I always get some flack for this, but job titles matter.
We use language to speak to one another, and we use titles to tap into a common way we understand how people fit into the world.
- Ma’am.
- Missus.
- Mister.
- Sir.
- O Captain! My Captain!
At work, a good job title tells me where you belong, what you do, and how you contribute to the bottom line. And if I’m being honest with you, titles help employees know whether or not you matter.
- If you’re a Human Resources Manager or a Sales Trainer, I know what you do.
- If you’re a project manager or a database administrator, that’s kind of helpful.
- If you’re a Cruise Ship Director or Director of Chaos, I don’t know what you do for the organization or how I can help you (more importantly).
Although I used to tell people that I didn’t give a shit what they put on their business cards, I cared A LOT. I worked hard at several companies to remove bad titles and align normal titles to compensation levels because I think this whole body of HR work is important. I am not interested in creating a militaristic hierarchy of job titles, but I am interested in consistency and clarity. Titles help the world understand who you are and what you do for a living. Titles — like a consumer brand — help the marketplace understand your value proposition and hold you accountable for a standard of delivery.
And despite what some stupid wanna-be-entrepreneur CEO tells you, it’s not an honor to create your own wacky job title. It’s a distraction from the real work of creating value for shareholders and investors. Children create crazy job titles. Adults create wealth and larger profit margins.
So go ahead and call me misguided and old fashioned, but crazy job titles — while fun — show a lack of maturity and misplaced prioritization in an organization. Don’t call your Customer Service Manager the ‘Big Kahuna’ unless he’s a douchebag frat boy. Spend time mentoring him, teaching him the business, and helping him become the next Customer Service Director.
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The key issue is that job titles need to be meaningful – either within the organisation or to its customers. That can mean that people have different titles for internal and external contacts. In my first management job I was a “Postal Executive Grade B – Personnel and Industrial Relations (North West HQ)” which internally in the organisation gave my grade/status/location and specialism. To outside contacts I was a “Regional HR Manager”.
(Incidentally, a Cruise Ship Director is the senior person on the ship responsible for all the non-sailing staff – entertainment, catering, cleaning etc)
I believe that titles should be meaningful both internally and externally. Either one not being in sync creates issues that are unnecessary.
Amen.
I had no idea what a cruise ship director does!
I know a company where one of the founders titled himself.. “Director of Client Happiness”
It kind-of makes me want to vomit when I hear it used.
Meaningful titles are important, not only to those who want to know what you you do for the company, but to you personally.
That title sucks.
There’s a fine art to having an amusing job title that is still meaningful. At my first “job title job”, my manager and I spent all of our smoke breaks (yeah I know, I do the e-cig vapor thing now) trying to come up with something clever that would still sound reasonable to people I had to mail with enclosed business cards. The company had an odd structure and I was basically an admin with tech duties for my department with frequent projects to manage and who also wrote training documentation for the whole company. Eventually we decided that Departmental Asst. worked because it was more accurate with the breadth of tasks I had (this gig required you to be a jack of all trades). But more importantly, my boss thought the “mental” part sounded hilarious and I frequently felt quite mental. So we got our chuckles but I look legit on paper.
That is hands down the best job I ever had. I miss that boss.
Now I miss your boss.
My buddy Dwight works for a paper company as a sales person. He is also the Assistant to the Regional Manager. But most of the time he refers to himself as Assistant Regional Manager.
bwahahahhahaha! Nice catch, Glen!
I know that guy!
Those crazy wanna be entrepreneurs are the ones that risk everything to build companies, that in turn hire HR people, who in turn create stable titles for the mass that want someone to tell them what they are and what to do.
Dude, not every entrepreneur is Zuckerberg.
Doesn’t what you do say more about you than what you are called?
Sure. But shouldn’t what you’re called jive with what you do? There should be no disconnect.
No.
I am the president of my company. My name is on the company, so a title is somewhat meaningless, unless you are not paying attention to the name of the company. Early on, with my first client, the client started to call me “the force multiplier”, for when I showed up to work with him or his staff their output increased by a X factor or the time to get to goal was cut in half or more. It wasn’t that I inspired them, but I knew what they had to do to get it done and led them on the path. On my last set of business cards I used the title “Force Multiplier” and have been questioned by some people what it means. That let’s me tell the story. I have had a few negative comments, but found through the conversation that those people would never hire a consultant anyway, or had an ego that stunted their progress.
