A Generalist or a Specialist: What’s the Best Fit for Your Career?

A Generalist or a Specialist: What’s the Best Fit for Your Career? | Career | Emeritus

Back in December 2020, Bill Gates identified the importance of generalists in a transformative business world as a crucial ingredient of success. A 2022 LinkedIn report, however, upended this claim by stating that specialist jobs have the highest demand in the contemporary market. Irrespective of where you stand in your career trajectory, choosing between being a generalist or a specialist is a really tough choice to make. Let’s find out how to resolve this generalist vs specialist dilemma.

What is a Specialist?

A specialist offers a strong and sustained focus on one specific domain. Companies hire specialists to lead the targeted development of work processes and technology within a niche by consistently optimizing challenges. In the business world, specialists have tightly defined linear job roles and legitimize their talent with relevant certifications. Narrowed focus and consistent real-life application of their educational background enable specialists to accomplish high-quality intricate work. 

Pros and Cons of Being a Specialist

Pros

  1. Expertise in Area of Specialization: As mentioned above, specialists are focused on any one domain, which attracts high-paying clients since subject-specific expertise gaps are more difficult to fill.
  2. Competitive Salaries: The ability to undertake extensive targeted research and a quality understanding of the domain earn specialists attractive remuneration. 
  3. Adapting to Changes in Domain: Specialists are more equipped to handle any new technological complexity in the field as they dedicate years exploring different facets of the domain.

Cons

  1. Limited Scope of Expansion: Lack of diversity within the job profile hinders growth. A specialized portfolio has limited scope of independent expansion.
  2. A Constant Demand to Upgrade: With rapid technological advancements, specialists risk falling behind if they don’t update their skill sets frequently.
  3. Narrow Market: Specialists usually perform within a narrower domain than generalists. As they dive deeper into their domain, the relevant working fields surrounding them gradually shrink.

ALSO READ: These Top 5 Transferable Skills are a Must-Have on Your Resume

What is a Generalist?

A generalist refers to a professional who offers a range of diverse skills and an intelligent mix of knowledge from a variety of disciplines. Handling these diverse roles provides generalists a thorough understanding of all the functioning parts of an industry. Generalists multitask and collaborate to tap into related domains when opportunities arise. This hones their ability to handle unique situations and formulate enduring perspectives. 

Pros and Cons of Being a Generalist

Pros

  1. Open to Challenges: Generalists cover several domains and envision the bigger picture as they combine multiple perspectives from different departments.   
  2. Critical Thinking Abilities: A direct result of being open to a lot of unique challenges is acquiring strong critical thinking skills. This enables generalists to offer actionable insights in their areas of expertise.
  3. Leadership Qualities: Their ability to explore various domains and a high multitasking quotient make generalists excel in leadership roles.
  4. Higher Job Certainty: A large number of skills arm generalists with the capacity to diversify their services. This helps them swap career paths easily and give clients a lot of alternatives to work with.

Cons

  1. Lack of Specific Expertise: Generalists aren’t that competent in niche projects as they lack the in-depth knowledge of any specific domain.
  2. A Higher Chance of Burnout: A high percentage of generalists work across multiple teams and tackle a host of responsibilities, especially if they are in leadership roles. This often leads to psychological burnout. 
  3. Low Pay and Job Security: Generalists are easier to replace owing to their overlapping or vaguely defined work responsibilities. Moreover, with the lack of any specialization, these job profiles are prone to a lower pay. 

ALSO READ: Guide to Successfully Navigating a Career Change

Generalist Versus Specialist

The generalist vs specialist debate further diversifies the two types of employees. Let’s check out their differences in the following categories: 

1. Knowledge Level

While a specialist systematically hones skills related to their domain, a generalist seeks to sharpen a wide range of related skills that will prove useful in multiple domains.

2. Marketability

The proliferation of startups and small businesses has surged the demand for generalists who come with a vast spectrum of knowledge and experience. However, when the requirement is for deep technical knowledge in critical fields, the skills of a specialist are much more marketable.  

3. Progressiveness

When a company is looking at upscaling operations within its domain, the specialist is more progressive when it comes to creative ideas. Generalists are progressive when it comes to accepting a varied number of clients with different needs and expectations. Owing to their interpersonal skills and a broad-based learning curve, generalists can handle uncertainties efficiently.

4. Transferable Skills

In terms of transferability, generalists fare better than specialists as their wide range of specialties is easily transferable to different domains. Specialists aren’t able to transfer their domain-related expertise to another field or even to another discipline within the same domain.

How to Decide if You Should be a Generalist or Specialist?

As digital transformation takes the center stage, the generalist vs specialist debate is taking a definitive turn. Ask yourself the following questions to gain a comprehensive understanding of your needs:

  1. Do you seek a diverse breadth of knowledge or do you prefer deep research on any specific topic?
  2. Do you change your career perspective often and prefer taking time to find the niche you are interested in? Or have you already determined your career trajectory?
  3. What kind of work ignites your interests and passions? Does it require you to hone different skills or demand specific subject-matter expertise?

Generalist vs Specialist Salary

Specialists in any field bag higher salaries due to the experience they hold in their domain. Generalists attract a wide range of jobs due to their multiple skills and hobbies but their lack of specific in-depth knowledge limits their salary packages. Specialists earn more in the first few years due to their strong educational background. 

According to Glassdoor, the national average salary of a human resource (HR) generalist is $59,333. The corresponding annual salary for a talent acquisition specialist is $77,903

ALSO READ: After 20 Years, Pete Chu Switched to His Dream Career Path. Find Out How?

Generalist vs Specialist Examples

To better illustrate the generalist vs specialist conundrum, here are some domain-specific examples:

  1. A generalist writer learning SEO, keyword handling, and niche concepts of technical writing would be able to transfer these skills across industries, such as business development or advertising. A specialist writer, on the other hand, will have a very distinct portfolio, such as a technical copywriter that requires deep domain knowledge. 
  2. In the world of healthcare, a general physician is a generalist. They offer insights into potential health problems by taking a generalized approach to listening to symptoms. A specialist doctor such as a cardiovascular surgeon or a neurosurgeon will deal only with specific body parts and can generate deeper insights than a general diagnosis.
  3. An HR professional in a marketing company is a generalist portfolio. In the same organization, a talent acquisition professional would be a specialist portfolio. 

Future-ready organizations are trying to do away with the generalist vs specialist binary altogether. Today, an ideal workforce is a carefully balanced group of specialized generalists—who recognize their varied strengths but rely on others’ domain-specific expertise, and generalized specialists—people with core competencies who also delve into other related areas. Know how to best position yourself in this changing job market and choose your niche with diversified online courses offered by Emeritus. Good luck!

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 generalist vs specialist

About the Author

Managing Editor, Emeritus Blog
Anwesha is our in-house expert on careers, trends impacting the workforce, and what makes content tick. As a journalist and content creator for 10+ years, Anwesha leaves a bit of herself in every story. Her superpower is to take the bare bones and turn it into a winning narrative for brands. Her passion to tell stories of human triumph led her to Emeritus where she continues to weave engaging tales. Anwesha is also a doting dog mom and hopes to make her boisterous canine a pawfluencer.
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