Odd, I think I'm in the same place as you are. I keep wondering "what did I do wrong" while learning a vast array of different technologies and systems and mastered quite a few of them.
But then again, how does "Jack of all trades" correspond to "backing oneself into a corner?" But I have to agree seeing as how my manager recently told me he had reservations about hiring me because of my broad background! WTF? What business really is a complete system of lies which make the employee wrong at every turn. There is no way to win, not unless you are management and best to be a psychopath as well.
Yep, that’s me to a tee. I’ve from a young age felt like I was “Jack of all trades, ace of none.” At first it bothered me, but then I realized it could be a strength. I may not get awards, but I can solve all sorts of problems well enough. Do that long enough and you excel somewhat at least on some things.
A challenge for me I don’t see listed is I find it hard to empathize with non-wildcards. If I run across an IT person stuck doing something “because that’s how we always do”, or “xyz is too hard to learn”, or unwilling to learn something new, it bugs me. I try to be kind and realize it takes all sorts of people, but I may think mean things about them :). Sometimes I also go too hard for the new and shiny over tried and true.
Kinda off-topic, but I've had jobs where I've been considered incompetent, and other jobs where I've been considered gifted and visionary. Other jobs have considered me lazy, a hard worker, smart, and dumb. My point is that often we are given labels in contexts - and those labels are totally unrelated to reality except by the specific people in those contexts. So we need to be careful - none of us are perfect, but that doesn't mean that we should believe what we are told.
A common red flag for me is: saying you're an 'expert', '10/10', etc in like 5 different technologies. For juniors it's common to overestimate their capabilities, which is okay, but engineers with some years' experience that already claim to have mastered it all: i'll pass on that.
Director at Microsoft is a very different job than a Director at Jack at Jane's Design Agency.
I imagine the hiring process would also vary substantially between the two.
I know something about giftedness, something more than I know about theoretically standard hiring processes. One of the things gifted people run into is people routinely thinking they are making stuff up or exaggerating.
Over the years, I've learned to just be me. If people have a problem with that -- with who I actually am -- it's not going to be solved by finding polite euphemisms and telling little white lies and dressing down my accomplishments and trying to pretend I'm less than I am. All that does is give them a new excuse to claim I'm a liar because now I've "changed my story."
YMMV and probably will.
I tossed out my 2 cents on the theory that someone being called Director in their twenties is someone with problems like mine. Of course, I could be entirely wrong about that.
I recruit in this area and wish you all the best. One piece of advice: change your name. In my experience the sharpest minds are intellectually honest to a fault, and would rarely describe themselves that way.
I am very uncomfortable working with people who sell their skill of taste. They have big plans and ambitions, but when the real talk comes they fall flat. It's hard to reconcile with them.
I see this behaviour in folks who made the shift to management from engineering without improving their skill enough.
Thanks for the counter-anecdote. I've met so many people who start the conversation off with a credential drop and then turn out to be useless oxygen thieves that I forget that there really are some smart dedicated people out there with the same kinds of top-tier credentials as attributes who do good work.
I think that when one is called "overqualified" it's best to take it not as a criticism of what one is but of how one is marketing oneself. It's hard to humble oneself, but it's necessary to face the fact that you can't have it both ways - if you really want/need a job that doesn't require your education and experience, then you can't brag about your education and experience that is irrelevant. Pretending this is a matter of honesty, as people sometimes do, is a way to avoid admitting you can't control your ego.
Instead refer to yourself as a "Swiss Army knife" or something.
The reason is that "A jack of all trades." is often (mentally at least) followed by "Master of none".
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