Are you a specialist?

[sigma]

Are you a specialist in your chosen career path? By this, I mean are you say, an accountant, or a developer or a trader, as opposed to an analyst or a manager.

I ask this because I don't think I am one, whilst I work in a fairly niche area I also cover many things and therefore have quite a few transferable skills (as do most people). This is great because it means you're flexible and roles vary, however, you never really end up being a 'specialist', obviously you can gain specific knowledge in your chosen market but roles seem to vary so widely.

For example, I can code a bit and understand concepts but I'm certainly not a developer.

I am considering picking an area to specialise in but it's quite tough when you can do a little of a lot of things. I spoke to a guy who works in Silicon Valley and he said the non-specialist thing seems to be very much a UK thing.

If you are a specialist, how did you decide to become one? Did you fall into it? Or did you think, "oh, I like XYZ" and just went for it?

 

[sigma]

Is specialist even the correct term?

 

[sigma]

Interesting insights, thanks. I'm going to have a stab at a few things and see what I like. It's really hard to decide what to focus on though, especially as I'm looking for my next move in the near future.

Sounds like you mean "technical", rather than specialist.

An agile project manager is pretty specialist but I wouldn't call it particularly technical.

There's a huge number of specialisations within accountancy; financial, management, intercompany, commercial, systems, tax, treasury etc. An accountant would be considered a generalist rather than a specialist.

Yeah, I meant the former. I actually don't know anyone who is just an "accountant".