In Touch4IT we are looking for “T-shaped skills”.. Why?
Some people stand by the opinion that it’s the best to specialize yourself just in one area of expertise. Others think differently. They say it’s alright to have one area of expertise, but you should also have general knowledge and experience in other areas as well. These views represent two concepts of human skills.
Describing people based on their experience and skills can be done in many ways. Nowadays, there are 2 methods, which are used more and more for this purpose: concept of skills in the shape of “I” (I-Shaped Skills) and concept of skills in the shape of “T” (T-Shaped Skills).
The concept of “I-Shaped Skill” means, that…
A person, to whom the concept of the letter “I” applies, has deep (depth) experience in one area of expertise. This person is considered to be a specialist in his specific area, but has no general knowledge — neither skills — in other fields. By default, this concept is used in corporations, where the specialist is focused on a certain part of the database, but is not able to create the entire system on his own.
The concept of “T-Shaped Skill” means, that…
A person, to whom the concept of the letter “T” applies, has deep experience in one area of expertise, but also has a broad overview of base skills and knowledge in other fields as well.
The horizontal part (“Base Knowledge/Skills”) also includes the ability to work with experts from other fields or areas and the willingness to use the gained knowledge from such collaborations.
The concept of skills in the shape of “T” was first described by David Guest in 1991, but it was later known by Tim Brown — the CEO of the IDEO designer company. He used this concept to describe the kind of people he did not want on his team.
Why do we, here at Touch4IT, prefer T-shaped skills?
First of all, you need to realize one fundamental fact — if you are able to apply your skills in the shape of “T”, you will get the advantage of specialization and generalization. People will no longer see you as the geeky specialist who is wearing blinkers on his eyes and focuses on just one area, while being a stranger to other fields. They will not perceive you as a person, who has base knowledge in many areas, yet doesn’t have enough experience in either of them. You will become the person who builds his own strong position and good name.
We — at Touch4IT — motivate our employees to deepen their skills in their main area of expertise, but also to acquire knowledge from other (related) fields. This way they can thoroughly think about the problem and its solution.
So, here are the answers to the basic question “Why?”:
- Thanks to the fact, that you have broad knowledge in other areas, you will see deeper into the system and in the future you will be able to aim for higher positions — technical PM, CTO, …
- You will be able to communicate with specialists from other areas.
- You can avoid being dominated by your routine and becoming a robot who does the same thing over and over again.
- With more knowledge, you will be able to see new ideas and think more creatively in general.
- Simply said — you will increase your chances of career growth and promotion at your workplace.
Real life examples:
Just imagine, that somewhere there is a guy named “Arnold”. Arnold is a Node.js developer who has deep experience with database and front-end. But that’s not all! In addition, he is also familiar with the famous graphics software Adobe Photoshop and knows the basics of design.
Next example! Now imagine, that somewhere there is a woman named “Andrea”. Andrea is a SEO specialist whose main area of expertise is SEO, but in order to “keep the T-shape”, she is constantly learning and improving her basic knowledge in fields such as marketing automation, mobile marketing, conversions, content marketing, social media and web analytics.
These are the examples of people who acquired skills in the shape of “T”.
If you are such person that enjoys learning new things join our team. We may not have suitable position for you at the moment, but who knows about the future? :)
