8 ms·

Small piece of advice on pitch - don't call yourself a polymath. It may come across as deeply arrogant to compare yourself to folks like Leibniz.

by eyphka 4y ago

pdpi 4y ago
Where appropriate, I use "geek of all trades" specifically to avoid this.
- mkoubaa 4y ago
  My go to is "useful idiot in every room"
- 5555624 4y ago
  I've used "SLJO" - Sh*tty Little Jobs Officer
version_five 4y ago
I agree with this. What I'd say further is that if you're a generalist, you're not really in a position to pitch yourself as such. You either need to build a relationship with someone who recognizes that you can have some non-traditional role, or you need to spin your experience to someone who's looking for a specific skillset. Telling someone you're as good at some specialist thing as people who are specialists at it comes off as bad and falls as flat as calling yourself a polymath (or any of the other phrases people seem to come up with) Pitching "I can do anything" doesn't work.
Nomentatus 4y ago
Yet polymath doesn't even mean "good", it means Jack-of-all-trades (master of none.) If you want to say "aspirationally a polymath," that might go down easier. Still, you need to be in a rare corporate body that understands the value of your broad, shallow pond of knowlege, not having the average institution hire you and then not value what you bring.
- rramadass 4y ago
  https://medium.com/@tabithawasserman/the-complete-saying-was-originally-a-jack-of-all-trades-is-a-master-of-none-but-oftentimes-5f4af01a72c6 https://medium.com/@tabithawasserman/the-complete-saying-was...
orange_fritter 4y ago
Most disciplines are ~ infinitely deep. An amazing jazz upright bassist once told me that he was only scratching the surface, and to look into 5 other musicians for examples that were blowing his mind at the moment. A flight instructor at one point said "You'll think you're competent at flying but a pilot can sense your ignorance a mile away with a couple sentences." I don't know what constitutes polymath but I can barely be a mono-math and I am happy with what I have.

Small piece of advice on pitch - don't call yourself a polymath. It may come across as deeply arrogant to compare yourself to folks like Leibniz.

by eyphka 4y ago

Small piece of advice on pitch - don't call yourself a polymath. It may come across as deeply arrogant to compare yourself to folks like Leibniz.

pdpi 4y ago

Where appropriate, I use "geek of all trades" specifically to avoid this.

mkoubaa 4y ago
My go to is "useful idiot in every room"
5555624 4y ago
I've used "SLJO" - Sh*tty Little Jobs Officer

version_five 4y ago

I agree with this. What I'd say further is that if you're a generalist, you're not really in a position to pitch yourself as such. You either need to build a relationship with someone who recognizes that you can have some non-traditional role, or you need to spin your experience to someone who's looking for a specific skillset. Telling someone you're as good at some specialist thing as people who are specialists at it comes off as bad and falls as flat as calling yourself a polymath (or any of the other phrases people seem to come up with) Pitching "I can do anything" doesn't work.

Nomentatus 4y ago

Yet polymath doesn't even mean "good", it means Jack-of-all-trades (master of none.) If you want to say "aspirationally a polymath," that might go down easier. Still, you need to be in a rare corporate body that understands the value of your broad, shallow pond of knowlege, not having the average institution hire you and then not value what you bring.

rramadass 4y ago
https://medium.com/@tabithawasserman/the-complete-saying-was-originally-a-jack-of-all-trades-is-a-master-of-none-but-oftentimes-5f4af01a72c6 https://medium.com/@tabithawasserman/the-complete-saying-was...

orange_fritter 4y ago

Most disciplines are ~ infinitely deep. An amazing jazz upright bassist once told me that he was only scratching the surface, and to look into 5 other musicians for examples that were blowing his mind at the moment. A flight instructor at one point said "You'll think you're competent at flying but a pilot can sense your ignorance a mile away with a couple sentences." I don't know what constitutes polymath but I can barely be a mono-math and I am happy with what I have.