Are you about to start your career, and are you confused about taking a startup or a corporate job? Should you join a big corporate like Shell, Nestle, Mobil or Standard Chartered Bank, or go for a startup like Stripe, Andela, or Uber?
While startups are known for their flexible and innovative culture, a corporate job promises stability and work-life balance. Both paths are different in their benefits and challenges. So, how do you pick between the two?

1. Definition of a startup versus corporate jobs
Investopedia defines a startup as a young company founded by one or more entrepreneurs to develop a unique product or service and bring it to market. Well, there isn’t any solid ground to define a startup in terms of the number of employees, revenues, and profits. All these may vary between companies and industries.

According to Paul Graham, founder of Y Combinator, “a startup is a company designed to grow fast.” A startup is meant to scale quickly. ‘Unconstrained growth’ is the ambition of startups. A restaurant, florist, a franchise, or a local business are not startups.

Have you seen those co-working spaces occupied by hoodie-wearing youngsters with eyes fixed on a screen? That’s a startup.

Want to know The pros and cons of working for either? Then visit https://reventify.com/startup-versus-corporate-job-which-should-you-choose/ you have a detailed explanation there.

Here are some characteristics of a startup job:

In a startup, nothing is set in stone. There aren’t any best practices, policies, or processes. It’s like “chaos” or “organized chaos” at best. You are expected to maneuver your way around. Someone may wake up one day and say, “this isn’t the right way to do it; let’s do something totally different.”

Startups are smaller with fewer employees, enabling them to build great relationships and freely exchange ideas. Few employees, and many projects or tasks. So, what happens in this situation? A person has to wear multiple hats – carry out different tasks other than the stated job responsibilities.

There is no hierarchy or management structure. Everyone is equal. It’s ideas that matter, not the job title. So, you don’t really get promotions and climb up the ladder because there isn’t any ladder (no hierarchy or management structure). Employees are expected to seek satisfaction from implementing new ideas, seeing the product shape up, and getting acceptance in the market.

Hope this gives you some clarity about what is a startup job.

Now, let’s try to understand the definition of a corporate job. A corporate job is any job in which you find yourself working in a large company. Such a company is usually considered stable and there is a defined structure with room for career progression.
Corporate jobs are found within businesses with multiple departments that have assigned roles. Corporate jobs have a chain-of-command type of setup. You report to a manager who will have his or her own superior, who in turn will report to another person higher up and so on. So, it depends on where you exist in this hierarchy.