What is a hybrid professional? The Definitive Guide
You’ve heard of gig workers, hyperspecialists, and multi-hyphenates, but there’s a new type of worker in the workforce.
Hybrid professionals are a groundbreaking concept that’s shifting the future of work. No more binary labels of being either an expert or a generalist, hybrids are a new mixture that defies traditional labels. As a researcher of hybrid professionals (and a hybrid myself), I’ve been studying this phenomena for nearly a decade. It’s an under-recognized but highly important concept that’s hitting the mainstream.
If you don’t know about hybrids or think you might be one, this post will walk you through all the key details you need to know.
ARE YOU A HYBRID PROFESSIONAL?
BACKGROUND
Professional identity is a social construct used to identify the work people do. Like any identity, it can change over time or stay the same for the duration of a person’s career. Examples of professional identities are doctor, accountant, marketer, artist, baker, salesperson, coder, and fisherman.
If a person makes a living in marketing and baking and brings marketing skills into baking and baking skills into marketing, then they are a hybrid marketer/baker. Perhaps they create recipes as marketing processes and promote their baked goods in cutting edge ways. The way they work has attributes and qualities that no other baker or marketer has. This is what makes them different, and it helps them stand out from conventional workers in their same field.
Hybridity occurs in genetics, products, culture, technology, and other facets of life. When a scientist combines DNA from two different species, the offspring is a hybrid because it possesses qualities from both of the original species. The same happens with workers in the workforce. When a professional has skills, knowledge, experience, or background in multiple domains and disciplines, they possess a unique combination of qualities.
Traditionally, society considers workers to be either an expert, a generalist, or a person who wears many hats. What about workers who use professional identities simultaneously? What term do we call them?
Want to know more about Dr. Sarabeth Berk and how she got started in this research? Watch this.
Want to learn more?
Read all about hybrid professionals in the book More Than My Title and use the workbook to discover your own hybrid professional identity.
DEFINITION
A hybrid professional integrates multiple professional identities together and works at the intersection.
In the intersection, contradictory identities merge, combine, marry, and mix into something beyond categorization.
Other professionals only have one professional identity, or only use one identity at a time, but hybrid professionals integrate theirs together. When they do, they form an entirely new identity, which also becomes their unique value prop in the workforce.
Click here to learn how to investigate the intersections of your multiple professional identities.
A hybrid professional is NOT like a Swiss army knife because that is a multi-tool. You use the saw, then the pliers and then the scissors one tool at a time. That is multiplicity (see below).
A hybrid professional is more like a Liger or a Camelbak. They are a blend of two unrelated things. In fact, they become an are entirely new product and creature that defies language. We have to invent a new name to call them.
And, if you believe everyone is a hybrid professional, guess again.
A liger is hybrid animal that is a combination of a tiger and a lion, possessing traits of both.
THREE TYPES OF PROFESSIONAL Identity
There are three types of professional identity Dr. Berk argues in her framework.
Singularity: are people who only have one professional identity. These are typically experts or specialists.
Multiplicity: are people who have many professional identities. These can be freelancers, job crafters, career changers, multi-talented, multi-hyphenated, t-shaped, and many other labels.
Hybridity: are people who integrate many professional identities together. They can be both experts and generalists combined. Instead of being one professional identity at a time, and then switching to another identity, a hybrid professional is multiple identities at the same time.
All three types of professional identity matter in the workplace. One is not better than another. In fact we need all three to form a high functioning workforce. Professionals can move in and out of these different types. They’re not stagnant or fixed for life.
Even if someone has a hybrid professional identity, they can move back and forth between only being in singularity and then going back into hybridity again. This could happen in the same hour or over the course of many years. It’s a choice, if you have self-awareness of your professional identity. Otherwise, you feel lost and confused and struggle to navigate the outdated binary concept of being either an expert or a generalist.
FOUR CRITERIA A HYBRID MUST MEET
A hybrid professional has to meet four criteria:
Possess multiple professional identities. Hybrids have to have at least two primary professional identities to be a hybrid.
Have a clear set of primary professional identities. Hybrids have a core set of professional identities that form their hybridity. Hybridity is not comprised of every professional identity a person possesses.
Effortlessly integrate primary professional identities together. When hybrids are fully in their hybridity, being in that identity is as easy as breathing. It’s not something they have to think about. If someone is an emerging hybrid, then they are conscious of crossing their identities and work at their intersections in an ad hoc fashion.
Find flow and enjoyment at the intersections of their primary professional identities. When hybrids combine their professional identities, it’s a pleasurable experience. Once hybrids are attuned to their intersections, they spend more time working there because it’s where they find flow.
WHAT HYBRIDS ARE GOOD AT
Hybrids are typically very strong in these qualities:
Seeing connections and patterns where others don’t.
Having their own process and style of doing things. They like to invent and hack processes.
Possessing rarity or onlyness.
Trying out new combinations—styles of clothing, events, culinary creations, technology, etc.
The most important thing to know is that hybrids are distinct because they integrate, instead of separating, their professional identities together. They don’t use one identity at a time because they operate as a mixture of interwoven identities. This differs from being multidimensional or multifaceted since hybrid professionals aren’t “multi.” Hybrids are the convergence of interconnected identities. Consequently, they are innovative in how they work and are one-of-a-kind at what they do.
Branding yourself as a hybrid professional
Personal brands matter in today’s workforce because you are more than your job title. Once upon a time, job titles equaled success, status and meant you were climbing the career ladder, but not anymore.
Your hybrid professional identity is a huge asset in helping you define your optimal distinctiveness, which is where you stand out and fit in at the same time. It also calls attention to your uniqueness.
Tip: Develop your personal brand by looking at your intersectionality
Intersectionality is the place where different things intersect and become one. In the case of professional identity, it’s where your different work identities intersect.
Draw a Venn diagram with a few circles (two, three or four circles).
Curious about what to do next? Read on.
Examples of Hybrid Professionals
Hybrid professionals are hiding in plain sight. They may be well known celebrities or average, everyday workers. Here are two prominent examples. Also, check out this page that shows a company that uses hybrid job titles.
Before Chip Wilson founded the popular company Lululemon, he was involved in the sports industry and knew about selling athletic clothing. Because of the intersection of his hybrid identities, he was able to see an opportunity to create apparel that felt great in the studio and looked great on the street. Athleisure is the term that describes the type of clothes Lululemon produces (and it happens to be a hybrid word).
Karissa Bodnar was a makeup artist before she launched her company. Her friend was diagnosed with cancer, and she became aware of how many makeup products contained chemicals and ingredients that weren’t safe or natural. She started creating her own makeup and donating part of the revenue back to cancer research. Thus, she formed a company based on her hybrid expertise, and the word “causemetics” is another hybrid term.
