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> Look, this essay is ridiculous. It starts by citing Aristotle, Leonardo Da Vinci, and Benjamin Franklin, and then delivers silly things like this definition o

> Look, this essay is ridiculous. It starts by citing Aristotle, Leonardo Da Vinci, and Benjamin Franklin, and then delivers silly things like this definition of a "generalist": >> Someone who becomes competent in at least three diverse domains and integrates them into a top 1-percent skill set. If you take this advice and tone it down a lot, it becomes both reasonable and good. From Scott Adam's Career Advice [0]: > But if you want something extraordinary, you have two paths: > 1. Become the best at one specific thing. > 2. Become very good (top 25%) at two or more things. > The first strategy is difficult to the point of near impossibility. Few people will ever play in the NBA or make a platinum album. I don’t recommend anyone even try. > The second strategy is fairly easy. Everyone has at least a few areas in which they could be in the top 25% with some effort. In my case, I can draw better than most people, but I’m hardly an artist. And I’m not any funnier than the average standup comedian who never makes it big, but I’m funnier than most people. The magic is that few people can draw well and write jokes. It’s the combination of the two that makes what I do so rare. And when you add in my business background, suddenly I had a topic that few cartoonists could hope to understand without living it. ___ 0. https://dilbertblog.typepad.com/the_dilbert_blog/2007/07/career-advice.html https://dilbertblog.typepad.com/the_dilbert_blog/2007/07/car...

NeedMoreTea 8y ago
Thing is, it doesn't seem to pay, at least in the employment market. Employers want specialists, and pay for them. If your CV is two or three distinct things (I don't mean a selection of languages, or front and back end dev here, I mean distinct skills like say programming and accountancy) it's very unlikely to get you a better salary. In fact if you've diverged from a straight specialism throughout your career it's probable you'll be punished with a lower salary, and problems getting hired in the first place. Expect a lot of challenging interview questions as to why you haven't followed a straight line from junior, through senior into project management (which of course is a different skill, making this even more inconsistent). I'm sure those same disparate skills could be hugely useful if you're starting a business or startup, but for employment it's likely to make life harder, even though many employers would benefit just as much from your increased breadth of perspective. So outside a few rare employers, and a few lucky applicants, I don't think there's much out there for generalists, sadly.
- kartickv 8y ago
  Is your experience with companies that could make use of your other skill? If you understand accounting, and you're applying to a company that makes photography apps, that won't be given much value. Are you also good in your primary skill? Is it like 100% of engineering (say) + 20% of UX design, or 60% each of engineering and UX design? In the former case, one will clear the bar for an engineer job post, with your UX design skills helping to position you above other qualified engineers. In the latter case, you may be judged unqualified and rejected. And what do you think about related skills, like UX design or marketing in addition to programming.
- em-bee 8y ago
  but that is exactly what the OP is trying to change because the current status quo can not be upheld. that it doesn't pay now is only because not enough people are aware of the benefits. it's similar to the problem of hiring for a specific tools as opposed to hiring people who are good at learning new tools. if the new tools are similar to the ones they already know they will be productive in no time. greetings, eMBee.
- nordsieck 8y ago
  > In fact if you've diverged from a straight specialism throughout your career it's probable you'll be punished with a lower salary, and problems getting hired in the first place. I don't think this is true. Getting better at a thing has diminishing - often severely diminishing returns. Giving up being top 23% in programming in exchange for being top 25% in programming + top 25% in accounting doesn't seem like it would be much of a career liability. > Employers want specialists, and pay for them. If your CV is two or three distinct things (I don't mean a selection of languages, or front and back end dev here, I mean distinct skills like say programming and accountancy) it's very unlikely to get you a better salary. You're probably not going to get a better salary working for a company that only values one skill. You have to pick your employer more carefully. That being said, there are tons of software jobs in the banking/accounting sector ranging from product development to consulting. I'm sure that being an excellent programmer and an excellent accountant could make you much more money than just one without the other at some of those companies.
- 8y ago
snowwrestler 8y ago
I would encourage people to find a better career coach than Scott Adams. Like many people who achieve remarkable cultural success, he doesn't actually know why it happened. For instance: does anyone think Dilbert succeeded because Scott is good at drawing? But it's first on his list of self-superlatives. Edit to add: Great drawing skill does not matter for most comic strips. Look at Peanuts, or Garfield, or more recently Pearls Before Swine or XKCD. Ryan North has been posting Dinosaur Comics 3 times a week for 15 years using the same art for every single one.
- carlmr 8y ago
  Apart from him saying that his drawing skills aren't that great (which was the exact point above, it's better to be slightly above average in multiple domains than trying to be the best in one, which is almost impossible), I disagree with you that the mentioned comic artists don't have drawing skills. XKCD looks simple, but the recognizability of these simple characters isn't that easy to achieve.
_Microft 8y ago
Be part of the top of 25% in three independent fields and there is your (0.25^3 ~= 0.016) top 1-2% skill set.
- kartickv 8y ago
  It's hard to reach that level of skill in two (let alone three) fields in a reasonable amount of time. It may also take your focus away from becoming good enough in your primary skill to pass the hiring bar. If you can do engineering, marketing and UX design, but you're not good enough in any of these fields to get hired as an engineer, marketer or designer, you're in trouble. I think it's better to pick a primary field, get to the top 10% in that field, while being good enough at a secondary skill. For example, "I'm a great engineer, but I can also get you your first 10,000 users on the marketing side. I won't be as good as a dedicated marketing person, of course, but I can get this job done." Then you can apply for an engineer job, convince them how good an engineer you're, and then convince them that you also have some design and marketing skills. (10% was an arbitrary number. The point is that your skills in your primary field should be good enough to clear the bar.)
mark_l_watson 8y ago
+1, I like your catch that the article is similar to Scott Adam’s Book’s advice. I liked the article, but I am biased since in my career I have tried very hard to be an expert at three things: classic symbolic AI, building large scale distributed systems, and Machine Learning. I am in my mid 60s so I have had the benefit of working with many people who were individually very skilled in more that one field, and these people were the highest producers not just for the direct work they did but also for influencing other developers. These 7 or 8 people have had the greatest influence on my career.

