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The job market disagrees with you. Corporations want exact or near exact match to their requirements if they are to consider you for a position. Keyword scanni

The job market disagrees with you. Corporations want exact or near exact match to their requirements if they are to consider you for a position. Keyword scanning of resumes by HR and managers looking to minimize the need for training has led to this. For start-ups I agree with the assertion. Otherwise the reverse is true.

typicalrunt 15y ago
However, once you have a position at a company, I have found that companies love the generalist because that person can wear many hats, decreasing the need for more employees.
muhfuhkuh 15y ago
But then, is the change going to come in the form of a post-corporate world? One where, because of globalization and hyper-specialization happening beyond our shores, the US undergoes a second "industrial revolution" vis a vis the generalist contractor, who has no corporate affiliation as far as career/jobs go, but goes from job to job, doing whatever is needed and filling in roles as necessary, often from home? From the trivial (stuffing envelopes, follow-the-sun sales/customer support, transcriptions) to non-trivial (programming/development, deployment and remote monitoring and management of cloud compute services, translation, creative output, paralegal or administration), all while on 1099 rather than salaried full-timers. And, this kind of generalist work can be also farmed out, as well, to specialists. What the labor-intensive fields like construction and farming has done with subcontractors and day-laborers, we (meaning both big megacorporations and startups/microbusinesses/mom+pops) can do for our own "softer" industries. Which, then, begs the question: Is the future a world of mega-multinationals making and doing everything for us? It really seemed to be prior to the 2008 crash. It may be my perception because I'm working on my own multiple side projects and I frequent HN so much, but I feel like the ground is shifting. It looks like it's becoming more of a post-corporate scenario, where the incoming generations Y and Z distrust the corporations by default in favor of the small, more personalized and targeted, vendor (on or offline). One needn't look further than HNs own submissions to see the popularity of indie made goods,the popularity of Kickstarter projects, microISVs (little web apps, mobile apps by small teams), the popularity of Etsy and the Humble Indie bundle and runaway stories like Angry Birds, indie scribes Amanda Hocking and John Locke, and even smaller winemakers and microbreweries. It looks like things are flowing in another direction.
- forgotAgain 15y ago
  Perhaps but I believe the trend of more and more wealth being concentrated in a smaller and smaller percentage of the population indicates that smaller is getting smaller and bigger is getting bigger. The future for most may very well be as 1099's forever moving between projects but I don't think the vast majority of them will match the income of their corporate-working predecessors. The post corporate world will for most be due to corporations jettisoning expensive human resources in exchange for less expensive resources available elsewhere rather than being due to a populist rush to return to the age of the craftsman.
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
lsc 15y ago
A keyword search is going to favor the generalist; we have a lot more keywords than a specialist. As a generalist, I have many languages, applications and operating systems on my resume, many of which I don't know all that well. These feed the keyword searches. That's the thing; most people who have HR departments that do keyword scanning? To them, I look deeply technical and specialized. Most places like that are simply not set up to recruit or handle real technical people.

typicalrunt 15y ago

However, once you have a position at a company, I have found that companies love the generalist because that person can wear many hats, decreasing the need for more employees.

muhfuhkuh 15y ago

But then, is the change going to come in the form of a post-corporate world? One where, because of globalization and hyper-specialization happening beyond our shores, the US undergoes a second "industrial revolution" vis a vis the generalist contractor, who has no corporate affiliation as far as career/jobs go, but goes from job to job, doing whatever is needed and filling in roles as necessary, often from home? From the trivial (stuffing envelopes, follow-the-sun sales/customer support, transcriptions) to non-trivial (programming/development, deployment and remote monitoring and management of cloud compute services, translation, creative output, paralegal or administration), all while on 1099 rather than salaried full-timers. And, this kind of generalist work can be also farmed out, as well, to specialists. What the labor-intensive fields like construction and farming has done with subcontractors and day-laborers, we (meaning both big megacorporations and startups/microbusinesses/mom+pops) can do for our own "softer" industries. Which, then, begs the question: Is the future a world of mega-multinationals making and doing everything for us? It really seemed to be prior to the 2008 crash. It may be my perception because I'm working on my own multiple side projects and I frequent HN so much, but I feel like the ground is shifting. It looks like it's becoming more of a post-corporate scenario, where the incoming generations Y and Z distrust the corporations by default in favor of the small, more personalized and targeted, vendor (on or offline). One needn't look further than HNs own submissions to see the popularity of indie made goods,the popularity of Kickstarter projects, microISVs (little web apps, mobile apps by small teams), the popularity of Etsy and the Humble Indie bundle and runaway stories like Angry Birds, indie scribes Amanda Hocking and John Locke, and even smaller winemakers and microbreweries. It looks like things are flowing in another direction.

forgotAgain 15y ago
Perhaps but I believe the trend of more and more wealth being concentrated in a smaller and smaller percentage of the population indicates that smaller is getting smaller and bigger is getting bigger. The future for most may very well be as 1099's forever moving between projects but I don't think the vast majority of them will match the income of their corporate-working predecessors. The post corporate world will for most be due to corporations jettisoning expensive human resources in exchange for less expensive resources available elsewhere rather than being due to a populist rush to return to the age of the craftsman.

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

lsc 15y ago

A keyword search is going to favor the generalist; we have a lot more keywords than a specialist. As a generalist, I have many languages, applications and operating systems on my resume, many of which I don't know all that well. These feed the keyword searches. That's the thing; most people who have HR departments that do keyword scanning? To them, I look deeply technical and specialized. Most places like that are simply not set up to recruit or handle real technical people.