BackCubiclenama | Smaller can be funner
Smaller firms can provide greater freedom, with informal work timings and greater access to top management
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So how did your interview go?" I asked my friend one evening not so long ago. He’d just met a prospective employer for a first-round interview.
Wait. To be frank, this is how I really asked him: “So how did it go! How did it go! How did it go! Tell me! Tell me! Tell me now before I die from the tension! Tellmeyoufool!"
This is because we know very well that the news update that most human beings find most irresistible is how someone else has performed in a job interview. Any other development in someone else’s personal life we can ignore, at least outwardly. But the merest whiff of a rumour that someone else has just interviewed for a job? It makes us drooly at the mouth with curiosity.
Friend: So on Thursday I woke up with only one functioning eye.
Sidin drinking coffee: I see.
Friend: Therefore, by mistake, while going to the IBM office, I drove over some nuns.
Sidin flicking an Angry Bird: Accha. Why did you go to IBM?
Friend: I am interviewing with them…
Sidin flinging the phone away: Oh my good yaar! How did it go? Did you get the job? Is there another round? Will you move abroad? Why are you looking there when I am sitting here?
So I didn’t let my friend go till he told me every last detail. You curious chaps will be pleased to know that he has qualified for the next round.
There was one question in that interview, though, that I found particularly thought-provoking.
Now, my friend’s prospective employer (no, not IBM, that was just an example) has a headcount of less than 500 people. The company he works with currently, on the other hand, has thousands upon thousands of employees. In all likelihood, his current company hires and fires 500 people each working day.
The one question he was really grilled on, and I found interesting, was why he wanted to leave such a large, established organization and join this exponentially smaller one.
Ah yes. The large, multinational organization with thousands of employees, hundreds of international offices, a century of history and millions of slush funds in tax havens abroad. What can possibly match up to this behemoth when it comes to job security?
Surely only a lunatic would leave the cosy comforts of a job in such organizations, and opt for smaller start-ups or privately held firms. Aren’t smaller firms more vulnerable to business cycles and economic volatility?
Or so the conventional wisdom goes. Therefore, this interview question shouldn’t be particularly surprising. Why would anybody choose greater volatility?
Now I am not going to make a case for why you should choose a smaller firm over a larger, more established one. Or vice-versa. In fact, I am pretty sure I’ve written about that in a column before.
But I’ve been wondering about what smaller firms could do to attract people, and keep them. Ever so often I speak to people who run smaller companies, start-ups, social enterprises and non-governmental organizations, who tell me how hard it is to find good people who will stay. (One particular grouse is when it comes to IIT and IIM guys. “Those guys are so high-maintenance!" is a common refrain.)
Unfortunately, this is always how I find the question framed: “How the hell do I find people who will stay with us?"
And often what they really mean to ask is: “I can’t pay all that much, I don’t have a fancy office, I don’t even know if I will be in business two years from now. So why do these rascals keep quitting?"
I think this is almost exactly the wrong question smaller companies should be asking. Instead, I think they should be thinking of talent in much the same way that they think of their businesses. Often these companies are engaged in disruptive, clever, niche business models. They do things that are too clever or too fleet-footed for the bigger players to engage in.
Yet, when it comes to talent, so many of them revert to big-company thinking. They use the same headhunters, the same interview processes, and essentially try to make the same propositions that the behemoths do: so much money for so much work. They may do all this in jeans and halter tops. But, so what? You’re playing a game you’re designed to lose.
My friend cleverly turned the question back to his interviewer, who himself had moved from a large conglomerate. Why did you move? Are you happy?
The approach worked.
The interviewer told him how he enjoyed the greater freedom, the more informal work timings and the greater access to top management. And because they were still small enough for everybody to know everybody else, personal rather than procedural familiarity determined relationships.
My friend, for now, seems entirely charmed. I hope things proceed well.
But I don’t think all small firms leave prospective employees with such positive vibes. Do you run a small firm? What do you do differently to find good people? And keep them? Or are you wallowing in self-pity?
Cubiclenama takes a weekly look at pleasures and perils of corporate life. Your comments are welcome at cubiclenama@livemint.com. To read Sidin Vadukut’s previous columns, go to www.livemint.com/cubiclenama -
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