Should I take a step down to gain larger team experience?

[ThisMintScroller]

I have spent the last 10 years progressing in my work life, I started off as a cleaner, moved on to cleaning supervisor and now manage a small organisation.

Having had no formal qualifications previously, I have spent the past 10 years putting myself through all the relevant qualifications to aid my progression, most recently achieving a management degree.

I want to progress further, however in my current role there is no chance of that, I fit all the person spec for the management roles i would want to now apply for but I feel I fall short in that i have always supervised/managed very small teams, whereas the jobs I am now looking at are larger teams in larger organisations.

Would it be worthwhile taking a step down and trying to find a role as a supervisor at a larger organisation to then hopefully gain experience of larger teams?

ultimately i do want to carry on managing, but I don't want to apply for roles I stand no chance of achieving.

There used to be a lady on dragons den (I read her autobiography but the name is not coming to mind) who said that women generally ruled themselves out of applying for jobs if they couldn't do 8 out of 10 things on a job spec - while men ruled themselves in if they could do the top 3.

It is not ideal for self esteem to go backwards - so I would apply - where is the harm?

You have progressed amazingly- well done you !
I would never step down role wise unless it’s a step up financially.

Hilary Devey - the name has come to me

Apply for the jobs. Dont take a step down

Apply for the role first. I've seen a lady move from project manager in a small organisation with small, low risk/low impact/small budget projects to project manager in a bigger organisation with "big" projects to manage, so it is possible you could get that job directly.

Exactly don’t step down ever !

You do have management experience just in smaller teams ….so on applications or interviews is all about reflecting the skill not the volume!

complexities and challenges are probably worse in smaller settings (don’t have back up , right support or processes ); impact from mistakes is worse right?

do not down play your experience … apply but definitely add right commentary

good luck

All the best experiences I've learned have been in the smaller slightly more unstructured and chaotic settings.

Learned very little in five years in a big corporate