Tips to Become an Expert

In today's tough job market, being an expert is one of the ways you can set yourself apart from the competition. So, what do experts do and how do they get jobs? In a nutshell, experts do the thinking for fast-paced organizations that lose money for every second dedicated to finding out information. Experts provide knowledge from any angle that an organization requires to make a point fast and move on to the next thing. Take media outlets for example; the main anchorperson may not know much about the current political crisis in Syria, which might make him look bad in front of an audience. To take the pressure off, the media outlet calls on an expert on Syrian politics to explain the crisis to the audience and everyone's happy.

Budding experts can learn the trade anywhere. Some experts become so while still in grade school. Many gaming gurus, for example, became experts in middle school. Other experts, the "accidental" variety, earn their stripes by inadvertent experiences, such as trauma survivors, and still others earn expert status just by being who they are, for example, funny. One man's expert is another man's person of no consequence, hence the number of English speakers teaching English in Asia, because they are considered experts in Asian countries, but not so here.

You can become an expert fairly quickly if you perform an honest assessment of your skills and abilities. What this means is that if you are really good at baking chocolate chip cookies, no matter how mundane and unprofitable it might seem, go with it. It's a mistake to try to ride the coat tails of a popular movement and claim expert status on subjects that you don't understand well. Website building and marketing experts, for example, are those who have been at it for years, even when it wasn't the popular thing to do. If you don't have such a background, your efforts to sell yourself as an expert in the field might fall flat.

Marketing yourself as an expert to get jobs requires the human touch. While some outreach can be done on online, your expert status, like charity, begins at home or in your community. Offer your skills and knowledge to any individual or organization that needs them, for pay or for free. The short, easy list of organizations to which you can market your expertise includes your church, your kid's school and national charities such as the Red Cross and the March of Dimes. Document you expert work on paper, with photos and videos, and place it in a portfolio that you can take on the road when you're ready to shoot for the big dollars.