Can you have more than one professional identity?
Exploring the third option in the 'Generalist' v 'Specialist' debate: The Hybrid professional. An interview with Dr Sarabeth Berk. Part 2 of 2.
In the last newsletter edition, I wrote exploring the question of whether it’s better to be a Generalist or Specialist in your career. Both perspectives were given their weight along with the help of well-known figures like David Epstein, Emilie Wapnick and Liam Neeson (!?).
This topic received a lot of interest and many of you readers consider yourself to be in the generalist camp — as evidenced further by the comments on my LinkedIn post. But before you run away with your professional identity bestowed upon you… allow me to introduce to you a third option.
The Hybrid Professional.
Professional ‘hybridity’ is term popularised by Dr Sarabeth Berk, whose research, consulting, writing and speaking on the topic has been widely shared in career development and personal branding circles.
Sarabeth and I met via this newsletter. Upon hearing about her line of work I knew we needed her perspectives pronto. And so, it was my pleasure to interview Sarabeth and learn what the Hybrid professional identity is and understand the role is plays in carving your career path.
Introduction time…
Dr. Sarabeth Berk is the leading expert on hybrid professional identity, and is a hybrid professional herself. Her ‘hybrid title’ is Creative Disruptor — working at the intersection of being an artist, researcher, educator, and designer.
She was featured in Forbes, is a TEDx speaker and author of More Than My Title. She has a PhD from the University of Denver, and degrees from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and Rhode Island School of Design.
Sarabeth’s research developed a one-of-a-kind approach that takes personal branding and career development to a whole new level. Ever since she’s been helping professionals to discover and articulate their true professional identity and unique value in the workforce. Enabling them to feel more seen and empowered as well as supporting teams to better recognise one another as more than their job titles. Thus valuing the critical (yet different) roles of experts, generalists, and hybrids in the workforce.
How would you describe what it means to be a hybrid professional?
Hybrid professionals are a type of professional identity that’s been hidden.
They might call themselves a hybrid title like “biogeochemical engineer” or “bizdevops strategist”, or say they’re an entrepreneur who works at the intersection of psychology, technology, and climate activism.
Until now, we’ve mislabeled these people as jack-of-all-trades.
The key idea to understand is that someone with a hybrid professional identity doesn’t wear many hats. Instead, they literally merge their best work identities together and work at the intersection of them. It’s like eating Asian fusion cuisine where different flavours blend together into something new. This is why a hybrid professional defies language and categorization.
They don’t fit into a box.
To fully understand this concept, it’s important to realise there are three types of professional identity in the workforce: singularity, multiplicity, and hybridity. All three types matter in forming high-performing teams and companies, and people need to be able to explain which professional identity they are, and why.
The three professional identities:
Singularity: Someone who only has one professional identity. (For instance an astrophysicist or a ballet dancer).
Multiplicity: Someone who has many professional identities. They could have a full-time job and a side hustle, be a program director who wears a lot of hats, or a job hopper who changes roles every year, collecting a multitude of professional identities.
Hybridity: Someone who has at least two professional identities and works at the intersection of them. This means their different work identities have combined into something greater than the sum of the parts.
How did you get interested in the topic of hybridity and what is your own hybridity journey?
I’m the quintessential nonlinear career path person. I’ve been a ski instructor, an art teacher, an innovation strategist, and an entrepreneurship ecosystem builder. My winding path doesn’t make logical sense.
I changed fields because I was searching for a role that fit me, which was the problem. I didn’t really know who I was so I conformed to what a job wanted me to be. When I was in grad school, I had a professional identity crisis and didn’t know that’s what was happening. I felt completely lost, unsure of myself, confused about how all my different abilities fit together, and the “what do you do” question gave me total anxiety. I started interviewing people about their work and realized a lot of people are more than their job titles and don’t know how to describe their professional identity (the nouns that describe who they are).
This got me curious about how we see ourselves in our work, what our true professional identity is (besides the generic job titles we use), and it led me to my ultimate research question:
If a person has multiple professional identities, who are they at the intersection of them?
I began exploring if that’s even possible and then how they communicate who they are.
Long story short, I discovered a painting, Collective Invention, of a strange creature washed up on shore that was one part human and one part fish, but it wasn’t a mermaid.
Collective Invention by Rene Magritte
I’m a highly visual thinker and so this image became my lightbulb moment and realized when two things combine they invent a new thing; something we don’t have a name for.
This is how I felt in my work and how my research participants described their work. I started using the term hybrid professional identity to name this phenomenon, and almost immediately it stuck. It was easy for people to wrap their heads around. Plus, giving myself permission to hybridize in my career was life-changing. I started looking for roles that accepted the hybrid me, not singularity or multiplicity, and it turns out those jobs exist.
How do your clients/interviewees describe being stuck with their professional identity?
