Broadening Vs Specialization: Different Approaches To Career Advancement.

Forum 7 years ago

Broadening Vs Specialization: Different Approaches To Career Advancement.

As you advance in your professional career, time will come when you will have to make this decision.

You can decide to specialise in a particular subject area eg If you are a Computer Scientist, you can take up a Masters degree / PhD in Data Analytics. If you choose to go for broadening instead, you may decide to go for an MBA.

Both paths have their advantages and disadvantages. If you choose to specialise, you will enjoy the benefits of becoming an expert or authority in a particular subject area. You can also become a consultant or even a lecturer (depending on your experience).

Being a specialist has its own drawbacks. In very large organizations for example, people who specialise too deeply in a particular area may be perceived as not having enough exposure in other areas of the business to lead multidisciplinary teams.

On the other hand, if you choose to broaden your skills, you may be better positioned for leadership roles especially in large organizations where different experts work together. However, you may be perceived as lacking depth if you do not have a particular area of specialization.

The big question on my mind today is "Can a person balance both?". I think it is possible but it may take a long time. You may start out as a specialist but as you climb up the ladder and towards the peak of your particular profession, you may decide to broaden in order to enhance your leadership skills.

This may not be very easy to achieve in certain professions eg Medical / Health profession where specialization takes a long time to achieve.

Have you been faced with this sort of choice and what did you do?