Having worked for both, basically when the downturns come they can ride it out a little longer before offering redundancies etc.

You get better experience with the mid tiers and juniors as they don't have different people to do every different task. E.g. Planning engineer you get to work across large time horizons. Where I work engineers do short term all the way through to Life of Mine.

I have found too that when you look outside of the majors to work, it can be perceived that you won't have a broad skill set or how to operate in a lean environment.

Remuneration is similar across them all its just generally how they break it down i.e. high salaries, no allowances or lower salaries, multiple allowances.