3 ms·

The generalist's resume looks worse. They have 2 years experience with (insert role here), compared to the other guy who has 8, because they've worked in multip

The generalist's resume looks worse. They have 2 years experience with (insert role here), compared to the other guy who has 8, because they've worked in multiple roles. Some industries have realized they want some people who have multiple skills, such as the "full stack engineer" roles, but it seems rather more common to prefer someone who precisely fits into the specialist role they defined.

Justsignedup 3y ago
Hell, I experience this a lot. My experience is doing a lot of things, and being a force multiplier. However you go to a larger company, and suddenly they're looking for very specific experience doing specific scaling that I never got to do in all my roles, boom, it is terrible for my resume. And many young people see this and just decide that let's just focus on that, and make a great resume, rather than try to be useful. I could have come into a job and say "okay, I know back end, let me focus on that" but instead I spent a day installing a shitty data pipeline that more or less took us through the next 4 years of data analytical needs for almost no cost. Etc. It is just how it is. I even read a post on HN about a decade ago about how a guy was hire #1, was instrumental in the growth of a company, and when it was purchased was pushed out because they didn't need a generalist anymore, they needed a specialist. And so he decided to drop the generalist role and focus entirely on one technical aspect to the benefit of his career. So while I agree with Tim, I also have to say, as someone in the thick of it, there's no good way out. Unless you want to keep working for Seed / Series A startups, fingers crossed they sell or you won't make that okay payoff.
- taherchhabra 3y ago
  I am in the same boat as you. For generalist,after a point, i feel the only way up is to start something of your own.
  - trinsic2 3y ago
    This is why I dont work for anyone but my customers. There is no way I would deal with the kind of dissonance we are living through today. I do all my design work, my coding, my deduction for people that hire me directly for individual projects. I don't make as much money as I would working for a company, but you can't put a price on piece of mind.
    - TotalCrackpot 3y ago
      Do you have any tips or resources on how to find individual consumers?
      - debok 3y ago
        From my experience it seems that there is more work in this space than there is people to do it. If you just tell people that you are open for individual contract type work, the business will roll in eventually. Just give it some time and start by doing it on a part-time basis. It might take several months before you land your first project, but once you completed some work for some clients, more business will come if you are good. You will know when you are ready to take your individual contracts full-time.
        TotalCrackpot 3y ago
        Should you put an ad somewhere, go to meetups or conferences and say you are open for contracts? Leave CV somewhere?
        debok 3y ago
        I didn't even do that. I just told people in my immediate vicinity that I am open to individual projects. One project came from my wife's ex-boss, one project came from a colleague who got a project via LinkedIn, but didn't want to take it himself. You can just drop it in casual conversation. "What do you do for a living?" "Oh I'm a software developer at X-Corp, and I also do some work for individual clients" Something like that. People remember that stuff. If you like, you can even tell people you offer a finder's fee. Just don't be pushy. Be willing to build the business part-time until you have enough work to take it full-time. You probably won't be getting big projects from the get go, but if you are humble, that won't be a problem. My first project was just optimizing and cleaning a slow and messy Python script. I charged $35 an hour an threw 10 hours into it.
