The Importance of Labeling Yourself a Specialist or a Generalist
Want
to know my biggest pet peeve when job candidates apply for experienced-level
roles? Generalist resumes. Bland,
mediocre CVs that portray these individuals as masters of everything and
specialists at nothing.
Listen--it’s
okay to be a Generalist or a Specialist. They key is how you position yourself
in the job-hunting or freelance marketplace. But first: what does it mean to be
a Generalist or a Specialist?
Generalists see their chosen field from
a variety of perspectives. They dig into any need that arises in their industry
and out of necessity, learn to wear many hats. They see the big picture.
Generalists thrive better in economic uncertainty. But they are one of many in
the throngs of other Generalists. If you’re a generalist Healthcare Consultant today, for
example, you might have experience working in Health Reform, ACOs and
Informatics.
Specialists dig deep into one or two
areas of expertise. They might, for example, be Healthcare Consultants with a deep understanding of Diabetes research, adding value to the disease management department of a healthcare organization. The Specialist is perceived as memorable and talented—and he or
she would be difficult to replace.
But
Specialists thrive only when their timing
is perfect. They study and perfect their expertise and enjoy the rewards of working with an idea whose time
has come.
I
think you can wear two personas in today’s job marketplace. By day, you can
be a Generalist—mild-mannered, well-regarded by many leaders in your company,
willing and qualified to take on a variety of assignments that are asked of you.
By
night (or by moonlighting!) you can become a Subject Matter Expert Superhero. With a highly-developed
area of expertise (your superpower), you are ready to take on special missions in a single bound.
In
his book for application designers, The Ten Faces of Innovation, Tom Kelley identifies what he calls T-Shaped
people. These folks enjoy a breadth of knowledge in many fields, but they also
have a deeper knowledge in one or more areas. These are the employees and
freelancers that are defined as successful.
If
you’re a Specialist, it makes sense to stay fresh in areas that complement your
specialty; enough for you to be memorable so that if your company downsizes,
you’ll still be asked to stay. If your specialized field dries up, you are
still in the game. If you identify yourself solely as a Specialist, you become vulnerable to the disruptions of a
changing marketplace.
And
what if you decide you’re a Generalist?
The
beauty of job-hunting these days is that you can tweak your resume and gear it
toward the targeted job. You can extract projects from your years of
experience that are part of that job’s description and let them shine as the first
bullets on your resume. These will also become your talking points during your
interview.
Just
don’t market yourself as a
Generalist. These days, recruiters don’t have time to sift through every accomplishment
on your resume to figure out if you fit the job they have to fill. And Hiring
Managers don’t have time to train you to be a Specialist. They expect you to already be one and
hit the ground running.
Specialist
vs. Generalist. Careers are rarely that black and white. It’s okay if you want to think of yourself in black and white terms, so long as you don’t appear gray to
the people who are looking to hire you.
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