Job Titles by any other name

Have you noticed how difficult it can be for someone to describe what they do for a living these days? You don't have to manage anyone to be a manager. Many job titles are ambiguous. Many knowledge or information based jobs didn't exist 10 years ago.

There's a distinctly interpretive version of almost every job title. Even the classical professions of doctor or lawyer give rise to a follow up summary statement, if not a descriptive paragraph about what kind of doctor or lawyer.

Everyone, it seems, has to be a specialist. Accountants, tradespeople, managers, engineers, miners, boat-builders, nurses, pilots, athletes, actors, consultants, journalists, teachers, even aeronautical engineers and nuclear physicists and of course, IT professionals all have a significant bit of explaining to do about what they do for a living.

And these days, when we ask that question, we've come to expect a conversation, not just an answer.

A friend of mine recently asked me what title she should give to a new role she was looking to create in her organisation. The title, it seems, will help attract the right kind of candidate. "And it's a specialist senior role. I don't want just a regular [burger]," she explained.

Descriptive add-ons including Senior, Consultant, Specialist, Analyst, Coordinator are used to distinguish a role from that of a regular burger.

As a professional communicator with a background that includes sales, marketing and project management, it disturbs me that our job monikers have taken on such importance. It's all about branding, but when it comes to job titles, we are suffering from incurable brand confusion.

Being a sales person, sales executive, or sales assistant is an honourable job. Like every other profession, it can be done by dishonourable people. If you're in sales, don't call your job a consultant, analyst or "solution provider." Let's reclaim ordinary job titles, and if we need to be brand conscious, take responsibility for our own brand, the name on our driver's licence.

When in comes to job titles, we don't need spin. We need integrity.

Job Titles

Job Descriptions