Our expert community is made up of technology volunteers from around the world. What’s an expert, you ask? Someone who knows a little more than the next guy. If you know a thing a two about technology, maybe you’re an expert, too.
Our technology experts solve problems on topics ranging from Adobe products to z80 microprocessors. Join their ranks to earn recognition amongst your peers, score some free stuff and help a few people out along the way. Here’s just a few of the benefits to being an expert at Experts Exchange:
Ready to give your online presence a career makeover? Our 10-step guide will walk you through the entire process. Start now!
Participating on Experts Exchange is a great way to develop skills, stay current in your field or learn a new trade. Here’s how to make the most of your contributions to advance your career.
Answering user questions on Experts Exchange is an excellent way to showcase your ability to communicate clearly and effectively to a prospective employer. Often, questions involve collaborating with other experts, which will demonstrate you can work well with other professionals.
Sometimes an issue requires more than a few comments in a question thread to resolve. Writing an article on Experts Exchange shows you can think through a certain topic and provide in-depth insight.
One of the best ways to demonstrate mastery of a subject is to teach it to someone else. When you present a webinar or series of video tutorials, you prove your expertise, exhibit your communication skills and most importantly, provide a personal touch via video.
In today’s connected world, your online persona matters just as much, if not more, than a hard copy of your resume. Ninety-one percent of employers report using social networking sites to screen applicants and close to 70% of employers report making hiring decisions based on what they find out about a prospective employee online. Thus, the content you produce and share online is not only vital to attracting the attention of potential employers but also to getting them to hire you.
For technology professionals, using social media can certainly get a prospective employers attention, but it might not tell them much about your professional expertise. That is where participating on Experts Exchange can help. Volunteering as an Expert on Experts Exchange allows you to give back to the tech community while showcasing your expertise for potential employers. Below, we’ve created a 10 step action plan for establishing yourself as a technology expert and promoting your skills to advance your career.
Chances are, you participate on Experts Exchange, have a Facebook, Google + or LinkedIn account and perhaps post a tweet from time to time. You might also have a blog. Since you’ll eventually be sharing the content you produce online via the aforementioned social media channels (see Steps 5, 7 and 9), it’s important that you maintain a consistent identity on each of the websites you are a part of. We’d suggest using your real name—or some variation of it-- for all of your online profiles.
Unfortunately, you can’t change usernames on Experts Exchange. So, if you’ve already established a username on Experts Exchange that is not your real name, make sure you list your real name in your Experts Exchange profile. In fact, it’s important to fill out as much of your Experts Exchange profile as you can.
To edit your Experts Exchange profile, log in to your account, click the Profile tab on the right side of the homepage and then click the link to edit your account. Be sure to save the changes you make to your Experts Exchange profile.
To change your Twitter name, log in to your account and click on the down arrow in the upper right corner of the page. Click Settings in the drop down menu that appears. You will be taken to your Account page where you will see a Username field. Change your username to the desired handle and click the save button.
To change your Facebook name (or reserve one in the first place), log in to your account and click the down arrow in the right corner of the page then select Account Settings from the drop down menu. You will be taken to your General Account Settings page where you will see a place to create a customer Facebook username (or change your old one). Be sure to save your changes.
To change your LinkedIn name, log in to your account and click “Edit Profile” under the “Profile” link in the top navigation. Under your profile information, you will see a link to your “Public Profile.” Click edit. Then, click the link to “Customize your public profile URL” on the right side of the page. Then, type the name you want to appear at the end of your custom URL. Click the “Set Custom URL” button.
As we mentioned earlier, employers rarely make a hiring decision these days without first Googling a potential job candidate. To give employers a complete picture of who you are and what you’re capable of at work, make sure your social media profiles are linked to one another and to your Experts Exchange profile.
If you do not participate on social media, that’s ok. While we highly recommend leveraging sites like Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn to promote yourself and network with other people in your field, you can still utilize many of the tips in this article without participating on social sites.
Figure out what topics—technology related and otherwise—you’re most passionate about. Those topics should be the things you talk about the most on social media and on Experts Exchange. For technology related topics, you’ll want to choose the ones you know the most about. That way you can share your expertise with others by answering questions, writing articles and presenting webinars on Experts Exchange and impress your current or future employer with your knowledge in the process.
When picking non-technical topics, be sure they are safe for work and non-offensive. Generally, the same rule that applies to family gatherings should apply to what you discuss in online communities and on social media: avoid politics, religion, sex and finances. Still, it’s good to interject a little bit of your personality into your online activity.