- TotalCrackpot 3y ago
  Maybe try creating or working for worker cooperatives? Given that they are fully worker managed they should be a better place for generalists.
dilyevsky 3y ago
It’s just less work for management and less politically threatening to have highly-specialized engs with disjoint skillsets. Divide et impera
vk6flab 3y ago
I've been in the workforce for almost 40 years as an ICT professional. In my experience there's lots of other things going on in addition to the point you make. People flat-out don't believe that the skills enumerated on my resume could be held by a single person, and are. Apparently, I'm clearly "over the hill", having been at this for nearly 40 years. I should state that I have 20+ years experience instead, as-if having life experience doesn't actually make you better qualified to understand the contexts of any role in an organisation. My skill-set is "threatening" to others, because, apparently, knowing things about a great many technologies means that I know more than the person hiring me, which somehow means that I'm a threat. As-if surrounding yourself by people who are smarter than you is suddenly undesirable. I've been told to "dumb down" my resume because there's too much there, even if there's 99% chance that a computer will be the device actually reading it and selecting me. Apparently I'm supposed to "infiltrate" a company at a lower level and then "show" them that I can do more, despite 40 years experience showing that people only see the skills that they want to see. According to some automated job technologies I have 104 years of experience. Not sure how that works. Then there are those who want to know which of the experience is "professional" and which isn't. (I've been self-employed for the past 23+ years) In the end, I liken it to this: "How much experience do you have in eating food?" "Do you mean, adding together each of the 15 minute meals, or how long have I been eating food for since I was born?" "Okay, how much professional experience do you have eating food?" "..."
- HenryBemis 3y ago
  I have a similar blessing/problem. I've filled forms that do the additions and keep you in check that you don't end up with 104 years. On the other hand, if you are anything like me you spend a good amount of these 40 years working 10-12 hours per day (and some times the weekend)(I remember in 2001-2003 I was working in a food company and during some weekends we would be doing the hardware work, so removing servers, installing new ones, setting up new racks etc. So those 3 years were in reality 4 or 4.5 (and I got the paid overtime to prove it). The "system" still serves the ones who grow vertically Junior X, X, Senior X, Junior X Manager, X Manager, Senior X Manager, and so on. I remember listening to DOAC chatting with Harley Finkelstein of Shopify that was describing how he appreciates T-shaped skill-set. So you master skill X (as you 'grew up with it') but as time was going by you also developed other skills in parallel. Modern companies & minds get it and celebrate it. Old-school-ers don't (and probably never will). There is also the thing "I want him/her to do X, so (e.g.) project management skills are not useful". And then I am happy when I hear this on an interview because I most definitely do NOT want to work with that person! :)
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
dxuh 3y ago
I consider myself a generalist and companies just do not like to hire those. The vast majority of companies doesn't even advertise jobs that are not specialized. And of course this generates some kind of force on the market, because there is no incentive to become one and a strong incentive to specialize instead.

