[rajathagasthya]

> In combination with the breadth you listed this doesn't make you seem like a genius, it makes you seem like a generalist who lacks focus and probably has a touch of ADHD.

Slightly off topic, but is being a generalist considered a bad thing?

[manarth]

  is being a generalist considered a bad thing?

I would argue that having a general knowledge of the related fields is a very positive thing. That said, if the knowledge is at a fairly basic level, it'd be hard to find much more than a junior role. Senior roles generally require more advanced knowledge/understanding, and that's a lot easier to achieve by focusing on one specific skill/niche.

Most senior people I've worked with are the archetype T-shape: a good general knowledge of a number of related fields, and a deep speciality in one area.

Wikipedia has an interesting (although uncited) comparison of Versatilist (T-shape) vs Generalist [1]:

  Think of a person having some level of knowledge/experience in 15 knowledge areas.

  That person may have a very high competency (score 5) in 3 areas,
  a medium level of competency (score 3) in 5 areas,
  an introductory level of competency (score 1) in 4 areas,
  and no competency (score 0) in 3 areas.
 
  This creates an area under the curve of 34.
  This is different from a generalist who may score a 1 or 3 in every area.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Versatilist

[PeterisP]

Being generalist is a good thing in the sense that is good to have many skills at a reasonable level. Unless you're truly exceptional, it simply doesn't happen without lots of experience. At 20 years of experience, you can have e.g. 5 "secondary" skills (in addition to whatever key specialization you might have) where you have a reasonable knowledge and "exposure" from having applied them multiple times.

At 3 years of work experience, most people have just started to understand 1-2 things. It may be that you have gotten a great, wide experience at a young age, because you started to do hard things really early - if a junior person claims that they "know" many diverse skills, maybe they truly are a generalist, but it is so much more likely that this simply shows a so big gap in knowledge/understanding that they don't even understand how little they know about all these 'secondary' skills.

This is true at least personally - there are certain skills where 15 years ago I believed that I had them, however now I know that I don't and never did so, simply because now I have seen people who actually do have that skill and can evaluate my knowledge in appropriate context.

[djrogers]

No, but you do need to focus your resume to the job you're trying to get. If you're a Product Designer then your resume should focus on that, and if you want a junior developer position, your resume should reflect that.

And it should go without saying, but if you're applying for both jobs, for heaven's sake - have 2 different versions of your resume...

[hkmurakami]

Generalists don't get hired to traditional "jobs" within orgs. Being a generalist is great if you're starting projects or companies yourself, or have personal connections to people who start such things and are looking for 1-3 generalist types when they first start hiring.

But companies hire specialists, plain and simple.

[collyw]

Bollocks. Full Stack Developer is just a formal title for generalist.

[jacquesm]

It's great when you're 50, tends to message 'thin' rather than 'deep' when you're 23.