More often than not, the one area of help my clients ask for is for raising their visibility in the workplace and getting those meaty projects that could fast track their climb up the corporate ladder.

Part of the solution is raising their Executive Presence but if you want to stand out from the crowd or competition at work, then you need to be seen as an expert in your field.

This takes action on your part and not just walking around telling people that you’re an expert.

For sure, if you’ve got a professional qualification like being a CPA, people would consider you an expert compared to an accountant and yet during my corporate years, I have worked in companies where the person in the office who was perceived as The Expert didn’t have the qualifications!

This meant that colleagues were comfortable talking to them about their specific technical problems and had confidence in the non-CPA’s expertise and knowledge.

I’ve written about one of them, Rajesh, who was considered a walking encyclopedia  in my post on Self-Esteem Buckets.

In other words, the real perception lies with the observer and not the expert. If people think or call you an expert, then you are the expert. You need to manage perceptions! 

Tips for Finding Your Strengths and Developing Your Expertise

Believe it or not but each one of us is good at something. Expertise doesn’t necessarily require a college degree or professional qualification. It requires a passion for the topic and the willingness to learn.

For example, I have a mechanic who learned his craft under the apprenticeship of his father. When his father first started his business in Khan Market, he was into scooters and motor bikes and then graduated to vehicles.

His son is an expert now in imported cars and has taken the business further by setting up 2 workshops! I often go to him first for a diagnosis of my vehicle’s problem and take his advice before going to the authorized service dealer.

Your strength could be your oratory and motivational speaking or an artistic hand. The key is to figure out your strengths and become an expert at them.

How to Discover Your Expert Worthy Strengths

You can do your own assessment of what you think you’re good at and what you’re most comfortable doing. Here are a couple of ideas:

• Make a list. Think about all the responsibilities of your job and everything that’s expected of you. Now go through that list and put a star next to everything you excel at or enjoy doing. Don’t be modest; be honest with yourself!

• Study your list and meditate on your choices. Really focus your mind on the direction you want your career to take and which skills you need to sharpen to achieve your goals. Focus your attention on the skills that will immediately benefit you.

Discovering Your Strengths by asking others

The second way to discover your personal strengths is to talk to others. You may tend to believe you know what you’re good at, but when you talk to someone who sees you with fresh, unbiased eyes, you’ll get a completely different perspective.

• Don’t be afraid to approach your boss and ask him or her about your strengths. Be proactive! Take control of your career and take the necessary steps to improve your leadership skills and develop your expertise.

• Take additional training and development courses. Does your job or company offer any kind of continuing education programs? Are there training classes that sound interesting and pique your interest? Follow those instincts and register for the class to build upon the knowledge you already have.

Of course, you can ask your family and friends to characterize your strengths and weaknesses. They know you better than anyone else, so they’re more likely to be able to read between the lines and help you discover new things about yourself.

Chances are your friends and family won’t want to hurt your feelings by saying you’re no good at something, so instead, ask them to help you pick out your strengths. Or ask an open-ended question such as, “What jobs or skills do you think I have a talent for?”

Make sure you understand your family’s biases before making any big decisions.

How to Develop Your Expertise

Now that you’ve found your strengths, it’s time for you to bolster your expertise and become a true authority. This means you have to seek out opportunities to work on these skills.

For example, if speaking is your strength, consider taking a public speaking class at a local university to improve that skill. Take every opportunity to speak in front of groups, whether it’s a fundraiser, company meeting, giving a toast at a special event, or speaking to your child’s class.

Seek out the opportunities to practice your skill and take advantage of them. The goal is to find ways to get out of your comfort zone and challenge yourself to sharpen your skills.

How to create the impression you’re an authentic expert

Everyone has the potential to be an expert at what they do.

Here are a few simple steps that you’ll need to follow first to be recognized as an expert.

Educate Yourself on the subject of your planned expertise

Once you have developed the expertise in your chosen area you need to maintain that knowledge.

Expertise is another word for knowledge and the onus is on you to keep yourself up to date with information about your topic and if you are in a specialized field like law, accounting or information technology, make sure you’re up to date with the developments in those areas.

It’s not just reading though – you need to know what you’re talking about.

