Professional personnel

A professional provides a service in exchange for payment in accordance with established protocols for licensing, ethics, procedures, standards of service and training/certification. A professional is a member of a licensing body which is legally established within the laws of a given state, county, province or nation.

The term "professional" is widely used to refer to individuals with recognized expertise within a field of endeavor even though they are not a member of a licensing body or legal entity. The distinction between professional sports and amateur sports simply refers to how the athlete is funded. Similarly the distinction within creative pursuits between professional and amateur becomes somewhat grey.

Historically, behaving professionally would indicate that the person's actions remain in accordance with specific rules, written or unwritten, pertaining to behavior, dress, speech, etc. By extension, the adjective professional identified somebody recognized for expertise or skill in a craft or activity.

In narrow usage, not all expertise is considered a profession. Although sometimes referred to as professions, such occupations as skilled construction work are more generally thought of as trades or crafts. The completion of an apprenticeship is generally associated with skilled labor or trades such as carpenter etc In cases lacking a licensing body, the opposite of a professional is an amateur or, disparagingly, "rank amateur." Sometimes an amateur can perform as well or better than a professional. Therefore, in many fields a person must overcome a barrier before gaining recognition as a professional. Such barriers include academic degrees, professional certification or licenses. In the strictest sense, a profession is created by legislation and is self-regulating, e.g. through a Code of ethics.