Does your job title bother you?

[Grumpylate20s]

I don't know if anyone feels the same.

I enjoy my job, its fulfilling, enjoyable and challenging. However I work in a specialised industry where I feel my title undermines what I do for a living. What I do is so much more than what my job title suggests...

Ive spoke to management about changing one word and they just laugh it off, at the moment I feel a bit under appreciated.

Yes, mine pisses me off

Started as X, then organisational changes led to being called a Y then a Z

I was recently called an administrator (after a BSc and an MSc - working in a very specific field) which has really put a massive downer on the way I feel towards work

I get what you mean.

For the job I do I feel my title doesn't really cover it as it implies more of an admin assistant type role but it's way more

To try and explain.....Say that my manager is called X Manager (X being the area of the business that we deal with), I'm called " X Manager's Assistant" whereas I actually feel that I'm more of an "Assistant X Manager IYSWIM.

As long as my salary recognises what I do I couldn’t care less! Technically I could add Senior or Specialist XXX under my name on an email but I don’t. But then I feel acknowledge and respected in my work so doing so would just feel like vanity to me.

I hate my job title. It used to be X, a profession in its own right, now it’s Jr Y. It’s not a feeder role, so there’s absolutely no hope of progressing to Y. In an organisation where junior roles are expected to progress to the full role within a year, it’s extremely embarrassing to still be a junior after so many years. It’s one of the reasons we haemorrhage staff.

@SnarkyBag

As long as my salary recognises what I do I couldn’t care less! Technically I could add Senior or Specialist XXX under my name on an email but I don’t. But then I feel acknowledge and respected in my work so doing so would just feel like vanity to me.

I sort of agree but when it comes to moving jobs, it’s useful to have a correct job title on your CV.

As long as my salary recognises what I do I couldn’t care less!

My thoughts exactly. Plus the detail of a role on a CV comes from listing the duties and responsibilities surely?
One person's sales rep is someone else's account manager, for example...

I really don't care what my job title is. I have demonstrated this a couple of times, when a whole team were each offered a job title upgrade or a salary increase. I go for the salary increase every time.

If your work is good, you will make the right contacts. I have come across enough people with fancy titles who are not much good to have no attachment to the title.

Make sure you have a good 'elevator pitch' about what you do, what value you add. Then, you can go for the money every time. It's how we keep score. 😀

@Wanttocry fair point I guess depending where you work. I don’t think it would matter particularly in my role as the description of my experience and length of time qualified would probably be fine.

Yes,mine does. I'm classed as a support assistant in a SN school but I do everything a TA does,except lead the class if the teacher is off. But I am more than capable of doing that as well.
Ok,I don't have the qualifications of a TA but I do the same, if not more than one.

Yes that would piss me off. My old title was coordinator which was a bit insulting to the actual role, to be fair.

Does anyone set much store by job titles? They are often incomprehensible anyway. It works the other way - people being given grand job titles, which everyone knows are a fiction, rather than a pay rise.

Yes it does. My old job title is known worldwide and the new one is rubbish and demeans what I do although it’s the same job

I didn't think I cared until they changed everyone's job titles. Now I have a generic administrator title but that doesn't reflect my role at all

I never thought a job title mattered so long as I was paid the going rate but it was one of the many reasons I went for early retirement.

After a departmental restructure I lost the 'senior'. Same pay, slightly different job but it bothered me!

I can never remember mine I have to open my email to check my signature

No, I love it as it’s one that impresses people a bit ( and I earned it ) 😀

My job title annoys me because 3 of us on the team have the exact same title but we all do different things. I have also been acting as a senior to the other 2 but I'm still classed as an "assistant".
I spoke to my manager about it and they are "working on it" apparently 🤷🏻‍♀️

I wouldn't have been so bothered but another team member got a brand new job title that was never announced, just was suddenly changed on her email signature.

Yes, I hate it. There is no actual upper level in my role but the title sounds junior (when it isn't) but if I were to look for a new job today, my current salary would price me out of the market at the level of my title.

Since we're facing redundancy, it's frustrating.

It matters, which is why there's been so much job title inflation over the last 30 years.

The same job at the organisation I used to work for has been (in date order)

Manager's clerk
Manager's assistant
Corporate officer
Assistant Manager
Portfolio Manager

In fact by the time I left the, only people still using manager in a job title were really very junior, they certainly weren't managing anyone. The actual managers were called either Director or Executive.

It mattered to Dwight!

My employer sensibly asked if I was happy with my job title or if I wanted it to be different. I do not understand employers who won't change job titles. It is no skin of their nose.

Yes! Someone put me down as an administrative assistant recently. I was fuming. A massive fuck you to the work I actually do. Yes I am an administrator but the sole one for one of the most important departments in the business. Without me literally the business would not function for staff the way it does. An "assistant" to me is someone who would assist the main administrator. I think it was to put me in my place.

It didn’t matter to me until I started looking for jobs. It looked like I was trying to take a step up, when in fact I’d been working at the level for years.

At my old place ‘manager’ was reserved for people in department head roles. So you were either an Assistant or Executive no matter how senior you were. In wider industry they are both quite junior titles.
Where I currently work, everyone is a manager.
Years ago I worked with woman who just started calling herself a Director. She just fronted it out and nobody ever challenged her.

Mine is pretty much incomprehensible to anyone outside of HR, and I wouldn't put it on my CV - I put what I actually do.

There are rules about managers and firestorm and how many people they have reporting to them, but I think people mostly don't care, unless they have something that needs to be signed off by at least director.

One of many reasons I decided to go self employed. My title is now The Boss.
Or consultant
Or company director 😂