Here’s an industry secret: job titles are meaningless
Corporations teach an unusual life lesson
I have never worked for the KKK.
…
And yet, at one point one of my coworkers at a tech company was literally listed in the directory with a job title that included “Wizard”
This discovery ultimately led me to the realization that this whimsical labeling reflected something about the corporate world that it doesn’t advertise, but is undeniable:
Job titles are all made up, and most are not policed.
Yes, yes… You need a degree to call yourself certain kinds of doctor, and pretending to be police will get you arrested by the police.
But other than some specific cases, you can find a stunning variety of job titles that cover essentially the same skills. Differences in industry, corporate language, and practitioner communities inevitably lead to changes in how people are labeled, and label themselves. The responsibilities required of people shift as society and technology progress and job titles have to keep up, leading to some interesting combinations, permutations, and novelties.
Why job titles exist
Job titles serve a few functions. In terms of utility, they help job seekers and organizations (who want to hire them) a way to communicate and find each other. Job descriptions and interviews help make this process more accurate, but job titles are the first line of marketing. They’re the cover of the book that is the job.
The second function is more personal; many people use job titles as a badge, proof of some aspect of their identity. The badge is for flashing to their professional network, but also occasionally as a personal measuring stick to track how far that individual has come. You’ve heard the stories.
“Jennifer started as an intern, but then climbed the ladder to be VP of operations”
This second use of job titles leads to some interesting patterns. On the worker side you’ll see people doing these things:
- Seeking out specific titles because of some imagined meaning behind it
- Setting career goals based on a desired title progression
- Limiting their career planning to a small subset of job titles
On the organizational side, you see different oddities:
- Hiring for job titles they don’t understand or need because their competitors are doing it
- Assigning and/or rewarding employees with titles that don’t match their responsibilities
- Allowing some employees to “create their own” career path and title
On a related note, job LEVELS don’t have a universal meaning either. Imagine you look at three different resumes and all of them currently boast the title “Senior Director of Technological Development” If one of them works at a 10-person startup, another works at a government agency, and the third person works at Apple, there is no universe in which these three people have the same day to day responsibilities, credibility, or value on the job market.
What does this mean for me?
All of this is to say that job titles don’t matter as much as you might think they do. And you might be thinking about them in a way that is limiting your potential. If you approach jobs like they are a universal constant to which you have to conform yourself, you will always be limiting yourself.
Here are some tips for exploring a new career path, or even continuing down the one you’re already on:
- Focus on the skills and actions: The things that a job requires you to DO are the most easily understood and accurate reflection of what your life is going to be like in that role. Ignore the marketing, and focus on the details that truly impact your life.
- Broaden your view: Consider different career options that leverage your abilities and include similar activities, but with a different job title or in a different sector. Search jobs by skills and keywords, look for people with similar backgrounds and different titles, and mingle more with whoever “your people” are to learn about the different lives they lead.
- Start with you: A lot of people search for a job or try to build a career starting by thinking about what kind of job they want. This means the first thing that pops into their mind is some sort of idealized job title that they might not know a lot about. Instead, you should start by thinking about what kind of life you want to live, and then let the job titles (which may change year to year) sort themselves out as you figure out which careers fit YOU, not the other way around.
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