I’m in the middle of putting together a presentation to be given to game development schools and programs around the country, both to promote my employer to some of the best and brightest in the industry, but also to give students in these disciplines a primer on what the workforce is actually expecting of them – something that is SORELY lacking in post-secondary education today.
I learned about one of my favourite ideas in finding or becoming the “ideal” candidate was when I was having breakfast in New York with fellow blogger and incredibly smart marketing strategist, Noah Brier. We were comparing the woes of finding great talent for our respective growing companies, and I explained that in our industry we see a lot of generalists graduating from universities and colleges, but very few who are experts in a particular area.
He introduced me to the concept of the T-shaped employee, which is something that every student today should be striving to become.
The vertical leg of the T represents an expertise – one thing that they do better than anyone, be it a highly specialized area of game development, a specific kind of writing, or a deep understanding and knowledge of social media, to bring it back to PR terms. In and of itself, this highly specialized skill set may be useful, but in order to be an ideal employee, one also needs the horizontal experience and knowledge – the breadth of interest.
A 2005 Fast Company article describes the t-shaped person like this:
They have a principal skill that describes the vertical leg of the T — they’re mechanical engineers or industrial designers. But they are so empathetic that they can branch out into other skills, such as anthropology, and do them as well. They are able to explore insights from many different perspectives and recognize patterns of behavior that point to a universal human need.
How many people have you worked with who were like this? My guess is a precious few, but they were likely some of the brightest and best people you ever managed, worked with or worked for. I can count a handful of people that I know who can talk as competently about Shakespeare as they can about marketing strategy, but they have influenced me more than any others I can think of.
There’s a tendency for students (especially those in the sciences, I’ve noticed) to belittle other fields of study, but those other fields are important to creating a person of both substance and depth, who can use their broad understanding and multidisciplinary knowledge to further their core strength.
Certainly, not every game designer needs to know about 16th Century literature to get a job, but that breadth of experience inside and out of their core discipline is what is going to change them from an employable candidate to a highly sought-after commodity.
It’s never too late to broaden your horizons.