So, is the title a strange one? Sure. But is it accurate for the effect I have upon my client operations? Yes. Is it better than another title that a client gave me, “Business Healer”? I think so, though that last one is accurate for what I do to.
OMG. Force Multiplier sounds crazy.
Yes, but your paycheck and enjoyment are important too…I would trade a wacky title for these 2 things. One issue today is title inflation, your local bank manager is a vice president or sr. vice president (good for them), some company’s have analysts as directors and vice versa…so titles can be deceiving. I think what you do and where you do it is the most telling…
M
The local bank manager title inflation came from the old banking laws & regs. You had to be an officer of the bank to sign off on various legal documents & paperwork.
Banks are worse than insurance companies that way.
When it came time to spread my wings and leave my first job, I had to do some title adjustments on my resume. I functioned as an office manager although I was considered “Administrative Assistant” . It wasn’t until I turned “Administrative Assistant” into “Office Manager” on my resume did I get a job offer to the next step. When I was hired as “Office Manager” at the next job, I began to function as an Operations Manager. (This is because I can’t be stopped! I take on more and more and grow every chance I get!) Now I know to market myself as an Operations Manager going forward. Thus far, it has worked wonders. I am now interviewing for the right positions with the right responsibilities with room for challenge, and most importantly, the right salary range.
I think title adjustments are fine!
Meg, ideally yes it would. However, there is a world of difference on a resume between “Receptionist” and “Administrative Office Manager.” In my case, which do you think is my actual job title, and which reflects the things I do on a daily basis? Most people see receptionist and think of answering phones and sorting mail. I do those things, but I do countless other administrative and office management tasks.
So, on my resume, do I put my actual title, or do I put what it is I do? You’ll get three dozen different opinions if you ask a dozen recruiters or hiring managers. You’ll even hear some people who say “your past job titles don’t reflect what we’re looking for” even though the actual experience listed does match perfectly. Is it right? Of course not. But when looking through hundreds of resumes and applications, I suppose shortcuts have to be taken.
At any rate, that’s why they matter. And quite frankly from a personal ego perspective, would you rather be an receptionist or an administrative office manager? Honestly, I’d pick the latter. Maybe that’s my ego talking, but it’s the truth.
It all does come down to ego. That’s pretty much the underlying force multiplier in HR.
Several years ago the company I worked for when through a goofy title phase. All the marketing people became Demand Creation Experts. After many snide comments from customers, management came to their senses and went back to normal titles.
Thank god.
I agree with some of the comments here. The more interesting your job title, the more opportunities you have to start a conversation.
It leads to “so, what do you do”?
A flat title might look great on a resume or on LinkedIn, but as a business owner who goes to a lot of networking events, I’ve had a lot of fun, lengthy conversations about my title.
Those conversations, to me, are more valuable than the opinion of someone who happens upon my business card or LinkedIn profile.
Totally respect this POV but I’m a chick with a budget. I need marketing work done. Am I working with a farmer? I don’t know. I just don’t know.
Good points, Laurie. Great post, as always.
A unique job title may come across as immature, fun, and quirky at the same time.
If it makes someone curious enough about who the person with the wacky title is or what they do for a living, it’s effectively marketing their organization without paying for it. In effect, HR is delivering business value without even trying!
This is of course coming from someone who may know someone with a wacky job title….
LOL, you know that guy with a crazy title???
@Meg – What you do does say more than what you’re called to those you interact with directly. But to the customer, other departments and managers your title is a guidepost of who you are within the organization.
Laurie is right, titles matter both internally and externally. They can also help in the recruitment process because candidate will understand immediately what the job pertains to and at what level it is.
Thanks, Jennifer!
