The generalist/specialist distinction is louder in marketing than it is in practice. Every capability statement claims both, deep specialist expertise, broad generalist reach. You don't find out which is true until the work is underway. Six questions, asked before you engage, cut through most of it.
The distinction matters less than you think
The useful question isn't "generalist or specialist?", it's "has this person done this specific kind of work recently, to a high standard, and can they prove it?" A forensic accountant who has written quantum expert reports every six months for ten years is a specialist at quantum expert work regardless of what their firm calls them. A barrister who hasn't run a class action in five years but spent the decade before that on them is a generalist-who-used-to-be-a-specialist. The label won't tell you; the recent work will.
Six questions that do the real work
- "What was the last three pieces of work you personally led in this specific area?" The question forces specifics. Vague answers ("we've done a lot of work in this space") are the answer. Specific answers tell you exactly what recent track record looks like.
- "Can I read a redacted report from the most recent one?" Five minutes of their actual written output tells you more about their depth than thirty minutes of conversation. If the report is rigorous, the person behind it is probably rigorous. If it reads like a template with the names changed, so does their practice.
- "Which parts of this brief are genuinely in your wheelhouse, and which are adjacent?" Real specialists have sharp edges and know them. Someone who says "it's all well within our capability" is either very experienced or selling. You can often tell which by how quickly they say it.
- "Who else would you consider a peer in this specialism in Australia?" Real specialists know the field. They can name three or four other people who do what they do, and can explain how their approach differs. Generalists pretending to be specialists cannot answer this question.
- "What have you got wrong in this area, and what did you change as a result?" Genuine expertise includes a history of calibration. "I was wrong about X in 2019 and now I do Y instead" is a signal of depth. "I've never really got anything wrong" is a signal of either superficial engagement or self-marketing reflex.
- "If this project hit a specific kind of problem mid-way, who on your team would you pull in?" Asks two things at once: whether they have specialist backup inside the firm, and whether they're aware of their own edges. Someone who names a credible colleague for the curly sub-problems has thought about this. Someone who says "I'd handle it" either has, or hasn't.
What the answers should sound like
Good answers are specific and a little uncomfortable. Specialists admit to things generalists would rather gloss. Good answers also don't match the tempo of a sales pitch, there are pauses, caveats, moments where the person is visibly thinking about the specific problem in front of them rather than pattern-matching from a deck.
If every answer comes back fluent, confident, and broadly applicable, you're listening to a well-rehearsed generalist. That may still be what you want, generalists are cheaper and often fine for routine work. But it's not what you're buying if you need a specialist.
Where Edelvor fits
A lot of the signal these questions surface is already visible on a well-maintained Edelvor profile: named case studies with challenge/solution/outcome structure, specific standards worked to, dates of recent work, and peer reviews. You can do much of the filtering before you ever pick up the phone. The six questions still matter, they're the last 20% you do face-to-face, but the first 80% is structured into the profile itself.
Related: The difficulty of finding the right expert covers the market-level view of the same problem.