Howdy! Class of '13 here, and I am looking to make the switch from a Fortune 100 level company to a small/medium sized company in the Dallas area.

Background: I graduated with a Mechanical Engineering degree and have been with the same company since graduation. I moved up quickly and loved the early stages of my career, but looking forward at what is ahead of me, I don't see myself enjoying "playing the corporate game" for the next 20+ years. After a quick stint in a smaller business unit within our company, I got a taste of how much I truly value that smaller company feel.

I have been a high performer my whole career, and made director level at a fairly young age. I have held a variety of roles in a short time across Supply Chain/Manufacturing, including project management, leading a several hundred person site, and corporate strategy. This all was great, but all of the quick moves and non-traditional roles does tend to make my resume look a little off in world of online recruiting where everything is screened for background and years of experience before a human ever looks at it.

I am reaching out to this job board to see if anyone might have any leads on a small to medium size company looking for a high performer with Supply Chain/Operations background in the Dallas area. Ideally, in a role where I am leading people and helping to build something bigger. OR, if anyone has made this jump from big corporation to small company before, I would love any advice.

I've done it twice. Huge to small to Fortune 200 to mid-9 figures in revenue.

The good at small- you have a much easier time getting sht done quickly if that's where your interests are and generally want to get sht done.

The bad at small- processes, procedures, and structure can be missing can be mindblowing. The Wild West can be fun, but also "I can't fix ALL of this today."

It's become a running joke that in every meeting I'm in, or every office walk in I do, a running tally is kept because I either say "Wait, we've been doing WHAT?", or my face says all of that, and 3 people across the table just visibly laugh while watching me. They typically hit double digits.

Thanks for the insight!

How did you go about actually making the move? Finding the roles, tailoring your experience to what a small company is looking for, etc?

To elaborate on bizag07's post, some things were both good and bad depending on the day/circumstance.

At a large organization, the processes and procedures made a lot of things simple. However, there was almost no room for deviation/creativity. At the smaller organization, some of the "simple" things were a pain in the butt...but if you needed to wing it, that was ok.

As far as finding that type of position, you can look at vendors in your supply chain or competitors who are winning business by being creative. OR - find the gaps in the process and start your own!