There are 2 ways you can enhance your knowledge:

• Take courses, attend workshops and even seminars to help further your education and keep you up to date on the latest knowledge and technology. If self-paced study is easier for you, look up courses on Udemy and other online learning platforms.

• Read more. It doesn’t matter what you do as a profession, you need to take advantage of the vast knowledge in the library.

That’s why certain professionals like accounting and law require their qualification holders to do a minimum number of hours of study each year to maintain their right to use the title that goes with that qualification.

Own Your Knowledge

By expanding your knowledge you’ll also build your confidence which in turn will give confidence to others that you know your stuff.

I mean, have you ever hear an expert stutter and stammer and say they’re not sure? Of course not! You’ll hear the confidence in their voice and see it in their body language.

Everyone is an expert at something. The problem is, we often don’t realize our own expertise and take it for granted. Some coaches refer to it as your super power while others talk about unique selling proposition or USP.

The key is to discover it and step into it. Think of some knowledge or activity that you find easy to do or perform where others struggle and you’re on to finding your golden gift.

Even then if you have an issue or find it challenging to be confident, take the help of affirmative statements to help your subconscious mind accept you are an expert.

Declare it to the world with your elevator pitch, your business cards and on your social media profiles.

Demonstrate Your Knowledge

It’s one thing to talk about what you know, but it’s something else entirely to actually apply it.

Experts don’t walk around showing off about what they can do; they prove it by taking action and demonstrating their expertise by solving difficult problems and finding viable solutions.

 In other words, be proactive in your approach. Sometimes we don’t know the answer but we do know someone who does. Reach out to that other expert to help find the solution.

A true expert is always willing to learn new things and isn’t afraid to admit that they might not have the ideal solution and need help too. They also act with integrity.

Always Act With Integrity

Demonstrating knowledge isn’t the only thing experts do. They possess qualities of ethics, integrity and teaching. This means avoiding shortcuts and taking credit for things you haven’t done.

Skipping out on doing something the right way doesn’t make you an expert, however, this doesn’t mean that you have to do everything yourself.

There will always be things we’re not so good at. In those circumstances, you have to learn how to delegate those responsibilities to others who have the skills required to get the job done.

Part of being a good expert is seeing the strengths and weaknesses of others and how their talents can be put to good use.

You can and should delegate tasks where required and teach your team using hands on approach.

Wise leaders and the most incredible of experts don’t do everything themselves. They have a talented team around them who have the skills they themselves lack.

Acknowledge your people for doing a good job and where there is scope for improvement, follow the golden rules for effective feedback.

This also raises your stature with your team and co-workers which in turn enhances your Executive Presence.

Learn the skill of Effective Communication  

People have to understand what you can do and why you’re the best one to do it.

This means that you have to understand and foresee the questions and concerns of others, then prepare and articulate the answers and solutions to them.

I learned a lot about getting messages across from my furry family member Miss Coco during the time the Northern Grid had tripped leaving the entire North India region without electricity.

Pick up the effective communication tips from the canine here.

By following these simple steps you’ll become the person with the answers. These are the experts who become irreplaceable and well respected.

Do you convey the message of being an expert with your actions and words?

I know it’s tempting to tell a white lie or two for the sake of landing that dream job or landing any job if you’ve been out of work for some time.

You might think that adjusting your resume with a few tweaks won’t hurt anyone as long as you keep as close to the truth as possible.

But my sincere advice as a well-wisher is to resist temptation.

Fake it till you make it means disaster for your career when you get caught and you will.

I’m often asked questions on Quora about changing careers and resume guidance from newbie job hunters. This question caught my eye and while I provided guidance to the youngster, I believe it’s an ethical question that we need to consider whether we’re in jobs or self-employed.

The question reminded me of a lady manager in my employers Talent Management department whose career was going places until one day I learned that she had been dismissed.

Overnight the star of the department who was known for wearing the latest fashions, diamonds and difficult to ignore (she made her presence known, if you know what I mean) was sent out of the doors and her colleagues were happy to see the last of her.

Having attended a few pan division Manager Training sessions with her, I knew she had an opinion on everything, and asked too many innocuous questions from the trainer so I guessed she was aggressive with her colleagues too.

