Grow your career by gaining professional credibility

Posted by Anne Hamill

Many people progress their careers by being known for their expertise. It’s very possible to build a reputation both inside and beyond your organisation, bringing you recognition in your field.

So, how can you do this?

1. Don’t fake it. You really need to have a passion for the area of the business or the area of expertise. Only if a subject fascinates you will you find it easy to constantly accumulate useful information and build up your expertise.


2. Build a professional reputation. It’s really useful to join your professional association and become an active participant. It’s easy to volunteer to do some of the hard work – helping to organise and host events and conferences, writing articles, and contributing to professional newsletters. Professional organisations often welcome more junior members of the profession into organisational teams, as they want to represent their entire membership. And it’s a great way to get to know a lot of people in a very practical way. Also join professional groups on LinkedIn – and be active. You can post questions, and join or start debates. If you are not sure of your ground at first, post your point as a question to the community. As you become more knowledgeable, post discussions and articles on LinkedIn.


3. Become really good at transferring your professional knowledge into commercial value. There is no point in having professional knowledge that doesn’t contribute to the business bottom line. So develop the ability to talk in commercial terms about the benefits your expert advice can deliver.


4. Make sure you have broad as well as narrow experience. Before you specialise it’s good to get a broader understanding as to how your area of expertise fits into the big picture. Remember that as your expertise gets deeper, it also often gets narrower. Challenge yourself to step into related areas or completely new ones – just for the fun of it! True experts make connections across subject boundaries.


5. Experience being the on the receiving end. How can you put yourself in the shoes of a customer in your expertise area? Can you support the line in assessing tenders, or undergo the processes you are designing for others? This will help you understand your internal customers and user groups. While it’s not always possible to do this, take every opportunity to see all your work from another point of view. A user-friendly expert is a popular expert! You’ll find that people are more likely to want to listen to your professional advice and support.


6. Develop great communication skills. Being able to talk succinctly in layman’s terms is what turns you from being a good expert into a great expert. If you communicate simply and powerfully, you will be in demand as a speaker. And research shows that the more simply a person conveys difficult content, the more likely people are to rate them as a top expert.


7. Go for recognition. Whether this is via industry awards, registering patents, or writing articles, your specialist field is likely to have ways of recognising excellence. External recognition makes your organisation value you more highly.

THE TAKEAWAY

If you have a passion for a specialist subject, this can be career gold – because you’ll be motivated to learn anything and everything about your field. But you need to put in hard work to build a reputation, both inside and outside your organisation. The key to building a world-class reputation is to combine a love of your subject with a practical understanding of the business priorities, and strong skills in conveying your message.