>When I see "expert" on a CV I have learned to become cynical.
One has to play this game on marketing documents to be considered. For some reason "pretty good, definitely still learning" doesn't click with many HR people. You can't really blame candidates for trying to get hired by presenting themselves in an authoritative context.
I don't consider anyone an actual expert in something unless they have hard, indisputable credentials, like a long history of commits to the core project (for expertise in specific software/languages/frameworks), etc.
I completely agree that it's a sales vs. HR thing, and that the onus is on the candidate to make themselves appear as the best product on the market.
But something about "expert" really grates on me. I think it's that it is a self-anointed title in nearly all cases. There are legitimately experts in lots of different areas - if you happened to invent IDS, for example, you go right ahead and call yourself an expert. If you happen to have run a bunch of Snort rules across a prod environment for a year or two, you might be "experienced", go on, stretch it to "highly experienced" for all I care, but if you stretch it to "expert" then paint me cynical.
One has to play this game on marketing documents to be considered. For some reason "pretty good, definitely still learning" doesn't click with many HR people. You can't really blame candidates for trying to get hired by presenting themselves in an authoritative context.
I don't consider anyone an actual expert in something unless they have hard, indisputable credentials, like a long history of commits to the core project (for expertise in specific software/languages/frameworks), etc.