The age of specialists and keywords

Hi all, welcome to the November edition of the monthly newsletter.

I am trying to ship the article off before all of us get preoccupied with the World Cup final and before the “pundits” start drawing “learnings” from it ??

Topic for today is one that has been debated for ages - specialists vs generalists

The Trigger

This topic has been at the back of my mind - based on my personal quest to change career roles, in the past year or so.

Having completed 15 years of work experience post-MBA and having been in the Finance domain for the past 8 years, wanted to make a switch to a domain I have enjoyed a lot - Analytics.

Whatever has been my role, Analytics had been my area of interest and I always ensured I use those techniques, even if it was not the norm in the roles I have worked in. As they say, “To a man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail”??

Though I have been unsuccessful in trying to make such a switch and had to revert to more traditional career paths, got to learn a lot from the journey ??

Perfect match CVs

At least in the short term, there is a squeeze in fund flows to startups, greater focus on profitability and other macroeconomic factors. Hence, the number of people searching for roles seem to be far higher than those available.

This demand-supply mismatch has meant, people are far more particular in what they want in their prospective employee.

Additionally, the use of ATS (application tracking system) software and the inundation of CVs has meant recruiters tend to go by exact keywords and perfect experience.

Just intent, education and similar experience isn’t sufficient. The expectation is for having “been there, done that” exactly before (The “Pros”). If you want to get a Business Analyst role, you need to have done it for years. Some job descriptions might even have 5 years+ of using ChatGPT prompts ??

In my personal case, I might have used skills that could be called Analytics. But it may not be considered as exactly relevant - as my career path didn’t look similar to the managers who interviewed me and because there are tens of others who actually have actually “done” it.

Of course, there were other valid reasons for not being considered, but hope you get the point. ??

The Pros of being pros

There are obvious advantages with the approach of taking someone what has done it all before. The Pros. The specialists.

• Very short learning curve
• Bringing in best practices
• Faster responses due to muscle-memory
• Ability to respond in case something goes wrong
• They are the experts

Hence, it makes utmost sense to hire them.

The Cons of Echo Chambers

But there is a flip side too!

Group Think

If all members of a team have a similar education and experience, they might be just validating each other and not reality.

• Like someone changing a payment process without understanding business implications
• Like product guys maxing out the landing page, because that is the only “real estate” they have ??
• Like Bollywood imagining Devadas with a “poor” Paro living in a “poor” haveli ??
• Like

Cross Pollination

Some of the greatest innovations have happened come from those not in that field. Cross-industry knowledge and serendipity help!

• Like the worlds of Leonardo Da Vinci, Newton and Euclid
• Like the genius of Srinivasa Ramanujam
• Like the complex worlds of bio-mechanical and material science engineering
• Like a person with a journalism major building India’s largest streaming platform
• Like the chance discovery of penicillin and benzene structures

A tech person in a product domain, a finance professional in a sales domain could all bring in new ideas never thought of before.

Almost everyone in my previous team (specialising in Finance), had been part of the Sales team for a few months. A perspective which helped them immensely!

Taking a punt vs valuing experience

Sometimes we are victim of what roles we have done in the past, not the roles we want to do in the future.

Toughest is to judge intent. If someone has the right intent, they can transform themselves appropriately.

Many do executive MBAs in their 30’s and 40’s to help change their career routes.

Large organisations do give opportunities for employees to keep changing career roles. Rotating Management Trainees across various departments also has a similar effect.

The Takeaways

The age of specialists is inevitable in a more and more complex world. That is how humanity has been able to grow. Train pilots wouldn’t be able to become airplane pilots any day soon.

But there is a need to diversify (At least 1 in 5 maybe! ). Diversity is not just about gender, place or community. It is also about diversity of experiences. ??

Teams would need people with different types of experiences and backgrounds. Many organisations do that successfully and thrive.

But hope it becomes the norm across functions and across industries.

As the quote goes, “PhD is about learning more and more about something, till we learn everything about nothing” ??

See you next month! Hope India are declared champions by then!

PS: Interesting Links

• New Functions in Excel - GROUPBY and PIVOTBY (Link)
• Most popular TV channel in each region (Link)
• Some introspection on Leadership (Link)
• Interesting series of podcasts by Nikhil Kamat (Link for the one on Venture Capital)