Job Titles

I enjoy this topic and continue to chat about it with friends and colleagues, so I decided it is time to write about it.

unfortunately wherever you are in this world your social standing is tied very well with your career of choice. I am not here to debate it, it is a fact that in the eyes of others, you are what you do, it is a shame, but I am not going into much details on this, nor am I going into details about the missed opportunities that this cultural thinking make you miss. I am going to talk about the job title itself, the effects and what REALLY matters -outside the cultural aspect- when it comes to your career.

First of all, let us define a Job Title: 

A job title is a 2-4 word description of a position held by an employee, and is usually used by employers to categorize positions in their organization.

Now the job title is usually what you use whilst searching for a job, but an important thing needs to accompany it, a job description. A job description gets into much more details on the actual job.

Why does it even matter?

Regardless of my opinion on this matter, the reality is, it does, at least to the vast majority of people. It is what I like to call a psychological relaxant, it makes people think and believe that they are important. I know travel agencies that give away the titles of “Key Account Manager” to employees handling the corporate bookings -no matter what size of “corporate” they have-, and I believe that would be considered as a job title inflation!!! As it has similar ramifications, but I have to say that it looks fancy on a CV.

On the other side, some companies are deflating their employees when giving them a very small job title and a very heavy workload. (I am only comparing the amount of work to the job title).

The Bottom Line!

It is my personal belief that Job Titles doesn’t matter, and I have categorized the four main criteria:

• Responsibilities and Accountability:

Some people want more, some people want less, at the end of the day what matters is, does your job have what you are looking for?

• Authority:

 It is in most human nature, they want to have authorities, whether it is over people, actions or anything for that matter.

• Training and Development:

 This is usually a need for the younger generation, because –usually– when someone nears retirement they are less likely to be open for new learning experiences.

• $alary (Compensation & Benefits):

I was a bit hesitant to include this, but let us face the truth, a title doesn’t really matter, as long as it is accompanied by a big fat salary.

Please share your thoughts below.