How do I position my expertise and experience clearly?
Positioning is about what others understand
You can have strong expertise and relevant experience without being clearly positioned. This applies to specialists with deep knowledge, professionals with a broad or complex profile, and leaders with experience from different roles and organisations.
The problem may be that others find it difficult to see which roles, tasks or problems your background makes you relevant to.
Positioning is therefore not about describing everything you know and can do. It should make the most important connection between your expertise, experience and professional direction understandable to others.
The key question is:
What should others understand, remember and connect you with?
Positioning begins with direction
Many people start by changing the CV or LinkedIn profile. They add skills, rewrite the headline and try to make the wording more precise. But if the professional direction is unclear, so will the communication.
Positioning requires a choice of which roles, tasks and problems you want to be relevant to. This makes it possible to prioritise the parts of your expertise and experience that support the direction. Other options may still be viable, but they must receive less emphasis in the way you present yourself in that context.
A better wording can make the direction clearer to others. It cannot make the choice for you.
Expertise does not speak for itself
You may have a precise understanding of your field of expertise and still find it difficult to explain what your knowledge and experience enable you to solve. This is especially true when the work is based on complex issues, specialised methods or experience that is built across several roles and organisations.
Communication can easily become abstract when theories and methods are described without any connection to the problems they can be used to investigate. The same happens when systems, processes and responsibilities are mentioned without it being clear what the work changed or made possible.
Clear positioning does not require that the expertise be made simpler than it is. But its application and professional significance must be understandable to people who do not share your professional background. Complexity does not exempt you from clarity.
What you communicate is not necessarily what others understand
You know the connection between your expertise, experience and the choices you have made. An employer, customer, business partner or network contact only meets the part of the context that your communication makes clear.
Accurate information does not necessarily create a clear impression. You can describe your experience accurately and still leave the recipient in doubt about what you should be associated with in particular. What matters is not only what you say, but the understanding your communication creates.
You are positioned even when you do not do so consciously. If the communication points in several directions or lacks a clear prioritisation, the recipient will still form an impression. You simply have less influence over what that impression will be.
Positioning must have a real basis
Clear positioning must be based on the expertise and experience you actually have. It should highlight your relevance, but not construct a stronger context than your background provides.
Precise wording can make your contribution easier to understand. It cannot replace the experience, documentation or professional insight that should make the positioning credible.
Positioning requires prioritisation
When a profile is difficult to understand, it may seem natural to add more skills, experience and explanation. But more information does not necessarily make the connection clearer.
Something must be central, something must support and document it, and some information must receive less emphasis. The prioritisation must follow the direction and professional context you want to be relevant to, not how prominent individual experiences have been in the past.
This does not mean that the rest of your background loses importance. But when you position yourself towards one direction, other opportunities must receive less emphasis. A broad profile is only a strength if others can see where your contribution is relevant.
Your positioning must work in different contexts
Your expertise and overall direction must be recognisable, regardless of whether you communicate with an employer, customer, business partner or network contact. But that does not mean that you have to emphasise the same points to everyone.
What is important in one context may be less important in another. The emphasis should reflect what the recipient needs to understand, without your direction becoming unclear.
The core must be stable. Priorities may vary.
Others must be able to act on what they understand
Your own assessment is not enough to determine whether the positioning works. Relevant people must be able to understand and remember the essentials of your expertise, experience and direction.
The understanding must be concrete enough for them to see when it makes sense to contact, choose, recommend or introduce you. If they only remember that you have worked with many different things, the positioning is still too unclear.
Positioning works when others not only understand what you can do, but also know in which contexts your contribution is relevant.
Related Questions
How do I identify the value I actually create?
Positioning requires you to make the professional significance of your work clear.
Which skills and capabilities can I realistically transfer to a new role?
A skill or capability becomes relevant only when its connection to the new role can be explained credibly.
How do I explain a career change credibly?
A career change requires a clear connection between previous experience, a new direction and future contribution.
About CareerStrategy
CareerStrategy provides career strategy for academics, specialists and leaders.
The focus is on creating clearer direction, stronger positioning and a better basis for professional decisions.