The ad looks so promising: Vice President, Manufacturing Operations... That's your job title now. Help make us an industry leader in an exciting, rapid-growth business.... Sounds good. Take-charge manager with excellent people and organizational skills.... Your performance evaluations showed straight 5's across the board the last eight years. Must have at least five years' experience... Got that... in the manufacture of venetian blinds and window treatments...

Oops. You've been running a plant that assembles outdoor furniture made from PVC pipe. Although the prospective employer is about the same size as your current company, and you'd be overseeing about the same number and type of employees, the job calls for experience in its particular niche. You don't have it, pure and simple. So you strike a big 'X' through the ad and move on.

Not so fast. You may be able to salvage this opportunity if you understand why potential employers demand experience in their field or industry. The same background is important because it lessens the company's risk. If you've succeeded at a firm in the same field, the thinking goes, you'll likely repeat your achievements at the new employer. Also, if you have industry experience, you can add value sooner because you don't have to spend time learning the new business.

But this approach reflects the kind of imprecise thought that prompted an employer looking for a new general manager for his tofu-manufacturing business to require "a proven entrepreneur with a solid background in tofu." (The Wilmington, Del., venture-capital consultant retained to fill this position soon realized there aren't many skilled general managers, entrepreneurial or not, who possess a "solid background in tofu.")

Define Your Expertise

When seeking a new role, realize the difference between expertise and experience. Expertise (technical skills or credentials) is knowledge of a certain subject matter. It's reflected in the things you'd brag about by saying, "I know," as in "I know the molecular structure of long-chain polymers," "I know ISO 9000" or "I know how to make tofu." Expertise has certain characteristics:

1. You can get it whenever you want it. If you want to acquire knowledge in a certain area, you can always gain it through formal education, on-the-job training or self-instruction. Want to be a scuba diver? Just sign up for the class.

2. Young people can have as much expertise as older people. In fact, they may have more if they just finished the most up-to-date class or training.

3. Expertise isn't transferable; it defines and is defined by the setting in which it's used. Generally-accepted accounting procedures (GAAP) are useless on a camping trip, knowledge of the principles of cardiothoracic surgery won't help fix your car and quantum mechanics won't substitute for the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure when trying a federal case.

Often, when potential employers say they're looking for experience, they're actually seeking expertise. That is, they prefer to hire someone with knowledge of the position's key subject matter. They're impressed by credentials (degrees, certifications, etc.) which prove you're familiar with the job's technical dimensions.

In some fields -- such as patent law, psychiatry, public accounting or race-car engine-building -- you must have significant subject-matter expertise to even be considered for employment. But in hundreds of other areas, the necessary knowledge can be picked up on the fly. In these cases, you don't have to be a great expert to land the job. Show you're a "quick study," and the employer may simply expect you to acquire the necessary technical skill soon after you're hired.

Are You Experienced?

Unlike expertise, experience isn't anchored to a specific context. Rather, it confers generalized competencies that transfer from setting to setting. These "transferable abilities" are capabilities that can be called upon in any and all situations. Thus, experience also includes the judgment and maturity accumulated by working in a variety of roles and settings. Experience is proven by past behavior, not present knowledge. You don't say, "I know it," you say, "I've done it" or "I'm able to...." as in "I've motivated high-performing work teams" or "I'm able to manage large projects."

Suppose you say, "I have the ability to run a four-minute mile." All that phrase really means is, "I've run a four-minute mile at least once." Somewhere in your past is a four-minute mile, and if you were able to do it once, presumably you can do it again. This line of reasoning suggests a basic equation:

Experience = Abilities = Past behaviors in other settings

Most management competencies reflect transferable abilities, not technical expertise. Think of a few classic examples:

• Trouble-shooting ability
• Keeping my head when those about me lose theirs
• Translating goals into practical priorities
• Inspiring trust and confidence in superiors, peers and staff
• Organizing people, information and/or activities
• Setting and applying performance standards

Indeed, general managers are typically valued for their ability to oversee and manage a variety of tasks and functions that they don't know how to perform themselves. The COO doesn't need to know how to install a networked computer system to manage the information-services department.

When marketing your transferable abilities, you're demonstrating that you can apply experience gained in one setting to a different environment. When a U.S. president recruits a new cabinet member, he doesn't focus on technical skills ("Have you ever been a Secretary of State before?"). Instead, he looks for judgment, maturity and street smarts that should have been amply demonstrated in other roles.

Career Changers

The distinction between expertise and experience is critical to career-shifters. If you hope to significantly change your work role or setting, you have two options:

1) acquire a new set of technical skills ("re-credential yourself"), or

2) market your experience as transferable into a new setting.

In general, once you've reached mid-career, it's easier to apply the second strategy. But both present considerable risk, which is one reason why a major career shift should never be undertaken lightly.

Let's return to the ad from the venetian blind company. Keeping in mind the distinction between experience and expertise, it's illogical for employers to demand that candidates have direct experience that's identical -- not merely equivalent -- to the position being filled. Even if they insist that applicants have relevant expertise, they may not identify the best talent, particularly if technical competency can be acquired on the job. Paradoxically, overly demanding hiring criteria may actually diminish the pool of genuinely well-qualified candidates.

Another problem emerges where the screening requirement is keyed to length of experience. Does "six to eight years of experience" refer to a floor ("You must have at least..."), a ceiling ("...no more than..."), or a pricing standard ("We've got $52,000 to spend -- how much experience can we buy for that?")? To avoid being screened out for being under- or overqualified, try to ascertain the type and level of experience the employer seeks.

Next, focus on emphasizing aspects of your employment background that are most similar to the potential position. Ask yourself this question:

"If the employer succeeded in hiring the kind of experience he claims to want, what specific behaviors and capabilities would the candidate demonstrate?"

The employer's experience requirement is really just a shorthand description of a set of desired abilities, attributes and personal qualities. To make a case that your experience is functionally equivalent to the employer's needs, you must review the rest of the job description. From it, try to extrapolate which specific functional skills the position requires, then identify accomplishments in your work history that demonstrate your ability to add value in those areas.

It's easier to defend the power and equivalence of your transferable abilities when talking directly with a hiring manager, rather than writing a response to an ad. Most ad replies are read first by risk-averse screeners -- not hiring managers -- whose job is to weed out as many applicants as possible. For them, mechanically matching words in the ad to those in the response is safest; they may not have enough authority or expertise to judge what constitutes an acceptable substitute. Still, you can usually frame a powerful and convincing response to an ad.

To highlight your transferable abilities succinctly, conduct a thorough self-assessment. Although your experience probably isn't neatly organized into categories and file names, the information you need is there. Your experience -- all the events, outcomes and accomplishments that mark your work efforts -- is in your memory.

To focus your thinking, try the "Past Accomplishments" exercise favored by many career consultants. When people experience something satisfying, they consciously and unconsciously seek out other situations that recreate that pleasure. Since achievements tend to feed preferences, experience and motivation become mutually self-reinforcing. Take time to review 10 to 15 key accomplishments. In them, you'll find a veritable inventory of transferable abilities.

For each major achievement, analyze the situation, your activities and the outcomes, asking yourself what strengths and abilities they convey. From this exercise, you can develop a list of action verbs and personal qualities that are strongly supported by your work history.

Finally, identify and tout those transferable abilities that most closely match the employer's implied needs. Whether replying to an ad or making your points in a face-to-face meeting, you must show that the employer's actual requirements are functionally equivalent to your strengths. Your mission is to demonstrate that what's needed isn't their experience, but your experience. In William Shakespeare's words, "What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet."