Leadership

Why you're more likely to get hired at companies with fewer than 500 employees

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Large companies like Amazon and Google top the lists of employers that young professionals want to work for. But if getting hired is your goal, you'll have have better chances at small and mid-size companies, according to a survey by job site TalentWorks.

After analyzing random sample of 6,976 applications across 365 U.S. cities and 101 industries, the site found that applicants to companies with fewer than 500 employees had a 192 percent higher interview rate than those who applied to companies with over 500 employees.

These findings are particularly useful for those with blemishes on their resume, such as candidates who left their previous employer within their first 15 months or who are currently unemployed. In fact, the research found that a candidate's likelihood of being hired dropped by 19 percent for every additional 1,000 employees at a company.

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According to the job site, there are two key reasons why it's easier to to get hired at small and mid-size companies than it is at large ones:

1. Stricter policies: Large organizations have stricter automated filters on their job applications, says the site. Plus, their HR teams are more bureaucratic. This means that even if your resume gets in front of the right person, a hiring manager may be forced to disqualify you.

2. More competition: Bigger companies get more applicants. Take Google for example. The tech giant receives around three million applications a year and hires just 7,000, or 0.2 percent, of those candidates, according to the company's estimates. With so much competition, a minor blemish that would get overlooked at a smaller company might disqualify you at a bigger one.

Working at a smaller business has other advantages, especially for young professionals just starting out. Smaller companies can offer more hands-on experience and flexibility, better access to management and it can be easier to move up the ranks.

This may be why an increasing number of young workers are shunning big corporations in favor of start-ups, which are smaller in size and can offer the same perks one would find at a large company.

If you're interested in going the start-up route, you can improve your odds of getting hired by demonstrating that you're a doer who can produce results, according to former Microsoft exec turned start-up founder Jensen Harris.

"Be a worker," he Tweeted earlier this year, "and be prepared to show it."

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