Marketing Yourself as an IT Jack-of-All-Trades?

ultimatemonty asks: "As an IT professional looking for a new job, I'm trying to figure out how to market myself as a 'jack-of-all-trades' IT worker. I'm currently employed at a medium sized university as a video conferencing specialist. I'm good (competent) at many IT related tasks (Linux server management, programming, Windows/Linux desktop support, video conferencing support, etc...), but specialize or excel in none of them, sort of like the lone IT manager in a small shop. What kinds of jobs would the you look for with this kind of work experience, and how would you market yourself (design your resume, cover letter, and so forth) to prospective employers so they get the full-breadth of your capabilities, without over-stating your abilities?"

Comments

Sadly misguided with no real world experience

[anticypher]

You don't really know what a true Jack of All Trades is, if you think there is one for IT. IT is only one trade.

In the IT world, the job title with a wide range of IT skills as you described is called a Systems Administrator. If you have some networking and telecoms experience on top of that, you can call yourself a Network Administrator. This is what corporations, large and small, hire. When larger companies need a specialist to perform a highly complicated job, say setting up a new windoze AD domain, they find someone who can do that job internally and task them with it. Small shops have JoATs out of necessity, but there is no real job growth, adventure, or chance to make it big. Your best bet is to network and find some startup with potential, as everyone at the startup will be performing every necessary job because they can't afford specialists.

I've met some Jacks of All Trades in my life, and they had one thing in common, they were willing to work in remote locations and they had one extremely valuable skill on top of the breadth of other skills. Ex-military for the most part, having learned a few extreme skills during their hitch, then combining those skills with many others. Deep sea underwater construction, land mine clearance, petroleum exploration, or supporting relief missions in trouble spots.

For a true Jack, IT (all of IT combined) is just one trade. Everything from compiling kernels, rebuilding power supplies, setting up satellite communication networks, fixing email servers, twiddling databases, configuring routers are all rolled up as just a single skill, a bullet point in a long list of other trades. When they are in a remote location and faced with technical problems, they overcome and move on. No corporation with an IT department ever needs someone like that.

In addition to IT skills, add to that a whole bunch of real world skills.

Be a pilot, able to fly both fixed and rotary wing craft. Be able to file international flight plans, deal with airport and fueling fees, and negotiate customs at airports. Many organisations want aircraft repair skills as well, for jobs far from civilization.

Drive a truck, one of the big ones for hauling 40 tonnes of goods, and the ability to get the truck across national borders. Diesel repair skills go along with that.

Welding seems to be a necessary skill for every JoAT I've met, along with some basic metalworking, carpentry, and electrical. 19" racks may be plentiful and in good repair in data centres where you work, but in the field you probably have to lash up a rack and cooling systems from the materials at hand.

Press relations, diplomacy, accounting, and a whole host of other trades that will allow you to work autonomously are necessary.

On top of all these other skills, every Jack I've ever known (and a few Jills), had one extreme specialisation. Doctors and nurses, ordinance disposal, undersea welding; each one required a tremendous amount of specialised learning, usually at the beginning of their career. They then added onto that base many other skills necessary for jobs that take them far from cubicle farms and obnoxious managers.

The myth of a Jack of All Trades also being limited to Master of None possibly stems from some hack Sci-Fi writer in the early 1980s, and just doesn't exist. If you don't have one skill completely in depth, abandon any hope of ever being hired for your breadth of skills.

If you want a job where your JoAT skills can help, you have to move completely outside of corporate IT life. Look at Medecins Sans Frontiers for an idea of what a real life JoAT needs to know. They often need support personnel for their medical missions, volunteers with a stipend. They won't even consider you without IT skills, radio communications, truck driving, repair of medical equipment, multiple languages, and a knowledge of security in hostile environments. You can learn some of it as you grow into the role, every ex-MSFer I've known swears it was