Just Jobs Blog Jack of All Trades or Master of One — How to Dominate Your Industry

Jack of All Trades or Master of One — How to Dominate Your IndustryJack of All Trades or Master of One — How to Dominate Your IndustryThe figure of speech ‘Jack of all Trades, Master of None’ is used in reference to a person who has dabbled in many skills but has not focused on gaining expertise in one particular skill, therefore, giving it a negative connotation.On the other hand, ‘Jack of all Trades, Master of One’ has a more positive connotation to it. It probes into who is better suited for the industry — a generalist, a specialist, or both.Benefits of being Jack of all Trades1. Versatility/Adaptability Of The IndividualJack of all Trades can be miscommunicated and misrepresented because of its negative implication. However, it also denotes the versatility/adaptability of the individual. The individual will be proficient enough to make use of every component of her/his varied skills2. Be A Swiss Army KnifeOne can have a call centre job and also be a yoga guru on YouTube. A single can be a chef, a babysitter or a dog walker! The Swiss army knife is a great metaphor to describe a person who can be a jack-of-all trades and a master of one at the same time — packed with multiple functions and economical.3. A Life- Long LearnerBeing a Jack of all trades is like being A life- long learner. The thirst for learning is kept alive as there is no dearth of knowledge and possibilities. The excess flow of information online and the ease of access to education on the World Wide Web has enabled people to acquire additional skill sets.4. A Leader is Multi-TalentedA Jack of all trades fits well into leadership roles. A leader is someone who is a well-experienced person. Having a broad range of skills can be of help to bag a position of authority and have others follow you.Benefits of Master of One1. Expertise Is RareThe requirement to perform well in a prescribed role has been traditionally important and is nothing new. Expertise in a field is limited, and those who have it must take advantage of it.2. A Master Of One Can Lead To A Jack Of All TradesJames Liu, Founder/ Developer of BoxCat Games, has stated that mastery of one trade could be converted into a catalyst for learning other fields.According to Liu, “There comes a specific point in your life where you can reach or obtain near mastery of one specific subject. After that, there’s a base of knowledge that you can (and will) build analogies on. By doing so, you take one industry and mirror it into another industry.”Practice Till You Dominate the IndustryWhat separates successful people from the rest? Malcolm Gladwell in his book “Outliers: The Story of Success” (Penguin, 2008), dismissed the idea of an “overnight success”, showcasing that anyone could become an expert at anything, from piano to computer programming, if they just spent 10,000 hours doing it. 10,000 hours was the magic number of greatness, ‘a sufficient condition for success’.Gladwell focused on practice as the key factor to triumph in life. To prove this point, Gladwell used the life story of Bill Joy, Bill Gates, Mozart and The Beatles. They have put in ample hours of practice to fine tune their skills in their respective fields.Mozart, an eighteenth-century music composer, had been playing and studying music for years by the time he wrote his masterpieces. Bill Joy, the co-founder of Sun Microsystems spent most of his time in the computer center practicing programming. The co-founder of Microsoft, Bill Gates obtained 10,000 hours of computer programming experience before his work with Microsoft. The English rock band, The Beatles attended music festivals that required them to play for 8 hours at a time, seven days a week. Consequently, they clocked in the necessary 10,000 hours by the time they made it big.Best of Both WorldsWhether one is a generalist or a specialist — a leader needs to possess the best of both the worlds. “It is important to mindfully and purposefully put time and effort into becoming a master of one or more areas. The upside of mastery in several trades is that it opens you up to divergent thinking, innovative problem-solving and new ideas — capabilities that are increasingly in demand in the current economy.”The government has finally recognised the lack of skilled workforce (both generalists and specialists) in India. It is estimated that only 2.3% of the workforce in India has undergone formal skill training. Skill India has been launched to “empower the youth of the country with skill sets which make them more employable and more productive in their work environment.” The initiative aims to build capacity for skill development in critically unorganized sectors such as construction, tailoring, carpentry, plumbing, security, and other jobs.There is no better time than the present to connect skill with opportunity. The need to organize the disorganized force was making its presence felt.Just Jobs, a job portal, was launched in 2016 in a climate where ‘Make in India’ ‘Digital India’ and ‘Skill India’ were making waves. It is exclusively designed for small businesses and the blue collar sector. Just Jobs enables clear distinction of categories for job search. Apart from job type, categories such as salary range, preferred timings, the freshness of the job posting, experience and gender are unique to Just Jobs, making both job hunting and job posting easy and hassle free.Jack of All Trades or Master of One — How to Dominate Your Industry was originally published in Blog & Newsroom - Just Jobs on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.