Month: May 2011

We Are All Specialists Now

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Apologies to Richard Nixon for paraphrasing his famous Keynesian quote.

Two years after starting a mid-career search, I remain impressed by the greatly increased emphasis on perfectly matching an individual’s professional and industrial experience to an open position.  Hiring managers, recruiters and HR managers have all adopted this approach.  This is partly because of the abundance of candidates and partly due to the risk averse environment caused by the slow economic recovery.  It is also due to the improved results of the “fill the bucket” approach to hiring where specific requirements are listed and then proven from actual experience and multiple interview responses.

However, I think there is something deeper involved.  Professional and industry specialization has continued to increase through time.  The discussion of outsourcing, virtual project teams and individual agents has died down, but these innovations have become a growing reality.  Successful firms increasingly focus on smaller niches of product, geography and comparative advantage.  Increased industrial and professional fragmentation is required for success.  The trend will continue.

How did I miss this?  As usual, paradigms act as blinders.  In high school in the 1970’s I was taught it was important to be “well rounded”.   At a liberal arts college, I learned that great minds and thoughts were academic, abstract and universal.  In business school, I learned that an MBA provided the necessary skills for a lifetime of career success.   I later discovered the competitive advantages of being a “general manager” from John Kotter’s influential work.

My teachers were correct in promoting the personal and professional value in developing broad knowledge, thinking skills and a professional base.   They did not foresee the modern world of global competition, where firms are forced to specialize and make economically rational decisions far beyond those envisioned by Adam Smith and David Ricardo who outlined these principles long ago. 

“General Managers” are now merely a declining specialization.   Some top-end MBAs with broad consulting experience can move from industry to industry and be successful.  A few individuals can specialize as “strategic advisors” to presidents.  But even in these fields, the trend is toward specialization.  Firms will pay for experts in a narrow tax, legal, technical or IT field only when in-house experts do not exist or others cannot complete a project well enough. 

Professional services firms have always paid lip-service to industry focus.  In the last two decades, led by IT firms, they now specialized by industry and technology equally.  Clients expect staff to understand their business.

Industrial and professional specialization will be required for future employment.   Individuals, firms and universities will adapt to survive.

Professional Branding

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Anyone who has searched for work in the last decade has learned about the importance of the 15 second elevator speech and fine-tuning their personal brand.

Many have rejected this sales and sound-bite oriented approach to career progress as being undignified, unprofessional and personally demeaning.   Most have learned that this approach is required for even a scrap of success.

Modern recruiters and counselors advise that “it’s not about you”.   It’s about what a hiring manager or screener are seeking.   A generalist brand, multiple professions, multiple industries or a complex story are deal-breakers.   Hiring agents are seeking an exact match.  A Swiss Army knife has no perceived value.

Job seekers are well-advised to network broadly, but to focus on opportunities with a clear match of experience to requirements.   Hiring managers want to be sure that professional skills and experience are solid.  Degrees, majors, certification and prior job titles provide 90% of the evidence.  It is a rare recruiter or hiring manager who will really dig deeply into technical skills.  Interviewers also know if they are seeking a specialist or generalist within a profession.  Candidates should tailor their resume, cover letter and answers to one or the other.  A state and local tax specialist is hired for very different reasons than a division controller.

Most businesses strongly prefer candidates to demonstrate mastery of a single profession, even for entry-level positions.  General management majors are handicapped in the job search.

In addition to being technically proficient, most firms want applicants to be dedicated to and knowledgeable about their industry.  There are many reasons.  Learning industry jargon, technology and the basis of competition takes time.  Industry veterans truly believe that their industry is different and special.  Sharp managers understand that turnover is lower for industry specialists.  Most industries have a well-established culture and a leading function (merchants, scientists, deal-makers, architects).  Like most clubs, they prefer to hire familiar faces.

A wide range of professional, industry and project experience is of great value within a firm.  Unless an individual is able to sell very specialized technical skills or are seeking work through a consulting firm, they must stay focused on a simple story line when searching for a new firm.  “Cost accountant – heavy manufacturing” sells well.  “Management accountant with project success in various industries” sends vague signals.

A specialized industry and professional brand is required today.

Too Much Specialization

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Companies are well-advised to temper their desires for a perfect professional and industry match in the hiring process.

For each opening, decide if a professional specialty is required, preferred or unimportant.   A senior avionics research engineer requires an exact match.  A senior process engineer might have a six sigma black belt, or not.  An entry-level tax accounting position could be filled by any accounting of finance graduate.

If a position has a clear technical career path, the specialty is more important.  If a position often leads to a manager role with broader responsibilities, the specialty is less important.

If the firm competes in a large industry like medicine or distribution, an industry experience screen makes business sense.  If the firm is in a niche industry like timeshare swaps, association management or oil drilling services, the larger candidate pool from a broader range of industries may be wiser.

Within a firm, some functions require more industry experience for success.  Product managers, product engineers and sales managers need to be experts in their field.  Support functions like IT, HR, accounting, legal and facilities may not require industry experience.  Most entry-level positions can be filled by trainees who are eager to learn.

If the firm is in a new, fast growth industry, then hiring from other industries may be a necessity.

If the firm is struggling to compete in an industry undergoing change, hiring from another industry may be required to insert world-class experience and lead that change.

In general, organizations have found that specialized professional and industry experience are good predictors of hiring success.   Adding a pinch of common sense will reduce the search cost and provide superior candidates in some situations.

University Industry Specialization

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There has long been a divide between liberal arts colleges, research universities and institutes of technology.  The gap between traditional four-year colleges/universities and commercial or technical schools generally remains. 

In a fifty year period of growing enrolments, our major public universities have become larger and more complex.  They have added colleges and majors.  They have increasingly focused on winning research dollars.  They have learned to compete for students.  They have nearly all adopted the same brand strategy focused on “academic excellence”.   The college ratings game essentially focuses on the ranking of entering student SAT scores.   To succeed, universities have improved their facilities, increased financial aid packages and developed programs that attract high SAT students.

State universities secure alumni and corporate funding so that they can compete with other highly rated schools.  State universities that were once positioned as teachers colleges, normal schools, agricultural and technical or urban universities all compete for the same academic rankings, investing in research labs, notable faculty and sports teams.  Some clever universities specialize in a few niche colleges like insurance, architecture, entrepreneurship or media.  They use brand excellence in a professional school or two as a substitute for higher rankings in the more prestigious arts and sciences.

Given the business world’s strong preference for industry specialization and experience, a more satisfying strategy for their students might be to specialize in a single broad industry.   Charter and magnet schools do this at the secondary school level.  Community/technical colleges often merge industry and professional skills into technical programs.  A few older colleges like agriculture still produce ag communications, ag business and ag engineering majors.

A university could adopt a broad industry like medicine, distribution, trade, communications, government/NFP, manufacturing, agriculture or financial services.  Professional and associate/technical degrees could be offered.   In addition, degrees in support fields like business, marketing, communications, finance, IT, engineering and science could be offered.  Courses could be developed to provide an industry overview, highlight industry firms, describe international opportunities and teach industry terminology. 

If state universities want to contribute to state level economic development, they could make an immediate and lasting impact by specializing by industry.