Hiring a Generalist or a Specialist? Making the Right Choice for Your Team
Defining the Type of Person You Need
When hiring, it’s easy to say you want a “rockstar” or a “perfect fit.” But what does that actually mean? Before hiring for any role, you need to answer two key questions:
Do we need a generalist or a specialist?
Do we need someone to make us smarter or make us stronger?
These distinctions shape your hiring strategy and ultimately determine the success of your team. Hiring the wrong type of candidate for your specific business needs can lead to inefficiencies, misalignment, and high turnover.
Generalist vs. Specialist: Which One Do You Need?
Generalists thrive in ambiguity. They’re problem-solvers who can adapt, pivot, and take on multiple roles. This makes them ideal for early-stage startups or roles that require cross-functional skills.
Specialists are deep experts. They have highly refined skills in a particular domain—perfect for when you know exactly what your company needs to improve. Their knowledge is often crucial for scaling or solving highly technical problems.
Example: If you’re building an MVP, you might want a generalist engineer who can do a bit of everything. But if your product depends on cutting-edge machine learning, you’ll need a specialist in AI.
Smarter vs. Stronger: What’s the Priority?
Hiring to Make the Team Smarter: These are people who introduce new ideas, challenge assumptions, and expand the way your company thinks. They bring fresh perspectives and often have unique, non-traditional backgrounds. They are especially valuable in innovation-driven companies.
Hiring to Make the Team Stronger: These hires reinforce what already works. They execute flawlessly and enhance existing processes rather than rethink them. If your team has a strong strategy in place but lacks execution power, hiring for strength is essential.
Example: If you’re struggling to crack the right sales strategy, you might hire someone who has successfully built a similar sales funnel before. But if you need innovative solutions, you’ll want someone who questions conventional methods and experiments with new approaches.
Avoiding the Middle of the Bell Curve
Many traditional hiring processes focus on the middle of the talent distribution—those who check all the right boxes but don’t necessarily excel in any one area. The best teams, however, are built on the extremes: either amazing generalists or hyper-specialized experts.
The problem? Standard hiring methods, especially those relying on rigid resume filters, tend to screen out both. This is why companies relying on async hiring (rather than outdated credential-based filtering) are finding better candidates in today’s talent pool.
Takeaways for Founders & Hiring Managers
Before hiring, define the role’s true need: Generalist vs. Specialist? Smarter vs. Stronger?
Use async interviews to broaden your talent pool. Unconventional backgrounds often yield top performers.
Hire for differentiation. The best teams aren’t built by hiring safe, middle-of-the-road candidates—they’re built by finding unique talent that sets your company apart.