When it comes to personal branding, I typically recommend that you become the master of your domain (a niche) instead of trying to position yourself for a large, saturated and boring topic. Well, the economic landscape has changed and you can’t just succeed by being a specialist within a corporation. If you’re an entrepreneur and have a steady business, focused on a niche, then this disregard this blog post. The new means that in order to keep your job, you must be flexible (easy adapt to business changes), learning new functions within your business, and networking outside of your group or organization, while still specializing.
The role of a specialist
A specialist aligns their passion with a specific skill set and contrives a personal brand statement from that. Specialists become the go-to-people in and out of the office. Sometimes a specialist is a natural at what they do, while other times, they have to work very hard to perfect their knowledge in a specific area. Malcolm Gladwell states that it takes 10,000 areas to assume mastery over something in his new book, Outliers. Specialists get called upon when a certain opportunity surfaces or when there is a business challenge that can only be handled by someone of that caliber. As a specialist, you may have to learn complimentary skills as well.
The role of a generalist
Generalists have to have a good, not perfect, understanding of a broader topic and many topics across a business. Don’t listen to people that say being a generalist is a waste of time. When I was in school, my resume building strategy was 100% focused on being a generalist. I had 8 internships that covered every single area of marketing and a consulting business. I purposely took classes in marketing research, advertising and other marketing disciplines in order to have flexibility and a wider selection of company’s to choose from upon graduation. Behind my generalist cap, it was clear to the hiring managers that my strengths lied in internet marketing, web development and design. A lot of corporate leadership development programs help you become a generalist and give you generalist titles. The higher up the corporate ladder you go, the more of a generalist you have to be.
When both come together
Being a specialist and a generalist simultaneously is the best route to being successful in a good or bad economy, but it 10x more important in a bad one. For instance, let’s say you specialize in social media PR, but generalize in all of marketing. Your company is going to outsource the PR organization, but sees that you can add value in a product marketing or a communications role. Instead of being laid off like your peers, you get a new job. I’ve already heard these stories multiple times since October. You need to start learning other areas of the business, while mastering a specialty. This of course means you have to work much harder!
