Don’t Ignore Smaller Companies in Your Job Search

Job seekers often focus their efforts on large firms with name recognition and, in the process, ignore smaller younger companies. However, by doing so, they are eliminating some good options. While looking for a job, you want to broaden your horizons and target a wide range of employers in your field of interest, regardless of size.

There are several reasons smaller companies may prosper regardless of how the economy is doing.

• The company may be finding its niche in a rapidly growing field.
• Unlike many large companies, these smaller companies may not have added extra employees or large overhead during the recent period of economic growth, and therefore they have greater job availability in the present.
• Some of these companies will continue to succeed because the entrepreneurs recognized a market need at the right time and are fulfilling that need.
• Economic downturn has little impact on innovation.

The current job market presents a great opportunity to replace corporate life with the dynamic environment of a small business.

Being someone who likes to get a feel of the actual numbers, I did some research and looked at historical statistics. Here are some validations from the Unites States Census Bureau:

• Until 2005, nearly all net job creation in the United States occurred in firms less than five years old. This data set also shows that without startups, net job creation for the American economy would be negative in most of the years.
• If one excludes startups (defined as firms less than a year old), an analysis of the 2007 Census data shows that young firms (defined as one to five years old) still account for roughly two-thirds of job creation, averaging nearly four new jobs per firm per year.
• Of the overall 12 million new jobs added in 2007, young firms were responsible for the creation of nearly 8 million of those jobs.

Given this information, it is clear that new and young companies and the entrepreneurs that create them are an important source of job creation and eventual economic recovery.

Unlike large firms, small companies/ start-ups do not always have formal job listings. In such instances, therefore, networking becomes all the more critical. Focusing on your networking efforts and broadening your network is the best way to discover these hidden jobs.