Two years ago when I returned from abroad back to Finland and took a role related to online business... and held the role just 11 months - suddenly I noticed that was labelled in Finland as online business guy. It didn't help to explain that yes these services are related to eCommerce but actually we are selling a portfolio of services (even solutions) and the required competence is B2B solutions and service business.
So if I meet people from ten years back they still label me as a CRM guy and these newer relationships label me as online business guy. Actual truth about my competence is that past experiences and responsibilities have shaped me to be a professional in contractual solutions and service business both in B2B and B2C segments with international twist. And on top I can take a sales, marketing, business development or general business mgmt. angle to this arena depending on the case. But it sounds that this is as well unheard of - either you can be a marketeer, seller or general manager but not all of these. It just does not fit to the simple way of labeling people with single competence area.
Of course this is not related only to myself. I have had so many occasions and discussions where you notice that people get labeled as a single idea guy - "oh yes he is the key account management guy or she is the brand expert" - when the truth can be that these persons have this kind of role for the very first time... or it is just one angle in their work.
Another twist for this are the industries and what kind of past experience is suitable for different jobs. Many people work in one industry through their career (and therefore gain beliefs how their industry is so different from others).
For example there are many people who define themselves as IT industry professionals and also want to be labeled as such. When IT/tech. industry has finally understood benefits of service business ideas there needs to be inside IT industry grown service business professionals (and labeled as such). For many in IT industry it does not matter that in reality for example hotel business/travel industry has been a service business for ages and there could be something to learn from. For some reason IT service is so different from hotel service despite you end up serving same people with similar service business encounters. Back to the idea of getting a single label - service business experience from hotel business is not considered to be a valuable asset for IT company when it is transforming itself from products to services. Personally I would hire an executive from Hilton hotel chain to run a consumer IT service business than an IT industry executive. But majority would not.
So why do we label and understand individuals based on their single competence or experience areas? One reason is that there exists so many with single mindset and competence area... so it is easier to treat everyone in the same way. Swiss knife can be used in many occasions but it not perfect in any of them, there is always a single tool which can do a better work. But is it the same with people? Which is better - year after year same industry within same functional area (and very easy to label this person) or multiple different experiences from multiple industries and functional areas (very difficult to label) - if there is a need to for example to do a business turnaround? Many would pick the industry old timer as a safe bet - I just think it is much riskier because nothing transformational will ever happen.
So you get a label - a personal brand - whether you like it or not and most likely it is not the brand you want to be unless you are a single idea guy... and to fight against this I have noticed to be a challenging task
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