51–60 of 133 posts
--Robert Heinlein
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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]: >…
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…
This really depends on your employer and your definition of specialist. There are jobs where following a very straight career path would be a disadvantage: you might be perceived as a boring candidate who would potentially struggle if given work outside their domain. I think it's fair to say that, generally, breadth is valued more at smaller companies where people have to multi-task.
In academia it's much easier to do well as an inter-disciplinary researcher than it is to try and be the best in a single field. The obvious killer combo right now is machine learning for X, where X is a field which does not have a strong grounding in computer science. Hacker news gives a very skewed view on the world, as if everyone is up to date with the latest developments in deep learning. In reality, most people in academia are pretty unaware of what's possible, or don't have the technical skills (or grad students with them) to make use of it. This is currently true even for maths-heavy fields like physics, which you may find surprising - I certainly do. Now is a really good time to get on the ladder.
You also need to consider job satisfaction. People who are pretty good at several things may be bored with a single track career, and no amount of money will make up for that.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
IMOP the best profession for a generalist is entrepreneurship. Not that entrepreneurship doesn't entail its own hardships though.
Perhaps but entrepreneurship sounds quite fearsome for people that neither feel really sociable (and I doubt many generalists do) nor have a serious financial capital they can risk safely.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
> 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. This really depends on your employer and your definition of specialist. There are jobs where following a very straight career path would be a disadva…
IME, not at all during the hiring process. And only rarely later.
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. Then proceeds with: > Despite the world’s immense need for polymaths, these individuals seem to be quite rare. That’s because…
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. Then proceeds with: > Despite the world’s immense need for polymaths, these individuals seem to be quite rare. That’s because…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You can still master 2-3 fields, if not to an international level. There are just far more fields to choose from now.
But can someone who knows only two or three fields out of so many that exist now be really called generalist?
Being a generalist by nature makes it very hard to build a successful career. I'm a generalist and what I see is the society is built around specialization.
However if there is a task which requires broad knowledge (say integration) or it is just more efficient or otherwise better for the current scaling due to the costs of trying to maintain a stable of appropriate specialists it is a niche where a generalist will win out. We usually see a general practitioner first instead of heading straight for a dermatologist about a rash.
Good luck selling yourself if you go this route.