What are some official ways of assessing one’s knowledge or skills?
3 min readMar 2, 2019
Originally answered Aug 10, 2017
Here are ten ways, with examples for each:
- Exams passed — passing the bar exam for a lawyer
- Degrees earned — associate, bachelor, master, doctor
- Certifications earned (that are widely respected in the field — watch out for ones that are not, such as in knowledge management) — board certified in neurology, CPA (Certified Public Accountant), PMP (Project Management Professional)
- Licenses obtained — chauffeur, pilot, therapist
- Appointments received — the C. Everett Koop Professor of Pediatric Surgery
- Accomplishments (actual observable results achieved through direct action and/or supervision) — successful projects delivered, patents awarded, inventions, innovations, improvements, successful organizations created and led, successful missions led, people supervised who advanced to higher levels, profits, savings, lives saved, problems solved, new markets opened, success, lives positively influenced, publications, community contributions, philanthropic activity
- Recognition and awards — American Psychological Association Award for Distinguished Professional Contributions to Applied Research
- Assessments by employees, peers, supervisors, and professional colleagues, either by asking directly, or by asking others to do so — feedback provided, professional references, LinkedIn recommendations
- Experience — 20 years of experience as a computer programmer
- Expertise — answer the following questions:
- If you were asked to meet with a client as an expert in a specialty:
- — Would you be comfortable doing so?
- — Would the client be pleased following the meeting?
- If both answers are yes, and you can actually test and verify them, then you are probably an expert.
The answers to the following questions should further validate a person’s status as an expert. Not all answers will be affirmative or positive, but the bulk of them should be.
1. What degrees and certifications do you have in your field of expertise?
2. What awards and recognition have you received in your field of expertise?
3. How often do you receive inquiries, questions, and requests from people:
- Outside your work group?
- Outside your function?
- Outside your firm?
4. Have you:
- Presented at respected conferences and during community of practice events?
- Published in respected periodicals?
- Published book(s) or book chapter(s)?
- Written a regular blog?
- Tweeted about your specialty?
- Published presentations in SlideShare?
- Been interviewed?
- Regularly answered questions in community of practice threaded discussions and in Quora?
- Led a community of practice in your field of expertise?
5. Do you use social networking tools? If so:
- In your enterprise social network, how many followers, likes of your posts, replies to your posts, and shares of your posts do you have?
- In Twitter, how many followers do you have, and how many of your tweets have been retweeted, liked, or replied to by others?
- In LinkedIn, how many endorsements and recommendations do you have, and how many followers do you have?
- How many views, likes/upvotes, and comments do you have for your posts, articles, answers, and published content?
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