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What is a professional?
I see the term “Young Professional†thrown around a lot, and it pops up on this forum quite frequently. I know what its implied usage is, but my question is how does one actually define a professional?
Recently I was reading a book that gave the following description of a professional:
A profession is a learned calling with specialized skills, distinctive functions and recognized social obligations and has unique characteristics.• It renders services based upon advanced knowledge, skill and judgment.
• It is charged with a substantial degree of public obligation and performs its services largely in the general public interest.
• It is bound by a distinctive ethical code in its relationships with clients, employees, colleagues and the public.
• It assumes responsibility for actions related to professional services provided in a personal or supervisory capacity.While professionals should be fairly remunerated for their services, they are expected to put service above gain, excellence above quantity, rewards of self expression above any pecuniary incentive, and a code of honor above competitive spirit.
Webster’s Dictionary describes a profession as:
A calling requiring specialized knowledge and often long and intensive preparation including instruction in skills and methods as in the scientific, historical, or scholarly principles underlying such skills and methods, maintaining by force of organization or concerned opinion high standards of achievement and conduct, and committing its members to continued study and to a kind of work which has for its prime purpose the rendering of a public service.
These are certainly pretty strict and definitive. Under such a description it seems that true professionals are limited to doctors, engineers, architects, teachers, scientists, lawyers, nurses, accountants and perhaps few others. It would certainly exclude a lot of white collar jobs that many people most likely consider professional. Are those in marketing, advertising, sales, IT, web development, insurance, real estate, etc. professionals? How about business analysts, hotel managers, event planners, politicians, corporate executives?
How about police officers, firefighters, construction workers, massage therapists, artists?
So are those above definitions relevant? Accurate?
Has the term been used colloquially to be essentially synonymous with white collar, and is that misleading?
Or is a professional anyone who does something for money? Eg. A professional as compared to an ‘amateur’ or ‘hobbyist’? Is a prostitute a professional?
Do you need a college degree to be a professional? Do you need education beyond that? Certification? To be a member in good standing of an organization that oversees and regulates workers in your field (have passed the bar, the CPA, have your PE, medical boards)?
What is the delineation? Is anyone who does a job that requires more than a basic level of skill a professional? Are waitresses professionals? How about a waitress at Denny’s vs. a career server at Mitchell’s? Can there be two different people doing the same job and one is considered a professional?
Perhaps the root of my question is why have the term at all? What does it really mean? Do people who use the term and organize events for professionals even qualify as one themselves?
Who do you consider professionals, and what jobs do you not consider to fall under that term?
Launched in August 2010, TheMetropreneur.com is a local online resource devoted to small business development and entrepreneurship. Its aim is to tell the stories of Central Ohio's business community, foster regional economic development and assist entrepreneurs with its resource-heavy focus.