There is a split in the web industry that you might not be aware of. No, I’m not talking about Mac vs. PC. I’m talking about companies hiring generalists or specialists.

When I say specialist, I mean an employee whose focus is on one particular skillset, eg, flash, copywriting or front-end development. They may have other skills, but the bulk of their training and experience is in a relatively narrow field. Conversely, when I say generalist, I mean an employee whose skillset is more broad, eg, a designer who has experience with flash, has spent some time doing front-end development, and maybe even dabbles in PHP programming. These jacks-of-all-trades delve less deeply into any given aspect of their field, but have (or claim to have) basic experience with everything.

In a recession, I think it’s natural for companies to lean towards hiring generalists. You don’t want to be left hanging if you have to lay off your flash guy, and find out that no one else knows how he built his files. Plus, specialists are expensive. Why pay some guy with 15 years experience a ton of money when you can get some other kid, fresh out of college, for half the cost?

This trade-off between experience and cost is nothing new, but in the web industry especially, it can be difficult. At a small agency, it’s daunting to face the idea of hiring a copywriter, a designer, a flash specialist, a back-end developer and a front-end developer, not to mention a project manager. The idea that you could instead hire half as many generalists and double up the jobs, is appealing.

Or so it seems. For example, In the last 10 years, front-end development has changed from something anyone can learn over a weekend to a complicated niche that requires full-time study to stay on top of. From constantly evolving browser support for several flavors of HTML and CSS to accessibility and usability, someone who’s not dedicated to front-end is going to struggle to stay current. And if front-end is just one of several skillsets that they need to maintain, then everything they do will suffer.

I’m not suggesting that you hire nothing but specialists. Even larger agencies who can afford that will benefit by having some generalists on the team. I’m just saying that next time you’re debating whether to hire a specialist or a generalist, remember that you get what you pay for.