What Is It like to Become a Company VP for the First Time?

At a bank?

I’d assume that your job would be exactly the same as it once was, just with a pay raise.

At a startup?

The title feels great, until I came to realize that I was buried in responsibilities, maybe two notches shy of what a CEO does.

There are regular VP responsibilities one has to handle, like making strategic and leadership based decisions that set the course of the ship. Then depending on how small the startup is, there are management tasks a VP has to handle. However, it also comes with getting on the ground floor and doing grunt work yourself. Sometimes I had to hop on the floor and resolve issues and escalations, or take over sales calls. I felt like a cleaner.

Sometimes, I had to even train new people. So even though I was supposed to stay within the upper ranks of the business, I had to participate in the front ranks as well.

Then the hours. A minimum of ten a day.

So what is it like? It’s an indifferent experience, full of time commitments and responsibilities. But in regards to just the title? The novelty wears off fairly quickly.

Originally posted on Quora.

Leave a Comment

18 − five =

1, 'include' => $prevPost->ID ); $prevPost = get_posts($args); foreach ($prevPost as $post) { setup_postdata($post); ?>
Previous

1, 'include' => $nextPost->ID ); $nextPost = get_posts($args); foreach ($nextPost as $post) { setup_postdata($post); ?>

Next