Big or small jobs for all?

The reason i chose this subject was the fact that i had a portfolio critique lined up at flame digital in Manchester who i thought matched the description of one side of this issue, they are not a large company but are quite well known as small company's go so i thought this would be a perfect opportunity for me to get some insight into the issue from someone in the industry, specifically a smaller company dealing with these issues and there opinions on the pros and cons and how they feel it effects them as a company.

This is the information i got at flame from Nicky who is the head of design at flame when we sat down to talk about the issue.
First thing i thought i felt i should find out was as a company what are there hiring policies to see if they fitted the description of a small company that don't hire specialists and i found out that as a small company flame like to hire designers who have a broad range of skills, so i asked about there reasons for them hiring this way to which i found out that by hiring this way they can take on a wide variety of different jobs that might be offered by smaller clients because as a smaller company they would not get offers for work from large clients if they started out as a specialist company and doing things this way helps build up a portfolio of clients and work. i was also told that they do not hire specialists because one of the cons surrounding that Nicky explained is that "if you get a job that is not in a area one of your specialists then you are stuck with someone sat around the office with nothing" to do so by hiring there way people always have something to do, so the office is constantly busy and doesn't become an assembly line where people are waiting for something to do, Nicky said that the cons for hiring people who have a broad range of skills is that "you have to know the limitations of your company" so when looking at what jobs to take and that the skill level of your company relates to the size of your clients and that by choosing not too have specialists you will not get the large big name company's so you have to spend more time building your reputation through lots of smaller jobs rather than one big job.

Next we went onto the subject of specialists and what she thought of them and if and how they used them at flame and she told me that they will sometimes hire a specialist if it is a necessity for the job, they will contact there client and pitch them the reasons for hiring a specialist and find out if the client is willing to pay the specialist, so they will work with specialists if they can avoid paying them themselves as this takes away from the money they take from doing the job and so overall the job wouldn't have been worth doing because the obvious cons of hiring in specialists is that they are extremely expensive.

So overall i have found that the pros of a small company hiring designers with a broad range of subjects are that you can get more jobs from a wide range of smaller clients, designers at the company always have something to do and that they have the option to hire in specialists if the job requires it. but the cons are that you will not get many opportunities to work with the big company's, personally i think that the most desirably approach to working would be the opportunity to work with the larger clients and become well known as this seems like the best way to get work and become known in the industry but i think of myself as more of someone with a broad range of skills than as a specialists because i have a wide interest in the subjects, like graphic design and film and i have always thought that i don't want to get myself labeled as a certain type of designer so i think that i would have to go for the option of going for the smaller company's and getting the chance to experiment while i can before possibly picking a area to specialize because i would have to be sure that it is an area i would enjoy.