On Generalists...

I keep seeing posts criticizing marketing job descriptions that ask for a little bit of everything. Brand strategy. Graphic design. Copywriting. Email. Social. Websites. Events. Video. Project management. CRM. Campaigns.

And inevitably someone says: “This job shouldn't exist. No one person can do all of those things.”

Hi. We exist.

Some of us can do all of those things.

More importantly, some of us WANT to do all of those things.

I've spent most of my career being told I should pick a lane.

Choose strategy. That's where the money is.

Or focus on graphic design.

Or move into creative direction, where apparently success means eventually becoming the person who tells other people what to make instead of getting to make it yourself.

But I don't want to pick one.

I like figuring out the strategy.

I like writing the copy.

I like designing the piece.

I like building the webpage.

I like figuring out how the campaign fits together.

I like getting handed something I've never done before and saying, “Okay. Let me figure this out.”

And I especially like being able to see how all those pieces affect each other.

That's not a failure to specialize.

I'm a marketing generalist.

The strange thing is that the working world has spent years telling people like me that we don't exist—or that if we do, there's something wrong with our careers.

If you haven't specialized, you won't advance.

You won't make enough money.

You won't get hired.

Pick the thing you're best at and do more of that.

But what if the thing you're best at is connecting all the things?

Now, there's one criticism of those job descriptions that I think is completely fair:

If you hire one person to handle strategy, design, copy, web, email, social, video and everything else, you cannot expect all of it to happen simultaneously.

One generalist does not equal an entire 10-person marketing department.

You have to prioritize. You have to be realistic about capacity. Some things will take longer to get off the ground.

But don't tell me the job itself is impossible.

Don't tell companies they shouldn't hire someone to do it.

And please stop telling those of us who have built our careers this way that we need to pick a lane.

Some of us don't want a lane.

We want the whole damn road.