Justsignedup 3y ago

Hell, I experience this a lot. My experience is doing a lot of things, and being a force multiplier. However you go to a larger company, and suddenly they're looking for very specific experience doing specific scaling that I never got to do in all my roles, boom, it is terrible for my resume. And many young people see this and just decide that let's just focus on that, and make a great resume, rather than try to be useful. I could have come into a job and say "okay, I know back end, let me focus on that" but instead I spent a day installing a shitty data pipeline that more or less took us through the next 4 years of data analytical needs for almost no cost. Etc. It is just how it is. I even read a post on HN about a decade ago about how a guy was hire #1, was instrumental in the growth of a company, and when it was purchased was pushed out because they didn't need a generalist anymore, they needed a specialist. And so he decided to drop the generalist role and focus entirely on one technical aspect to the benefit of his career. So while I agree with Tim, I also have to say, as someone in the thick of it, there's no good way out. Unless you want to keep working for Seed / Series A startups, fingers crossed they sell or you won't make that okay payoff.

taherchhabra 3y ago
I am in the same boat as you. For generalist,after a point, i feel the only way up is to start something of your own.
- trinsic2 3y ago
  This is why I dont work for anyone but my customers. There is no way I would deal with the kind of dissonance we are living through today. I do all my design work, my coding, my deduction for people that hire me directly for individual projects. I don't make as much money as I would working for a company, but you can't put a price on piece of mind.
  - TotalCrackpot 3y ago
    Do you have any tips or resources on how to find individual consumers?
    - debok 3y ago
      From my experience it seems that there is more work in this space than there is people to do it. If you just tell people that you are open for individual contract type work, the business will roll in eventually. Just give it some time and start by doing it on a part-time basis. It might take several months before you land your first project, but once you completed some work for some clients, more business will come if you are good. You will know when you are ready to take your individual contracts full-time.
      - TotalCrackpot 3y ago
        Should you put an ad somewhere, go to meetups or conferences and say you are open for contracts? Leave CV somewhere?
        debok 3y ago
        I didn't even do that. I just told people in my immediate vicinity that I am open to individual projects. One project came from my wife's ex-boss, one project came from a colleague who got a project via LinkedIn, but didn't want to take it himself. You can just drop it in casual conversation. "What do you do for a living?" "Oh I'm a software developer at X-Corp, and I also do some work for individual clients" Something like that. People remember that stuff. If you like, you can even tell people you offer a finder's fee. Just don't be pushy. Be willing to build the business part-time until you have enough work to take it full-time. You probably won't be getting big projects from the get go, but if you are humble, that won't be a problem. My first project was just optimizing and cleaning a slow and messy Python script. I charged $35 an hour an threw 10 hours into it.
TotalCrackpot 3y ago
Maybe try creating or working for worker cooperatives? Given that they are fully worker managed they should be a better place for generalists.

dilyevsky 3y ago

It’s just less work for management and less politically threatening to have highly-specialized engs with disjoint skillsets. Divide et impera

vk6flab 3y ago

I've been in the workforce for almost 40 years as an ICT professional. In my experience there's lots of other things going on in addition to the point you make. People flat-out don't believe that the skills enumerated on my resume could be held by a single person, and are. Apparently, I'm clearly "over the hill", having been at this for nearly 40 years. I should state that I have 20+ years experience instead, as-if having life experience doesn't actually make you better qualified to understand the contexts of any role in an organisation. My skill-set is "threatening" to others, because, apparently, knowing things about a great many technologies means that I know more than the person hiring me, which somehow means that I'm a threat. As-if surrounding yourself by people who are smarter than you is suddenly undesirable. I've been told to "dumb down" my resume because there's too much there, even if there's 99% chance that a computer will be the device actually reading it and selecting me. Apparently I'm supposed to "infiltrate" a company at a lower level and then "show" them that I can do more, despite 40 years experience showing that people only see the skills that they want to see. According to some automated job technologies I have 104 years of experience. Not sure how that works. Then there are those who want to know which of the experience is "professional" and which isn't. (I've been self-employed for the past 23+ years) In the end, I liken it to this: "How much experience do you have in eating food?" "Do you mean, adding together each of the 15 minute meals, or how long have I been eating food for since I was born?" "Okay, how much professional experience do you have eating food?" "..."

HenryBemis 3y ago
I have a similar blessing/problem. I've filled forms that do the additions and keep you in check that you don't end up with 104 years. On the other hand, if you are anything like me you spend a good amount of these 40 years working 10-12 hours per day (and some times the weekend)(I remember in 2001-2003 I was working in a food company and during some weekends we would be doing the hardware work, so removing servers, installing new ones, setting up new racks etc. So those 3 years were in reality 4 or 4.5 (and I got the paid overtime to prove it). The "system" still serves the ones who grow vertically Junior X, X, Senior X, Junior X Manager, X Manager, Senior X Manager, and so on. I remember listening to DOAC chatting with Harley Finkelstein of Shopify that was describing how he appreciates T-shaped skill-set. So you master skill X (as you 'grew up with it') but as time was going by you also developed other skills in parallel. Modern companies & minds get it and celebrate it. Old-school-ers don't (and probably never will). There is also the thing "I want him/her to do X, so (e.g.) project management skills are not useful". And then I am happy when I hear this on an interview because I most definitely do NOT want to work with that person! :)

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

dxuh 3y ago

I consider myself a generalist and companies just do not like to hire those. The vast majority of companies doesn't even advertise jobs that are not specialized. And of course this generates some kind of force on the market, because there is no incentive to become one and a strong incentive to specialize instead.