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Is a “jack of all trades” really a “master of none”? Are those who have the ability to perform several types of jobs passably doomed to a life of mediocrity? These are questions Professor Ming Leung and Ph.D. student Simon (Seongbin) Yoon tackled in their research at the UCI Paul Merage School of Business. They present the results of their efforts in the paper “Which Came First, the Reputation or Category Spanning? How Freelancers’ Reputation Affects Their Likelihood of Diversifying.”

“Most of us assume people who are diverse in their backgrounds are not exceptionally good at anything,” says Leung. “I’ve always been curious about the ‘jack of all trades’ saying because there’s an equally strong belief about being a ‘renaissance person’ where gifted people are successful in a broad array of things. That friction in perspective has always animated how I think.”

He wonders this: Does a person move from job to job because they are unexceptional at what they do, or is a person unable to build expertise as a result of frequently moving from job to job?

The Increase in Job Hopping and Specialized vs. General Career Choices

The job market has shifted dramatically in the last decade or so. “Transitioning between jobs has increased exponentially for the workforce in recent times,” says Leung. “Whether that is because people prefer to job hop or because more layoffs are occurring—or even because people are comfortable crafting their own careers—there is much more movement between employers. That’s also particularly true for gig workers.”

Leung and Yoon explored the motivations that drive workers to change jobs and how their reputations played into those decisions. “We wanted to understand what makes people create careers that are more specialized in a certain area, versus people who create careers that are a little more diverse,” Leung says.

People who study labor markets have examined this general question for a while, he says. “Is it better to have a more specialized versus a more general career?” This is especially important now that people are moving between jobs more frequently and have more choices about “how and where they work and what they do.”

How Does an Employee’s Reputation Affect Their Career Decisions?

The question of reputation as a variable is particularly interesting to Leung. “How does one’s reputation affect the type of career one strings together?” He imagines “people with better reputations” remain in their domains and attempt to do more work in a certain field. For instance, if someone is an excellent programmer, and they have ample success as a programmer, then presumably they’ll choose more programming-related jobs in the future. “On the other hand, you could argue people with better reputations may start feeling confident in their abilities and maybe want to expand outside of programming.”

Leung and Yoon theorize there are two factors to consider in terms of how reputation might affect decisions to change or diversify people’s careers. “If I have a good reputation, that will encourage me to expand,” says Leung. A person’s reputation might result in repeatedly working in similar jobs. “That’s because they recognize their reputation doesn’t expand dramatically far. If I’m good at programming, it doesn’t mean I will be good at ballet. If I’m good at programming, maybe I’ll be good at computer design or something adjacent.”

Upwork Data Reveal Freelancer Ratings’ Influence on Decision-Making

The researchers searched a database of independent contractors and freelancers. “I was an academic advisor to Elance, which became Upwork, which is an online freelancing platform,” Leung says. “I was given access to their data for this research that is incredibly rich and has supported several academic papers already.”

In terms of reputation, Leung was able to see the ratings freelancers accumulated on the platform. “Over time, with every job they’ve completed, we could see what rating they were given by their employer,” he says. “That was their reputation measure. What’s interesting about this measure is the freelancers themselves can see it and internalize it, and that affects their decision-making.” It’s also public, viewable by employers. “It’s a powerful indicator of one’s reputation, which also affects one’s confidence. That’s where we came in with this analysis.”

Leung and Yoon were able to observe all the job categories freelancers applied for on the platform. Each job was organized into larger domain types, like computer programming, but also specific job types, C++ programming, front-end programming, or website design. “We were able to see the different types of jobs these freelancers were applying to over time, which allowed us to predict the types of career moves they were trying to make given the reputation they’ve had up to that point in time,” Leung says. “We modeled it with statistical regression, which allowed us to predict the likelihood of a freelancer applying to a new job category. Then we also modeled the likelihood of a freelancer, conditional on applying to a new job category, how far away that job category was from their previous jobs.”

How Reputation Impacts Freelancer Decisions

Using this methodology, Leung and Yoon were able to see how reputation affected a freelancer’s decision to apply for jobs and how expansive those jobs were outside a given category. “What we found was that a better reputation increases your confidence to try new things,” says Leung.

However, once a freelancer decides to “apply to a new job category,” he says. “People with better reputations apply to jobs similar to the ones they’ve done in the past, whereas freelancers with poor reputations are more likely to apply very, very far away to what they have in the past. People with better reputations are likely to expand, but they expand close to their previous job categories, whereas the people with poor reputations expand further away.”

Leung suggests this may have something to do with confidence. He wonders if those with low reputations think, “I’m not very good at this; I need to find something I enjoy more.” In the beginning of someone’s career, “there’s an element of finding your niche” because one may think they want to do a certain job and then find out they don’t. “Or maybe someone is bad at programming, and the employers on the platform know this, so trying [one’s] hand at copywriting or design is safer because it’s so unrelated.” This most likely hinges on “how much of [one’s] ability is generalizable versus specific to the domain.” General skills are also a determining factor—for instance, if a worker performs tasks on time.

What are the implications of how freelancers’ reputations affect their career decisions? Leung believes it’s complicated. Several factors inform a worker’s decision to move to another job. “Maybe it’s your family. Maybe it’s your preferences. Maybe it’s an opportunity. But an aspect of that decision is always informed by how employers perceive an employee based on what they’ve done in the past. The bottom line is your job history determines a lot about what kinds of moves you can make in the future.” The importance of thinking strategically about how we develop our career histories can’t be overstated.

Career Advice for New Graduates: ‘Relax’ and Diversify

Yet, in today’s job market, there’s nothing wrong with being diverse. Not only is it more interesting for the employee, but it may also ensure they’ll be more employable as they develop a variety of skills employers look for. “People today have a lot of agency about how they create their own careers,” Leung says. “That’s a wonderful thing. People shouldn’t feel so constrained by their jobs. I tell my undergraduates this all the time because they’re always freaking out. They think that if they don’t get the perfect job out of school, their whole life is ruined. I always say, ‘Relax. There are many different ways to develop a career.’” Leung encourages college students “to take full advantage of the freedom and the flexibility they have now.”