I often hear people use phrases like:
I’m a jack-of-all-trades, a master of everything
I’m a multi-talented, multi-passionate, multi-hyphenate person
Nobody understands what I do
I can’t find a job that fits me
I don’t know what to call myself
And I often see people:
Using generic language to label themselves in their work (“I’m an entrepreneur. I’m a coach.” These are great keyword search terms, but they’re not unique identities).
Answering “What do you do?” with a list of skills or a set of problems they can solve instead of explaining who they are, how they see themselves and why that matters
Being over-identified with their job or job title because that gives them self-esteem or status, but if they lose that job or title, they completely lose a sense of who they are
When I hear these, it signals they:
Don’t understand who they really are in their work, they’re lacking a sense of self
Don’t know how to communicate their professional identity (which is the name you give yourself to describe how you see yourself in your work)
Don’t know how to articulate their value prop that ties their identity uniquely back to their work, which makes them stand out from the competition
Why do you think the world encourages such fixed titles and labels, and what could the future hold?
Job titles were invented to create a social pecking order. This worked in the industrial age when work was about discrete skills, task orientation, and black and white operations. Since then, we’ve entered the knowledge economy and now the identity economy. Yet, the way that we sort, classify, label and think about the workforce is out of date.
Job title inflation and dilution are rampant. Search LinkedIn, and you’ll get millions of results for the same job title, yet the actual job is defined differently depending on the company. Even though we’re using the same words, the meaning varies widely. Job titles are mostly meaningless conventions that help companies organize talent.
A lot of people ask me, “Do we even need job titles anymore? What’s the point?” My answer is; it depends on what your goals and needs are for work. If you’re in the corporate world set on climbing the “ladder” then job titles matter a lot. If you’re focused on finding purpose and passion in your career, then you probably need a strong sense of your professional identity and personal brand so others understand what makes you you.
At the end of the day, we use language to communicate.
We have to be able to identify who we are through words. If you can create a two or three word title that captures your authentic professional self and helps you stand out, I’m a proponent of this because it helps you make sense to others. Otherwise, you’ll sound like a generic worker with no sense of your true identity.
Are there any particular events in someone's life that spark their interest in exploring this work?
People I work with tend to be going through a career transition–they’re between jobs, looking to shift into a new career, are seeking to work independently, or feel stuck– and the tool they realize they’re missing is discovering who they are.
Identity is the cornerstone of knowledge that helps you unlock how to move forward. Once you know yourself and your true professional identity, then you can help the world see you the way you want to be seen, known, and valued.
I see myself as a professional identity reframer and clarifier who helps people uncover who they truly are so they can articulate their unique value in the workforce. I provide a combination of identity development, career development, and personal branding methodologies that are based on scholarship and my own research. It’s a system of self-inquiry and creative reflection I wish was available when I hit my own crisis, and that’s why I developed it for others.
What tools or resources can you recommend to The Ask readers who might be resonating with this?
Obviously, I recommend people read my book More Than My Title and use the accompanying workbook or join one of my group courses or online classes. It’s the best resource out there for unpacking and understanding professional identity.
I’m a scholar, so a lot of my tools tend to be academic. For the really nerdy readers, take a look at Dabrowski’s Theory of Positive Disintegration. It’s quite complex but very powerful for people who are trying to reach their developmental potential and have an existential point of view.
A few other books I suggest as complementary reading to my work are: Range by David Epstein, Working Identity by Herminia Ibarra, Rebel Talent by Francesca Gino, How to Be Everything by Emilie Wapnick and Onlyness by Nilofer Merchant.
Prediction time… how do you see the hybrid professional identity evolving in the future?
We’re on a precipice. I see a complete career paradigm shift happening in the coming years. Esther Perel has coined the term Identity Economy, Heather McGowan writes about the Human Capital Era and a think tank in Washington D.C. that studies cultural identity has stated hybridity is our competitive advantage.
We’re only at the beginning of an uprise of rethinking and redefining the value of professional identity.
My dream is for the term “hybrid professional identity” to become mainstream, as commonplace as expert or generalist. By increasing our vocabulary and familiarity with the concept of professional identity it will allow more people to accurately identify themselves and why they do the work they do, thus attracting work that truly fits them.
Recruiters and HR directors will also be more equipped to hire and manage the right people for the right role:
Singularity is for people who want to stay in one lane
Multiplicity is for people who like to jump into a lot of projects
Hybridity is for people who work interdisciplinary or in between teams).
I imagine job postings that state, “This role seeks multiplicity” and interviewers asking, “Tell us what type of professional identity you have and why?”
As a result, the greater impact will be more workers achieving career belonging (hint: this is the topic of my next book). Career belonging is about being accepted for who you are, no matter what you do for work. It’s the next extension after you’ve discovered your professional identity.
How can people stay in touch with you?
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