Should You Hire the Generalist or the Specialist?

Should you hire a General (like Cao Cao) or a highly specialised Sniper? (courtesy of Rongwen’s blog)

In the Human Resource function of any organisation, an age-old dilemma commonly exists.

Should a company hire somebody with years of vertical expertise with deep and specialised knowledge in a niche area? Should it instead recruit somebody with horizontal expertise (ie a generalist) who may even hail from an entirely different profession or industry altogether? How about a candidate with a mixture of both horizontal and vertical areas of specialisation?

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