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How To Convince Parents - STARTUPS are better for MY career!

My association with roc8 has often put up this situation in front of me. Parents want their child to join another product or service company, say TCS or Infosys, if he/she is unable to secure a job in FAANG, and not a startup. So how does one convince them to let their kid join a startup?

Fortunately, the team at roc8 has been able to find an answer to that and I will go into its details by breaking down the context into two parts.

this or that?

I am going to give you (or rather, your parents) two situations: one, you join a product or service company like TCS or Infosys, worked at that company for 20 years, and gained experience leading to a substantial increase in your salary but there has been a mass layoff where 10% or 20% of the staff is removed and you come under it. Since you were not employed in FAANG which gives time for the self-development of the employee, you never had the opportunity to learn the skills introduced in the market in the meantime. You are now a 40-year-old with a load of familial responsibilities and no in-demand skills who is expected to restart his/her career.

Let us move on to the other situation: You are a 20-year-old who has just joined a tech startup. Since the team is presently small, you have to perform multiple roles and you get to learn about different fields like design, marketing, and sales as well. At the same time, you are highly responsible for the product and hence, you develop the skill of learning new technologies fast. Worst case scenario, the startup fails. You have just spent a few months behind it but have come out with the everlasting capability of mastering any new skill quickly.

Which one of these two scenarios would you prefer? I believe the answer is clear. It is much easier to pick yourself up when you are 20 than 40, and the skills that you learn while working at a startup will shoot your career to a different trajectory altogether. There are tonnes of examples of people who started out in a startup and paved their way to FAANG. You can very well be one of them.

what about job security?

The other factor that haunts anyone who needs to choose the right company to start their career is job security. Yes, there is no denying the fact that startups are volatile by nature and may shut down the next day, but there is also no denying the fact that if you have the right skills and are efficient, there are loads of other startups and companies waiting to hire you. With the growth of entrepreneurship in the country and the multitude of startups being funded, there will always be at least one company that is growing its tech team and would want to hire you. That is how hiring happens in the startup world and that is exactly why job security will never be an issue if you choose to work for a startup.

This is how we convince any parent at roc8 and I trust that these justifications would help you too.

P.S. I even published a video on this some time back. You can check it out here, and while you are at it, share and subscribe to the newsletter. Until next time!