Are you a specialist? Or a generalist? Or even a generalist with at least one specialty? With the latter, you would be T-shaped and therefore ideally suited for certain IT jobs.

If you are looking for a job and scouring job advertisements for IT jobs, you should notice one thing: Companies are becoming increasingly demanding. Often you are not only looking for pure PHP developers, but also full-stack developers who can speak other programming languages. As a C# developer, you should also take care of the software architecture, quality assurance, and team coordination. As a project manager, you have to be a jack-of-all-trades nowadays anyway, who, in addition to pure project management tasks, also has to deal with customer acquisition tasks and small programming tasks.

Where does that come from? On the one hand, this is due to the shortage of skilled workers. Many companies have great problems finding the number of IT experts they want. Accordingly, they rely on employees who come close to a “woolly milk sow”. These all-round professionals then take on the tasks for which one would actually need several specialists.

On the other hand, the world of work has changed, especially in the IT area. Thinking and acting in silos is over. Nowadays, teams work agile and therefore interdisciplinary. As a coder, you not only concentrate on programming but also participate in creative and product management processes. They support workshops for Design Thinking, Jobs To Be Done, or Lean Startup. Your expertise is important to create innovations and to develop them iteratively according to customer requirements.

So that software or a digital product can be developed in a really agile way, you should always be open to new input, fresh ideas, regular experiments, and changing directional changes.

In short: Nowadays companies are increasingly looking for employees who have a so-called T-shaped profile.

What does T-Shaped Skills mean?

People who benefit from generalists and specialists unite, possess T-shaped skills. T-shaped means your ability looks like a T.

The horizontal bar stands for a wide range of specialist knowledge. For example, you know several programming and script languages, you have a basic knowledge of project management and you know the e-commerce market. You can have a say or work in any subject area – but without being a real full professional.

The vertical bar in the T (quasi the I) stands for profound specialist knowledge. For example, you have mastered Java inside out and have already implemented several projects with it. Your colleagues find it difficult to compete with you in this area.

What is Y-, Pi-, M- and Comb-Shaped?

These descriptions are extensions of the T-model:

• With a Y-profile there are one or two technically relevant areas in broadband knowledge that are missing. And in addition to your area of ​​expertise, you have two more, but you are not that deeply involved. Your profile will not look like a T but like a Y.
• Pi-Shaped means that you have two specializations, but they are thematically different. These two “Is” together with the roof of the T result in the sign Pi.
• You are M- or Comb(ination) -Shaped if, in addition to broad general knowledge, you have several specialist areas with in-depth specialist knowledge.

Here is an example from the field of marketing, such as M-, Pi- and Y-profiles can look like:

Note: To keep it simple, we will continue to speak in the following text only from T-Shaped, although in some aspects a Y-, Pi, or M-shaped is meant.

These are the advantages of a T-profile

Do you have T-shaped skills? Do you combine the knowledge and skills of generalists and specialists? Then you have the following advantages in professional life:

• You are always eager to learn, like to familiarize yourself with new topics and learn passionately from you for your whole life. That means: You don’t know boredom.
• You understand the company-wide context. With this vision, they develop holistic and sustainable strategies.
• They can be used very flexibly because they have a wide range of knowledge. This gives you the chance to get into other departments and departments.
• They are ideally suited for new challenges and innovations for which there is a profile that is difficult to define. For example, it must be T-Shaped when you enter Growth Hacker want to work.
• Communication and the exchange of knowledge are important in every company – as IT people with a T-profile understand that. They usually serve as a link between different departments and mediate among the stakeholders.
• As a generalist or specialized generalist, you are also ideally suited for exchanging ideas with customers. They usually communicate very well on different levels.
• As a T-Shaped employee, you sit more securely in the saddle during a company crisis, as you can adapt to changes more easily than other colleagues.
• And: Since you oversee several areas of responsibility at the same time, your salary falls compared to a pure one Specialists usually higher.

How do you become a T-Shaped Professional?

Your thirst for knowledge allows you to quickly notice which areas of your broad specialist knowledge appeal to you the most. Familiarize yourself intensively here. Or you take an opportunity to explore new specialist areas in your company.

To get T-Shaped, you should be interested in your company and the relevant industry. Read online and print specialist magazines, go to trade fairs and events, attend webinars and seminars, subscribe to newsletters, and follow competitors on their social media channels. In this way, you will learn how your job, your department, and your company are to be seen in the overall context.

What can also help for a T-profile: lay the foundation stone for it in your training or studies. See if you are studying computer science or bioinformatics, business informatics, or software engineering. Where do you get specialist knowledge on the one hand, and broad general knowledge on the other? Where are the priorities of the universities or training companies?

What also contributes positively to broadening your horizons are different positions in your professional career. Do not focus on one specialization, but try out different specialist areas and change employers at regular intervals. If that contributes to your T, Pi, or M profile, it is not a malus in your vita!

What must not be forgotten: Pay attention to your hard skills and your soft skills equally. Empathy and leadership are important aspects of your profile.

Which IT professions are suitable for T-Shaped People?

As already mentioned, a T-profile is a minimum requirement for these positions:

• Full-Stack Developer
• Software Architect
• Growth Hacker
• project manager

And a diverse profile can also be an advantage in these professions:

Besides, there are more and more jobs where you have to have excellent IT knowledge in addition to your actual specialist area. For example, online marketing experts not only deal with their marketing measures but also with digital tools such as Google Ads, Sistrix, WordPress, Salesforce, and Photoshop.

Conclusion: T-Shaped is just the beginning

Once learned to be a baker, remained a baker all your life until you retire – those days are over. To be honest, there has never been anything like this in IT. Anyone who deals with information technology and thus with digitization has to learn a lot of new things every day to keep up with the times. Standstill means backlog.

Thus a T-profile is now a basic requirement for certain professions, especially in higher positions. As IT becomes more and more complex from day to day, professional requirements are also changing. The required T-shaped skills are increasingly moving in the direction of M- and Comb-Shaped.