“But, what do you do?” It’s a question I’ve been asked in job interviews and I rarely have a good answer. Being a generalist means you may have a broad understanding of many areas in a given field. Jack of all trades, master of none. It may not mean you’re attention deficit but quite possibly the product of your work environment and the types of projects you’ve handled. I have wondered whether this is symptomatic of self-taught web folk who have learned on the job as opposed to people who have specialised training.
Where did I come from?
In my own case I have no formal training in design or development and spent several years working at a very small agency where we took on any and every project we could lay our hands on, sometimes with no knowledge of how we’d undertake it. With a small team you’re forced to try your hand at everything and in the end you wear many hats. It can be hard in the end to figure out which, if any, hat fits best.
You have to start somewhere
I was originally a web designer which required a good eye but little technical knowledge. I moved into deploying Open Source web applications like phpbb, phplist and joomla and spent more time looking at and debugging code – all of a sudden I was a web developer. Then I found myself competing with specialists (coders) who work from the bottom up, as opposed to the designer’s top-down approach. I spent several years touting myself as designer/developer and already my resume looked “Frankensteinesque” – a piece of this, a piece of that.
What value do I bring?
In a small agency with a broad range of services, a generalist web worker is a valuable commodity. At a higher level (e.g. project management) in a large organisation a generalist can also bring real value to a business, offering greater clarity and effective oversight. Conversely, it seems the more atomic the role, the less attractive and effective the generalist potentially becomes.
What am I now?
So how does the generalist consolidate and package themself? In my case, dumb luck prevailed and I was fortunate enough to land a short contract as part of a business unit on a large commercial project. My generalist skills were put to good use across a range of areas from SEO, design, information architecture and user acceptance testing. I enjoyed a the time away from hacking and I could see the possibility of applying my broad skills in a business context. Still, I couldn’t put a name to it. What exactly is that job called? What’s my kung fu?
Where am I going?
Now with a significant and successful project management gig behind me I’m left wondering, what does a generalist do from here? Managing a project in a large corporation is a complex proposition and in many ways I was lucky in my first outing as PM. With no formal experience with PM processses and methodologies I winged my way through by utilising my broad experience in web dev and my knack with people. To compete on a PM path in future I probably need to make a conscious decision to specialise, which might mean education and will definitely mean repackaging myself.
Build a bridge
With each gig the picture of what I am on paper seems to get clearer. However, as with bridge building, you need to ensure that the bridge meets in the middle. This means having a vision of where you need to end up and ensuring that your path is oriented towards that point. The question becomes, does the person on your resumé match up with the one you picture in two, five or ten years?
My heart says my future is in a small to medium agency as part of a familiar, close-knit team and working on a range of projects for medium to large clients. How does this align with my resumé, the on-paper me? The experience I’m getting at this point in my career gives me an insider’s perspective on how hard it can be to push a project through a large organisation. Without this experience it would be impossible for me to realise my envisioned future.
Once a generalist…
Does this mean I’m coming full-circle on the generalist hamster wheel? Is being a generalist both my greatest weakness and strength? Perhaps it’s all about just putting yourself in the right place to bring the most value to yourself and the business you work for. That means making smart decisions and staying oriented towards your vision.
If you read this far, thanks for hashing this out with me. It all makes sense now. I am a hamster who wears many hats and does not know how to use a comma.
Just wanted to say HI. I found your blog a few days ago on Technorati and have been reading it over the past few days.
Nice writing style. I look forward to reading more in the future.
Though not quite as generalist as you, I can certainly sympathise. For me this broader, but perhaps shallower knowledge has been perfect for small teams and particularly for my startup. It’s a great advantage for startup founders to be able to handle as many roles themselves as they can, so I’m proud to admit I’m more of a “Jack of all” just because it suits the situation. I agree that it probably would work against me if I were part of a larger team. Good thing I don’t want to do that anyway then