Will companies move towards finding a jack of all trades or specialized skills?

Nyblizzard

I'm always hearing about how we are moving towards companies looking for people with a more specialized skill set (especially in larger companies). Will we ever go back to having more guys and gals who are a jack of all trades working together or sticking to increasingly more specialized roles?

zxbane

That's an interesting perspective since I tend to see the opposite. While the job title might focus on a specialized role I often find that myself and others tend to do a range of activities rather than one particular concentration

networker050184

It depends on the organization. A company with five people in their IT department don't really have a need or the budget to hire specialized experts. On the other hand a company that employees hundreds of engineers are more likely to have the need and budget to hire the specialized experts.

shodown

I agree with network it just depends on the org and the needs. I've been doing a lot of work mid market and they have 1-3 cisco people, 1-3 server people. They have to do it all. However most of the time, companies like this rely on using cisco partners to implement new technologies, or they hire a contractor to come in and help them with new things.

RouteMyPacket

This subject is like the subject of cert vs no cert. The answer is the same, "it depends". It's already been mentioned why some companies prefer a generalist on staff, someone who is not an expert in anything but is familiar with enough technologies that they can keep the place from falling apart.

Most companies cannot afford to have CCIE's and or MCM's on staff, you find these experts mainly in VAR's and or in large enterprises leading teams of less skilled resources.