Focus On What You’re Good At
Last year when I was in the market for a job, I used to stumbled across tons of job sites that seemed to be looking for the jack of all trades type of designer/developer. In my experience, thus far, it is rare to find a person who execute a great UI design in photoshop and handle everything through the major programming. Those types are few and far between, and I might only know two people with that type of skill set.
Companies that write these bloated job descriptions filled with unnecessary buzzwords tell me two things: either the company has no clue what they want, and/or someone person in human resources wrote it.
After getting my first job, I realized that I didn’t need to be that jack of all trades. I decided to focus on a few things (UI design, XHTML, CSS) and do them well. When you try to put everything on your plate, some things will start to fall off, ie, certain skills will suffer. Focus on what you’re good at, and let your team members do the rest.
On all the teams I’ve ever been on, everyone had their niche that they focused on. Some dabbled in other areas, but when you needed help with a certain problem outside of your own niche, you knew where to go. This is what builds great teams.
Of course this doesn’t mean that I am completely in the dark when working with javascript, PHP, ASP, etc., it’s good to have a working knowledge of them and also makes you a better developer. I am actually trying to learn more about other areas to increase my skill set a little, however, I will always know the areas that I’m strong in, and will keep them as my primary focus.
3 Comments
Well said, John. Those kinds of job ads always annoy me. I think I’ve only met one designer/programmer who could possibly fit the bill most companies seem to be looking for, and suprize suprize - he works at Apple now. I’ll wager there’s not many in this world who could possibly live up to such bloated job descriptions. I wish HR depts would stop relying so heavily on buzzwords/keywords and concentrate more on seeking out individuals based on their portfolio’s/reputation etc.
Yeah HR people definitely can get in the way. I once had an interview, at a previous job, with someone from HR and it was a huge waste of both of our times because she had no idea how to answer the questions that I was seeking about the company. It would save companies a lot of time and money for HR to just side step when the company trying to bring in new people for a technical job.
I agree with you, John.
We have to be focused on what we really know, and go deep on that area. I think we can’t be an excellent programmer and designer in the same time, for example.
So if you keep in your way, it’s better than being a bad professional on these two areas.