That turned out to be part of the picture.

My friends back in her department told me that she was overbearing and her management style was demotivating.

For someone in the Human Resources department, she lacked communication skills in dealing with her team. Waving her diamond rings and imperious air did not help.

She loved to brag and it was this habit that got one of her disgruntled juniors spurred to do some investigation into the truth of her brags which lead to opening a Pandora’s Box.

Some of her certifications were false. Her work experience was exaggerated and she was clearly not the owner of all the credentials that had gotten her the job.

This lady got lucky that she was asked to leave the company but I doubt she’d have received a reference for another job. There was a lapse of recruitment procedure and considering that the hire was in the Talent Management department, I’m sure a lot of people would’ve gotten into trouble for the lapse.

This was in the days when only companies that had security related or highly confidential and sensitive information hired private investigators to verify the antecedent of the prospective employee.

The rest relied on confirming references and putting in clauses of summary dismissal for false information.

It was a world of good faith and clearly the phrase ‘trust but verify’ wasn’t carried out properly.

Complete background verification is an important hiring procedure

A decade later, things have changed and employers are concerned about the cost of a wrong hire.

I remember the same employer had called overseas to talk to my references and those conversations were long ones because I was a returning expat and the information that I would be handling was confidential and sensitive.

A friend of mine who was in Executive Search told me that with the advent of new technology, their first step to check candidates was to Google them and check their LinkedIn profile.

It doesn’t surprise me in the least. Hiring the wrong candidate can have serious consequences for an organization ranging from service delivery all the way to security risk, legal risk and potential reputation damage for the entity.

In an article that I read sometime back in the Economics Times the cost of a bad hire to an organization is 5 times the bad hire’s annual salary.

The article pointed out the possibility of dire consequences that included reputation damage and financial concerns.

The verification procedure is taken more seriously, including background verification by an external agency.

HireRight’s 2015 Employment Background Screening Trends Report for India, based on more than 218,000 checks done in India from January 2014 to April 2015 states that almost 3 out of 10 screenings conducted by HireRight in India contained a lie or a discrepancy.

The most commonly found discrepancies related to educational (52%), employment background (11%) and professional licenses while on a lesser scale, there can also be inaccuracies in their criminal history or identification documents provided.

Heaven help you if you’ve been offered a job by a company that now does this verification either before you join or even after you’ve joined them and you’ve spruced up your resume or have hidden details including criminal records that are discovered by the third party agency!

Consequences of lying in Job Applications and better methods

Resume fraud is a crime although not every country presses criminal charges that can in the worst case scenario, land you in jail (If you are based in certain states of USA, you can be jailed)

I can understand the need to stand out above the noise in a highly competitive job market but it’s simply not worth the risk.

For starters, your own reputation will be damaged and rebuilding credibility will be a long and hard task.

You wouldn’t be able to provide the reference of an employer who sacked you for lying and the danger of being discovered will keep you looking over your shoulder.

Is it really worth it?

The querant on Quora wanted to lower his age because he didn’t have any work experience and thought it would improve his prospects. His frustration was apparent.

The answers he got to his question were clear that they would never hire a person who lied.

The truth is, 1 lie can lead to many to support the original lie and the damage to your reputation will be irreversible.

Here’s what I would do instead, whether you are a newbie in the job market or trying to get a dream job and want to stand out from the crowd.

1. We all have non-work related experience that gives us unique skills that make us an asset. Put those in your resume. You can read more about it in my blog post Putting Unpaid and Volunteer Work in your Resume
2. Include your hobbies and interests in your resume where you learned something that is of value
3. Hire a good resume writer who will discuss your experience with you and help you to create a Master Resume that you can customize for different jobs.
4. Create a LinkedIn profile and explore openings there where you can apply – don’t lie on your profile!
5. Stay in integrity and don’t let your present situation get you down. Things have a way of working out when you least expect them.

Would you embellish or adjust your resume for the sake of a job?

Additional Resource for serious job seekers

You wouldn’t have to compromise your reputation or integrity if your job hunt is done strategically. Check out Karmic Ally Coaching’s Job Search Success Bundle here or by clicking on the image below.