Here are the top reasons why the best tech talent are increasingly preferring startups to enrich their career:

Security / Stability: 

It is a myth that startups could be riskier ground for ones’ career. Top talent recognizes that when it comes employability and relevance, their stint in startups makes them far richer due to the immensely wide experiences, in comparison to working for large enterprises. If one compares say a five-year experienced person in a startup compared to the same five-year experience working in large companies, the former will clearly stand out due to a great palette of leadership skills, communication skills, technical skills, and the experience of having delivered numerous business outcomes. Employability is therefore the key criteria that top talent looks at versus mere job security.

Culture

Startups typically have a highly collaborative culture where teams work in a tight-knit manner to deliver quick turnarounds. The quick decision cycle and non-bureaucratic culture that startups provide cannot be matched by large organizations simply due to their size and resultant matrix. Top talent and Gen Z increasingly prefer such a culture where they are not tied to bureaucracy, endless administration, and paperwork. They want to work in an environment that provides adequate space and freedom to innovate, an environment that thrives on close collaboration and freedom to work from anywhere. Startups are therefore the right fit for such top talent.

Ownership

Startups typically have a flat organizational structure due to which their talent pool can take far more ownership of a wide range of responsibilities and deliver rich outcomes. Top talent typically prefers an innovative work culture that encourages new ideas and want their employer to advocate as well as support them in their pursuit of experimentation and execution. In large enterprises, complex hierarchies do not allow employees with less than 3-7+ years to lead parts and elements of projects or even have direct client facing experiences.  Top talent that is hungry to own their work and accomplish goals, therefore prefer startups that provides such an environment. 

Opportunities

Startups provide unparallel opportunities for learning, experience, and personal growth. Top talent wants to wear multiple hats delivering a variety of work and does not want to get tied in with just a fixated and narrow set of responsibilities. Startups are known to provide talent with rich opportunities that enables them to learn and grow fast. Top talent typically revels in the dizzying heights of never-ending responsibilities that pushes them to learn new skills and hence they find startups a great place to be.

Visibility

Top talent wants both internal company visibility as well as visibility with customers. Given the immense opportunities and exposure that startups provide them, this is far more achievable in comparison with the mammoth web of people that they shadow as a part of large enterprises. This visibility in turn fuels their networking skills creating their connections in the industry in a fast-paced manner in comparison to a large enterprise. Career advancement and recognitions in startups are therefore far more accelerated. 

The chance to make an impact in the world 

Top talent is keen to make an impact in the world. They are passionate about making a difference to business and take pride in their achievements. Their contribution in startups enables them to make a significant difference in the form of direct impact to business. They can directly see the resultant impact that their ideas, execution, and involvement have on the overall business and customer engagement outcomes. They are no longer dwarfed by a surfeit of people under whom they would be mere shadows in large organizations. 

Startups offer a glamourous world of opportunities and is a lot of hard work that top talent typically enjoys and goes after. This pool typically wants to build superior multi-tasking capabilities and wear multiple hats. They are dedicated to their purpose and do not want mere jobs – but want to make a difference to the world. Startups do offer significant financial remuneration and material perks however, the perks listed above really make it a rich and compelling differentiator for top talent to invest a significant portion of their career in startups.