Now, these are all very realistic things because I can tell you that working in an MNC, they value structure. They value people who know how to work in a very MNC environment, which is like I said, you know, structured, right, culture, you know, step-by-step policies and procedures, those sort of things.

So you want to make sure that if let's say you are in an SME right now and you have intentions to work in an MNC, you need to start implementing a more structured way of working, meaning no more chaotic days, no more messiness, no more working hard

and long hours without a clear goal. You want to start implementing all these structure to make sure that you make your transition to an MNC a lot easier when you feel that you are ready and when you're ready

to make that move, then you don't get stuck. Now, this is something that I also emphasize and I teach to students in my career program, The Corporate Survivor. Now, many of them

who are working in SME right now, they want to work in an MNC and I tell them the exact same thing I'm telling you right now. We are not going to work in chaos because chaos doesn't give you new opportunities. So they're also implementing structure, better work planning,

learning how to focus on efficiency and effectiveness so that when they move to an MNC, and many of them have successfully made that move as well, they don't feel stressed out, they don't feel overwhelmed because of all the structure that then comes in. They have already actively prepared themselves when they are working in an SME.

So this is something that you can do as well. The next thing is, if let's say you're someone who's working in an MNC and you're feeling a little bit stuck. So when is the best time to move? Now, I think with an MNC, I would consider moving internally first, as well as getting new opportunities internally within the MNC because the benefits are better, there are more opportunities and stuff like that. So every year, it's really important to meet your KPIs and to seek out new opportunities within your team. Now, I want to be very clear here. If you cannot meet your job deliverables, like your main KPIs, please focus on that. I see so many people online, they're asking for new voluntary work, then when they barely can even meet their KPIs,

focus on meeting your KPIs first, meeting your boss's expectations. And once you have met that, then now we can get visible and new opportunities that will then add value in your overall resume that will help you to land that next better job. It will help you grow your career to the next level and to grow your income. If I'm working in an MNC, and this is something that I've also done, I would definitely focus on meeting my KPIs first. And second thing is to seek out opportunities that can grow my career, add value. So these are things that I can also write in my resume to sell myself for the next level and for more money. That's what I would do. The last question on whether if I'm working at MSC, should I move to SME at some point? I think it is definitely possible. I've also seen many people in which after they work in the MSC for a very long time,

right, when they reach the top level, right, senior manager, director level, maybe not that exciting anymore, or there are not that many slots available, like headcount available. And at that point, they are seeking a new challenge, right? They want to go from ground up. They want to be more hands-on. And maybe this is the time that is worthwhile

to consider moving to a startup or an SME. What I will share with you very importantly is to always think long-term strategy. Always prepare yourself to make that next move. I think this is really important

because I've seen so many people getting stuck. And after eight years, 10 years of the same job, they come to me telling me that, oh, maybe is really important because I've seen so many people getting stuck and after 8 years, 10 years in the same job, they come to me telling me that, oh, maybe, you know, I'm so upset that I can't make this move

and now I don't know which skills is valuable. I don't know what my value is. I don't know which experiences actually matters and they eventually feel very upset. So I don't want that for you and that's why

in my career program, The Corporate Survivor, I always emphasize on understanding the corporate mindset, understanding the culture, the structure and learning how to work with different people and learning how to plan and manage your work so that you can meet KPIs and to seek out opportunities and to get recognized at your job. All these are connected and that's why in the three-step framework, get clear, get confident, get visible is designed in that way, which is part of my corporate

survivor program. Because you need to get clear on what your job actually is. You need to know how to adapt in whatever company size and to always prepare yourself with the right skills. So getting confident with corporate skills, communication, relationship building, critical thinking, productivity,

all these are important, whether you're an SME or MNC. You want to make sure that you are very, very good at your job and that will actually open up more opportunities. And then you can move within your company

to another company, a bigger company, smaller company, but more importantly, you still feel that you're growing your career, whether it's to the next career level, more opportunities, more responsibilities, and higher income. And I think this is something that can only be done if you are really, really aware

on how the corporate world works, what kind of company you're working in, the size of the company, the pros and cons, and how to actually strategize your career growth and actually start preparing right now. Because it's something that you can definitely start preparing right now. So I hope that this episode gives you a much clearer idea on what to think about when you are considering the next career move and what you can do right now to prepare. And more importantly, some of the things that are consistent in every company type in which job clarity, learning how to talk to people, learning how to work with different people,

learning how to manage expectations, learning how to make sure that you don't burn out, learning how to upskill, how to get recognized. So your boss actually knows that you're working hard. All these are foundation and it's the absolute thing that you must master regardless of where you're working. So you can actually create more opportunities for yourself. So if you want to learn more about that, you can check out my career program, The Corporate Survivor at www.maping.com.

With that, I hope that you have learned something interesting in today's episode. If you're watching on YouTube, drop me a comment in the section below and I'll see you in the next episode. Bye.