NeedMoreTea 8y ago

Thing is, it doesn't seem to pay, at least in the employment market. Employers want specialists, and pay for them. If your CV is two or three distinct things (I don't mean a selection of languages, or front and back end dev here, I mean distinct skills like say programming and accountancy) it's very unlikely to get you a better salary. In fact if you've diverged from a straight specialism throughout your career it's probable you'll be punished with a lower salary, and problems getting hired in the first place. Expect a lot of challenging interview questions as to why you haven't followed a straight line from junior, through senior into project management (which of course is a different skill, making this even more inconsistent). I'm sure those same disparate skills could be hugely useful if you're starting a business or startup, but for employment it's likely to make life harder, even though many employers would benefit just as much from your increased breadth of perspective. So outside a few rare employers, and a few lucky applicants, I don't think there's much out there for generalists, sadly.

kartickv 8y ago
Is your experience with companies that could make use of your other skill? If you understand accounting, and you're applying to a company that makes photography apps, that won't be given much value. Are you also good in your primary skill? Is it like 100% of engineering (say) + 20% of UX design, or 60% each of engineering and UX design? In the former case, one will clear the bar for an engineer job post, with your UX design skills helping to position you above other qualified engineers. In the latter case, you may be judged unqualified and rejected. And what do you think about related skills, like UX design or marketing in addition to programming.
em-bee 8y ago
but that is exactly what the OP is trying to change because the current status quo can not be upheld. that it doesn't pay now is only because not enough people are aware of the benefits. it's similar to the problem of hiring for a specific tools as opposed to hiring people who are good at learning new tools. if the new tools are similar to the ones they already know they will be productive in no time. greetings, eMBee.
nordsieck 8y ago
> In fact if you've diverged from a straight specialism throughout your career it's probable you'll be punished with a lower salary, and problems getting hired in the first place. I don't think this is true. Getting better at a thing has diminishing - often severely diminishing returns. Giving up being top 23% in programming in exchange for being top 25% in programming + top 25% in accounting doesn't seem like it would be much of a career liability. > Employers want specialists, and pay for them. If your CV is two or three distinct things (I don't mean a selection of languages, or front and back end dev here, I mean distinct skills like say programming and accountancy) it's very unlikely to get you a better salary. You're probably not going to get a better salary working for a company that only values one skill. You have to pick your employer more carefully. That being said, there are tons of software jobs in the banking/accounting sector ranging from product development to consulting. I'm sure that being an excellent programmer and an excellent accountant could make you much more money than just one without the other at some of those companies.
8y ago

snowwrestler 8y ago

I would encourage people to find a better career coach than Scott Adams. Like many people who achieve remarkable cultural success, he doesn't actually know why it happened. For instance: does anyone think Dilbert succeeded because Scott is good at drawing? But it's first on his list of self-superlatives. Edit to add: Great drawing skill does not matter for most comic strips. Look at Peanuts, or Garfield, or more recently Pearls Before Swine or XKCD. Ryan North has been posting Dinosaur Comics 3 times a week for 15 years using the same art for every single one.

carlmr 8y ago
Apart from him saying that his drawing skills aren't that great (which was the exact point above, it's better to be slightly above average in multiple domains than trying to be the best in one, which is almost impossible), I disagree with you that the mentioned comic artists don't have drawing skills. XKCD looks simple, but the recognizability of these simple characters isn't that easy to achieve.

_Microft 8y ago

Be part of the top of 25% in three independent fields and there is your (0.25^3 ~= 0.016) top 1-2% skill set.

kartickv 8y ago
It's hard to reach that level of skill in two (let alone three) fields in a reasonable amount of time. It may also take your focus away from becoming good enough in your primary skill to pass the hiring bar. If you can do engineering, marketing and UX design, but you're not good enough in any of these fields to get hired as an engineer, marketer or designer, you're in trouble. I think it's better to pick a primary field, get to the top 10% in that field, while being good enough at a secondary skill. For example, "I'm a great engineer, but I can also get you your first 10,000 users on the marketing side. I won't be as good as a dedicated marketing person, of course, but I can get this job done." Then you can apply for an engineer job, convince them how good an engineer you're, and then convince them that you also have some design and marketing skills. (10% was an arbitrary number. The point is that your skills in your primary field should be good enough to clear the bar.)

mark_l_watson 8y ago

+1, I like your catch that the article is similar to Scott Adam’s Book’s advice. I liked the article, but I am biased since in my career I have tried very hard to be an expert at three things: classic symbolic AI, building large scale distributed systems, and Machine Learning. I am in my mid 60s so I have had the benefit of working with many people who were individually very skilled in more that one field, and these people were the highest producers not just for the direct work they did but also for influencing other developers. These 7 or 8 people have had the greatest influence on my career.