And this is why I love your blog. You are spot on with this topic. I see the process piece of managing people all interwoven into some easy to understand system. All too often it is not. Job titles reflect the job description, the compensation is tied to the job, all of these come together to recruit the right person, etc. I am a firm believer that titles in almost all cases should reflect what job surveys use. Obviously this isn’t always the case especially in the R&D areas. It is okay to have a ceramisist or a propultion engineer. However, I am soooo frustrated with people that have job titles that confuse the organization as to there role. We had a Web Master…. in most places this person this is someone dealing with a website but ours qualified leads taken through the internet. Another favorite…. Financial Planning & Operations Accounting Controller, what is that? If I saw that on a resume I am more likely to turn to one that offers me an idea of their level of contribution to the organization. One very large company I worked for had a list of titles and they were the choices for your official title but your business card could differ. For example, the official title might be software engineer but the card may say .net programmer. I think they had it right since it simplified the administration and offered the employee something they felt good about or a title that is better understood by the customer. Truck drivers should be truck drivers, not freight relocation specialists.
The real downer is that every title that is “invented” creates some administrative, non value added work in the HR department. It is up to us to help stop the insanity. When we see the management of people as a process and an associated cost, it is up to us to lean it out, show the value created and suddenly we are considered something more than the lowly HR department. Great topic Laurie and would love to do a protracted rant but I will spare you….
OMG your last paragraph is so spot on. Love that.
Amen! What’s worse than crazy job titles? None at all. Worked for a company that wouldn’t allow the HR team to use their titles. It was their culture, they said, “we are not about titles here”. That was correct. They were about choas and confusion, a whole lot of double work and red tape. No one knew who to go to or who had the experience level to help them appropriately, that is except for the AVP and HR Director. They proudly used their titles. ;0) A good time was had by all!
What? That is dumb.
I’m a sucker for wacky titles. I love anything whimsical. When I worked for Amazon we called technical project leads “2 Pizza Team Leads” for a while, because the CEO read a business book that declared that teams shouldn’t so large that they couldn’t be fed by 2 large pizzas. Oh the joys of explaining that. As a dog ran under my homemade door desk.
Then there is Yahoo, where engineers have the simple title “Technical Yahoo.” (That title actually had some competitive advantage…it was harder for other companies to find and recruit away engineers.) The Yahoo CEO — when I was there — was the “Chief Yahoo”. Which was fun and wacky, until he started acting like a …Yahoo.
At Starbucks, titles aren’t capitalized. Everyone wants to correct your bio. But I like the subtle message that it sent. Also, my business cards were printed in Braille. That was cool.
Love the braille. Kind of love the yahoos just because it’s cute — but OMG no thanks on the lowercase.
What you call yourself within an organisation is up to you/the powers that be. I’ve known people be given grandiose yet meaningless titles just to appease them when they didn’t get a raise or a bonus or whatever. However, when you’re communicating with the outside world, for instance recruiting, it’s essential that the job title is industry recognised and actually means something to all who might read it. On a lesser note, it also makes a difference when people go tinkering with titles carte blanche across an organisation. I once joined a company as a ‘Group Account Director’, only to have my title changed somewhere down the line to ‘Relationship Manager’. It wasn’t a demotion, just a change of policy to collectively position everyone who was involved in client service person collectively, but it felt a bit weird, this sudden attempt to create a level playing field. Oh well, you live and learn!
So true.
I’m all for simplicity, I’m a minimalist in all things HR, if we have to have job titles, then they should just be descriptive, like, “Team Manager, Sweetie Making” or “Sweetie Maker”.
I haven’t got a job title in line with my minimalist HR orientation, but it might be fun to be “Chief of Provocation”. Not sure it would go so well on my business cards.
That is a funny title and perfect for this blog!
Job titles – check!
But if we are talking about maturity and misplaced priorities in a business, what about those “super hero business cards”? Do you know the ones I am talking about? I’m all about creative business cards, but I could never really warm to those. (And if I remember correctly, they also come with silly job titles.)
I don’t know those cards. I’ll google them later!
I once had an employee, the Director of Marketing Communications, who insisted on changing her title to Director of Marketing and Communications. Not exactly the same thing.
Hmm… wonder if she was channeling Dwight?
Yes. She was.
I agree with this of course. Ambivalence to title is career limitation but being title obsessed also looks terrible. Using lack of title as a crutch to suck is bad but not acknowledging that organizations are arranged in such a way for a reason is also misguided. And while a boring or outdated title may not move your career forward, certainly a wacky title can stand in the ways of other opportunities too.
