1. Because you will be noticed

When you work for a big company it is easy to get lost in the shuffle. You may be smart and talented and full of good ideas but it will be hard to have your voice heard in an office of a couple hundred people. Start-ups by contrast are small. You will likely be on a first name basis with the President and CEO. In that kind of environment you won’t have trouble being heard over the mob.

2. Because you will learn a lot

Not only will working at a start-up make you better at working in your chosen field, it will teach you about the work going on at every level of a business. You will have a chance to work with people in all kinds of different departments because of the simple fact that there aren’t enough bodies to go around. The result is that you will pick up on the basics of a lot of important areas of business.

3. Because you will see the outcomes of your work

Working for a big company can often be frustrated because projects get divided up amongst a large number of people. It may be efficient to give everyone a small and manageable job that they can do really well, but at the individual level you often don’t see the results you are helping achieve. At a start-up, your actions will have consequences that you can see (good or bad). Regardless of what happens, you will know that you are making some kind of impact.

4. Because you will be evaluated based on performance

The only way to offer rewards to employees at a small company is on the basis of merit. If you do a good job, people will see that and they will give you more responsibility or – even better – more money. At a large company, decisions like that are often based on how long you have worked for the company or how much experience you have. It is also hard for someone to keep track of each person’s work record when they are managing 20 people.

5. Because start-ups do away with pointless traditions

Start-ups are just fun places to work. They are flexible and aren’t afraid to explore new ways of doing things. Ideas don’t get weighed down with the bureaucracy you will find at larger companies. Rather than being paid to sit in a cubicle for 8 hours a day, you might get paid to accomplish goals, which leads to a more flexible schedule. You might have ping pong in the break room. Start-ups are known for thinking outside the box.

6. Because you will be challenged

The upshot of being such an important part of the puzzle is that working at a start-up will push you to get better at what you do. You will encounter more problems and be in charge of finding creative solutions to overcome them. Where larger companies spread responsibility across a larger team, startups push their employees to develop new skills.

7. Because you have nothing to lose

Lastly, as a new graduate, you are at the perfect point in your life to work at a start-up. You likely don’t have a family to support or a mortgage to pay. The result is that you can afford to take risks. You can get in with a company on the ground floor and see where it takes you. At worst, you will have to move on to a new challenge. At best, you could end up the right-hand man to the CEO of a multi-million dollar company. The sky is the limit. Featured photo credit: Heisenberg Media via flickr.com