The Hook—Personal Testimony as Diagnostic
I operate a cybersecurity consultancy. I hold CompTIA A+ through CySA+, AWS certifications, and I'm acti...
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This question gets annoying as you get more experienced.
I think the question, list my areas of expertise, is very implicit and tests you that can you speak in OUR language . But I like the way you form your value and that leads me to think you have strong will and deep experience.
I appreciate you naming that tension. The “list your expertise” prompt often feels less like a genuine inquiry and more like a gatekeeping test—whether you can translate yourself into the sanctioned vocabulary of a given domain. That’s exactly why I resist flattening my value into a checklist.
For me, the point isn’t to prove fluency in their language, but to show how I scaffold meaning in mine. Expertise, in that sense, isn’t a static badge—it’s the ability to continually reframe, compress, and declare value in ways that remain legible across contexts.
Your read on willpower and depth resonates. I’d argue that what looks like “strong will” is actually forensic refusal: declining to reduce experience into bullet points, and instead insisting on motif-rich clarity. That’s the kind of expertise I want to leave behind as a legacy—irreducible artifacts rather than credential lists.
Excellent thoughts.
Learning stops, Growth stagnates;
Growth stops, Decay Starts.
Great post
Thanks, Jess—curious what stood out most to you.
Totally Dunning-Kruger :-) Nice article.
Nice perspective, I totally resonate with this. In a fast-evolving field like AI/ML/automation, labeling oneself “expert” too early often injects false certainty.
At WalkingTree Technologies, we try to keep that learning mindset alive: credentials or past success don’t stop us from questioning assumptions or revisiting foundations. For us, humility + continuous learning + real-world feedback loops define actual “expertise,” not just labels.
Curious to hear from others - in your journeys, how often does the urge to appear “expert” override the need to stay open to learning new paradigms or admitting uncertainty?
Before I respond to your comment on dev.to/narnaiezzsshaa/beyond-the-e... You're articulating this from inside the credentialed system, choosing to reject 'expert' despite having the institutional backing. I'm experiencing the same dysfunction from outside—five years of production security tooling, but excluded before evaluation happens. We're both arguing for demonstrated competence over credential performance, just from opposite sides of the filter. This is a banger.
Appreciate you naming this, GnomeMan. To clarify—I’m not inside the credentialed system either. My first cert (A+) was self-earned, and even when I landed a SANS scholarship/grant, recognition never materialized. Gatekeeping has kept me outside despite timestamped competence.
That’s why your comment resonates: we’re both refusing credential performance, but from different exclusion vectors. You’ve authored production tooling without evaluation; I’ve authored frameworks and earned credentials without recognition. Same dysfunction, different filter.
The point isn’t whether we’re “experts” by institutional measure—it’s that clarity and demonstrated competence are the only metrics that matter. That’s the epistemic refusal we’re both practicing.
An I naive to think this can actually be done:
“You can't test someone's ability to educate non-technical stakeholders with a whiteboard problem.”
You're not naive at all. I think you're pointing at something real—whiteboard problems can test compression, but they rarely test connection. Translating technical ideas for non-technical folks is more about empathy and context than diagrams. I’ve been wrestling with how to surface that in hiring without turning it into performance theater.