The theme if you didn’t catch it is being smart and reasonable about job titles. They matter to other people (people you work with, people you might want to work with). Get over it.
How could you not? We share a brain.
I think I agree that a ridiculous job title can back fire and make you look like a doucebag frat boy. But I learned a different lesson about titles during my entrepreneurial stint.
I had some grumblings going on about why certain people got VP titles and others did not. I was pretty frustrated with the bullshit because it was in the middle of the post 9/11 economic meltdown, and why anyone who still had a job be worrying about titles, I will never know.
Anyway – I decided to go with a “No Title” policy. It lasted less than a year because it just did not work. People need to know where the stand in the company in relation to other employees, as well as the external market. Not getting titles right can destroy your business.
People need titles. Check. Agree.
Couldn’t agree more. I’m on a work team right now, and our sole purpose is to widdle down the amount of job titles in our company.
So, is this the Widdle Work Team? (sorry, couldn’t resist)
Haha! All I could hear in my head was a little tune from the Seven Dwarfs “Widdle While You Work”.
Love it.
whittle?
Great post, Laurie. I recently changed mine again and I feel like it better represents me and what I do.
Here is my four year job title development at Cool Works ….
Director of West Coast Operations
Employer Support and Community Manager
HR/Recruiting Specialist and Cool Works Pied Piper’ess
I’ll say that it was kind of cool to be a “director,” but we all were directors when I joined Cool Works four years ago, and honestly, I spent more time explaining that job title than the time it was worth. When I moved to the second one, it helped explain what I actually did, a good thing. And now, my title hits on the critical points of what I do and shows some personality. We’re a small, but mighty, team of five, and our success and I think our clients’ interest in us has to do with our image and who we are. We’re real people, with really interesting life stories, and to have a little fun with our titles works well for our job/recruiting niche. If I wanted to be more serious, I’d probably keep the HR/Recruiting part and add Community Manager back in, but what the heck. If I get to be a Pied Piper’ess, so be it.
Congrats on the promotion!
Thanks, Ms. L.
like so many other things in the wack world of HR, scale is critical.
if you work at Yahoo! you have the scale to be titled whatever. If you are the president of a small organization, no worries if you force multiply.
but if you work at a midsized firm, a hospital, a college, etc. then clear, standard titles are important for the reasons Laurie identified. If you work at an airline, it could even be safety-critical information…..
my favorite personally held title was “Conceptual Artist” (1985-1997). People would ask me about my work, and I would say “I’m doing it right now” !
Conceptual artist? No. But funny.
Laurie, I don’t think I can overestimate the adolescent crush that I had on Lauren Tewes in the late 70s. Hubba hubba!
Oh. God. No.
Sorry, Laurie, it’s true!
I agree with you, and it reminds me of the the scene in “The Social Network” where Zuckerberg put “I’m the CEO, Bitch” on his biz card!
Hahahahah, yes.
I agree. Job titles should be clear, concise, DESCRIPTIVE, and without gratuitous embellishment. Even at the low-end jobs I worked during college I noticed tendencies to embellish titles to give the employees some false sense of accomplishment (it’s ridiculous to call janitors “maintenance engineers”). Adults don’t need fancy titles, they need good feedback and some job security in exchange for their work.
And a paycheck.
Ah, yes, that pesky little detail!
So although one is officially and ‘intern, receptionist, or janitor,’ one’s official duties can also encompass a range of tasks that would not be understood under such titles. If you can figure out a way to be more descriptive, clever, and self-promoting without being deceptive or lame, I say good for you. Why not add value to an otherwise less-than-valuable title.
Hm!
Agreed that your job can be bigger than a title.
And then when you’re HR, nobody outside of HR knows what the crap your title means.
I remember telling the person who ordered business cards (Marketing) that my title was HR Generalist. “Well, that’s a stupid title.” So then I spent more time than necessary explaining to people that HR Generalist is actually a real HR title.
But if I could get away with putting Borg Queen on any internal documents, I’d totally do it.
I’m with you. That does kind of rock.
Have over the years had numerous conversations about job titles. I just cant stand the titles that are there for trying to boost the ego if the employee, so I often end up with the most boring title around me.
that is perfect. boring works.
Borg queen, I love it.