Now that you know what you want to talk about online, you need to find the places where conversations about those topics are happening. The best way to find questions, articles and blogs being posted in topic areas you’re interested in on Experts Exchange is to set up a Saved Search. To create a Saved Search on Experts Exchange, log in to your Experts Exchange account and click on the blue button that says Create New Saved Search. From there, you will be able to input what terms, topics and kinds of content you would like to see in that particular search result.
When you are done defining your terms, click the Search button. You will be taken to a search results page. In the top right corner of that page, click the link to Save this Search. Per the pop-up box, name the search and select whether you would like to be notified by email when questions, articles or blogs that relate to your topics of choice are posted.
You may also want to set up Google Alerts to be notified when content related to your topic areas of choice is posted on other sites. To set up a Google alert, you will need a Gmail account. (If you don’t have one, check out Matt Stanford’s Beginner’s Guide to Gmail.) Log in to your Gmail account and click the down arrow beside your name on the right side of the page. Select Account Settings then click Products on the left side of the Account Settings page. Click Alerts and set up the search terms you would like to receive email notifications about and how often you would like to receive those notifications.
Now that you’re being notified when questions are being asked on Experts Exchange and content you’re interested in is posted elsewhere on the web, it’s time to start talking about your favorite topics. If you elected to receive email notifications about questions asked in your topic area(s) of choice on Experts Exchange, you’ll know when a new question you might be able to answer has been posted to the site. If you did not choose to receive email notifications, simply log in to your account, navigate to the Saved Searches section of the Experts Exchange home page and start finding questions to answer.
When you receive Google Alerts notifications or see a post on social media regarding a topic you’re interested in, it’s important to determine whether it’s a conversation you should be a part of before joining the chatter. A good litmus test for whether or not you should join a conversation is to ask yourself if you can add value to the existing conversation. If you think you can add value, share your thoughts in the comments section of the post.
Did you just receive your first accepted solution on Experts Exchange? Tell everyone about your accomplishment! Share it on Twitter, Facebook, Google +, LinkedIn or all of the above. On the left side of each question, you’ll see buttons that allow you to share that content on various social media sites. Just click the buttons and we’ll automatically share a logged in version of your content for you.
If someone has asked a question on another site that you’ve already answered on Experts Exchange, we’d suggest sharing a link your Experts Exchange question. To share a logged in version of previously asked questions on Experts Exchange, simply click the Link button to the left of the question thread. This will generate a link that you can copy and paste on other sites.
After you’ve spent some time answering question on Experts Exchange, you’ll probably start to come across a few frequently asked questions. Or, you may find an issue that requires more than a few comments in a question thread to resolve. Writing an article about those questions will not only save you from answering the same question over and over again but also demonstrate your analytical thinking skills and in-depth insight into a certain issue. Check out the Experts Exchange Article Guidelines for suggestions on what to write about and tips for writing your article.
Publishing an article on Experts Exchange is an honor worth sharing multiple places. While we’d suggest posting the articles you write on all of your social media profiles, it’s particularly important to share it on LinkedIn. Prospective employers are always searching LinkedIn for new hires and sharing some of your published work is sure to impress anyone who comes across your profile. To share your Experts Exchange article on LinkedIn, simply click the share button with the blue in icon on the left side of your article.
While answering questions and writing articles on Experts Exchange provide written proof of your technical expertise, demonstrating verbal communication skills are also important to landing a job or getting a promotion—particularly if you’re pursuing a management position. Presenting a live Cloud Class webinar or creating a series of Cloud Class video tutorials on Experts Exchange is the perfect way to showcase your verbal communication skills. For more information on presenting a webinar or creating video tutorials, email Experts Exchange Content Manager Jenn Prentice: jenn (at) experts (dash) exchange (dot) com.
Like Experts Exchange articles, Cloud Class webinars and video tutorials are a high-level demonstration of your technical skills. We’d suggest sharing your presentations with everyone on each of your social networks. As a bonus for your hard work, we will share your webinars and video tutorials with the entire Experts Exchange community on all of our social media sites and via email.
This is it. You’ve been working hard to showcase your technical skills and your personality by answering questions, writing articles and presenting webinars and tutorials on Experts Exchange as well as promoting your work on social media. At this point, any prospective or current employer who Googles your name should get a complete picture of who you are and the skills sets you possess. So now it’s time to be bold. Gather links to your best work on Experts Exchange and include them in your resume or online portfolio and apply for the job you’ve been eyeing or ask for the raise you think you deserve.
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