Specialization is for Insects

A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.

-Robert A. Heinlein

As a hiring manager, I've always looked for people that tend to generalize. I'm not just looking for someone that has narrowed down on one skill set, or even focused on development work to the exclusion of other pursuits.

The people that I find most effective have other interests; they tend to be "renaissance men". Maybe they paint, or cook, or work on cars. They might play volleyball, or soccer, or softball.

Almost universally, they play an instrument.

I've seen the other side of this, after working with mainframes for several years: aging COBOL programmers that are just waiting to be put out to pasture. That isn't a dig against COBOL or COBOL programmers-- but there is a certain crowd that never updated their skills, never did anything else, and now are trapped in an evolutionary dead-end. I suspect that there are many Visual Basic programmers sitting in IT departments right now that are gearing up for this fate (and no, I'm not talking about VB.Net).

Can you talk to customers? You're more valuable than someone who can't.

Can you give a demo? Think on your feet?

Do you know how to wear appropriate attire to meet with important people? I've met many programmers over the years that never learned to how to dress "business casual", and tend to look really uncomfortable when forced to. People that can effectively "dress for success" are worth more.

If I'm hiring a java programmer, I usually want to see that you've used a scripting language, and that you have some modicum of database development and optimization. I want to know that you've done network engineering, and can explain at a high level what load balancing looks like. I want you to be able to explain sockets (this is one of those things, like pointers, that you either get, or don't get, and those who "get it" are better suited for the job).