Companies that leave job titles off business cards in some misbegotten show of equality are just full of it! Let ‘em sing Kumbaya at lunch and tell me who’s what.
yes to this.
We leave titles off of business cards in an effort to conserve paper and cut down on cost. Business cards are becoming much less useful in our digital world and aren’t used up as reorganizations and title changes happen. Rather than throw them away and print new each time titles change, leaving them off provides a longer life for the card. Anyway, do you really need a title on the business card? Name, company, email, phone. That’s all I need. I can worry about title when I stalk you on Facebook or LinkedIn.
I’ve been dying to change my title to “Corporate Babysitter” for over 10 years now. Best description of my duties. Ever.
That would work.
I check out job listings to see what qualifications are being required for a person in my field. I work in web design, so staying current is paramount. If you don’t know what people are looking for, you can’t educate yourself on the tools and techniques that will keep you from becoming obsolete.
What I cannot stand to see in these job listings is anything that contains the words “Rock Star”, “Guru”, “Rainmaker” or anything like that. Come on, grow up. I’m not sure I want to work for a company like that. I get the feeling they’re a little too fist-bumpy and high-fivey, and they want to hire college kids for peanuts and work them to the ground.
Agreed. I really hate those self-aggrandizing titles. No, you’re not a Rock Star or a Guru. Rock Stars and Gurus have many adoring fans, use drugs and sleep with hot babes. You sell Software.
I once had a coworker who requested the title “Assman” and the President flipped out about it.
When I was younger, I took stock in the titles. Not these days. I’d rather have a title of insignificance. That way maybe people will expect less and I can slip out the back door to go play with my kids. I work to live, not live to work…anymore.
Laurie, spot on target.
In my 1st attempt to find a new job after I got married and my wife pointed out…often that it’s not a disgrace to make more money. When the going gets tough, the tough go shopping, so I went job shopping. I was aggressively team interviewed by a company for an IT job. I was a computer operator where I was, and that well described what I did..operate a computer. The interview HR team leader described the proposed job. I got the drift but when I asked what the title was, he forcefully pontificated his philosophy ” we don’t care about titles, you can call it Joe Shit the Ragman as far as I’m concerned. As long as you do the job your titile doesn’t matter. Even though I thought it was a stunning title, I wasn’t appealing to think of being called that, nor was it appealing to tell my wife if I took the job that henceforth she was Mrs Shit. Hell we weren’t married that long and she was still getting used to her new surname. I found another job, where they called me Computer Operator which is what I did. I never adopted Joe Shit etc in other jobs either, though I have to admit several times it did seem to well cover what I did or people thought of my role in an organization.
So I’m firmly in the camp of titles that clearly say what you do/did and advise job hunters to do so on their resumes regardless of what their previous companies called them. If you want to have fun with titles, and have stimulating reparte, you can always verbalize catchy subtitles, e.g. Manager of Misc. “If It Isn’t Engineering It’s Me” and of course Joe Shit The Ragman.
And hey, Force Multiplier…You could have also chosen “Hawthorne Effect” as that’s what was happening.
I’ve heard the “titles don’t matter” comment lots of times over the years & used to believe it. But you’ll find that when you’re hunting for a job….titles very definitely matter, and all weird ones will do is pretty much leave you unfound
My company is very small so I wear a lot of hats; I’m the Executive Assistant to the CEO, sometimes the Client Services Manager, HR/Payroll Manager, and most of the time Operations Manager. The title changes depending on the situation so clients, shareholders, vendors, and the like know who they’re dealing with.
I do have a completely insignificant internal title, but its just that.
Thanks, Teresa!
Interesting comments, however I would have to say that if your idea of maturity is the based on the misguided assumption that you have to play by the rules set by “professionally” correct handbook, then I feel sorry for you. If you can only create wealth and larger profits for shareholders by having a title that lacks creative ingenuity, you’d not only lose the job anyway, you’re sure to miss out on all life has to offer. I have enough respect for myself to enjoy the “unusual” side of life. It creates flavor. And I’m capable of having CEO’s and so on see the value in my employment as well.
Evelyn do you keep the crooked stick up there or do you put it in each morning?
I’m not sure you’re the right person to be espousing the benefits of “creating flavor”.
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