Recruiter: Do you have any experience with SQL? Schmuck: No. I have no SQL. Recruiter: Then put "NoSQL" on your resume. In all seriousness, I actually

Recruiter: Do you have any experience with SQL? Schmuck: No. I have no SQL. Recruiter: Then put "NoSQL" on your resume. In all seriousness, I actually agree-- to a point-- with the OP. Employers tend toward a denial mentality. "You can't <X>, because you're not a real <X>." Employees tend toward aspirational claims, at least according to employer suspicion (Theory X). However, many workers (especially programmers) shoot themselves in the foot by buying into this "not a real <X>" nonsense that their bosses shoot at them as an excuse not to think too hard or take employee development seriously. They start to believe in their bosses' negative, limiting opinions of them and get a slave mentality. As an awake person, I say: Fuck That Shit. You have to be honest, though, especially with yourself. I will certainly describe myself as a "machine learning guy" (I'm averse to the word "expert") on a job interview, but I also know that there is a lot that I have yet to learn. It's at a few months that you get the right to present yourself as "an X guy" on a job interview because everyone does it, and if you grade-deflate yourself you do the world no good, but if you actually believe that you're as knowledgeable as a real expert at that point, then you're delusional. If you want to call yourself "professional designer" after your app nets you $2.97 (your parents and your grandma) then go ahead, because your bosses-- this is why they are your bosses-- have been using that kind of self-inflation since they were 15 (to pwn girls, while you were studying computers). Just recognize that, in reality, you have a long way to go and there's a lot out there that you haven't learned yet. And if it interests you, then go and learn it.