To think job titles have become very complicated

[user1485342611]

I was watching an old episode of a quiz from the 1980s and when the contestants were asked what they did for a living I understood immediately what their jobs were: an electrician, a librarian, a nurse and an chef.

Nowadays, on programmes like Location or Eggheads I haven't a clue half the time what the participants do: 'A customer service analyst', 'a retail designer', 'a systems co-ordinator'.

Nope. No idea. What do you actually do?

AIBU to wish we could do away with these silly job titles?

I have a friend who is a business account manager. She works on a cosmetics counter in Boots.

I had this conversation with a friend just the other day, job titles are becoming ridiculous.
It came up as I'd recently been to a party, where I got talking to someone that told me they were a automobile technician, after asking him what he actually does, I soon realised he was in fact just an bog standard mechanic. Not that there's anything wrong with being a regular old mechanic, I just don't get why he had to give it a fancy name

I think job titles have changed due to a mixture of inflating egos and people wanting to sound a bigger deal than they actually are, and also I've known of companies making a position person redundant and then a couple of months later advertising vacancy for a new job title with pretty much identical requirements, but at a much lower paid rate.

semester I work in marketing, how senior are you? Job titles in this field are extremely straight forward in most agencies (I’m guessing you’re in house?)

It goes:
Assistant - Executive - account manager - account Director - head of - Accociate Director - Managing director - CEO.

So depending on your seniority, the bit you need to work out is what the first part of your title is. For example, I’m head of digital marketing because I oversee digital marketing operations for the business and my seniority is dictated by the fact I report into the accociate director and am the most senior person in the digital marketing department.

You seem to do all aspects of marketing both on and offline and web dev which still slots into marketing. I think looking at your scope you’re probably the only person in the marketing department, so I would go with (drum roll)

Marketing Director.

Tadaaaaaaah

summer the place I worked with the over inflated titles it came from management (by which I mean the bosses not the work experience kids with managerial titles). They didn't give pay rises for years but tried to placate the masses by making it sound like you had had a promotion.

It’s come about because we’re a services based economy now. Although ‘chef’ ‘mechanic’ ‘barber’ all still exist as jobs, a whole world of new jobs have been invented as new technology has appeared.

20 years ago my entire industry (digital marketing) didn’t exist, so it’s still very young and is only now really settling down on the titles front. There’s a hierarchy of titles which most places do use to indicate what level someone is at, but what a digital marketing executive does in my agency could be the equivalent of a manager or an assistant elsewhere iyswim.

My favourite job title I ever saw was ‘head of the unicorn factory’, which was actually the head of the training department

At Google, there used to be a guy who’s job title Was ‘jolly good fellow’, and it was his job to make everyone happy. That was literally his whole job. It stretched to socials, office environment, fun days etc etc. Perfect job title!

I assume this will only get worse because Millennials need big titles now without having to work hard for them to feel good about themselves and to signal to others.

blueshoes piss off. I’m 27 so technically a millennial and I’ve worked my ass off in my career to get where I am. I’ve gone from an assistant to head of a department in 5 years because I’m shit hot at what I do and incredibly dedicated. I haven’t met anyone from my generation who’s not been happy to work hard for what they have and not a single one has ever challenged me on a job title.

The only issues I’ve ever had have been with older staff members kicking off at my promotions every single time I’ve moved up a step and trying to pull me back down, because they’re unhappy someone younger than them is now their boss and think that length of service equals aptitude. THAT’S entitlement. Every promotion I’ve had I’ve applied for just like they have and been the better candidate on the day, it’s nothing to do with me ‘needing validation’.

I understand what you mean, sometimes tho its a companies way of making the job title sound more posher & attractive to potential candidates, eg a cleaner becomes a hygiene operative

I met a guy who told me he worked in “soft services” for a large corporation. Turns out he was a cleaner! But apparently that’s what they called their department.

Years ago, looking through the internal job vacancies, you'd see 'marketing executive' and a salary of £10k. I thought it was a misprint.
I believe part of it is because everyone is expected to have a degree (or similar) to do any job now (since the big push to get more people to uni). So companies don't have an 'admin officer' but a 'business support coordinator' or whatever. Staff can sound important but still be on the lower end of the pay scale.

I have a technical job (and job title) that didn't exist in the 80s or 90s, because the technology didn't exist. Times change, requirements change, language changes. You don't see a lot of ads for maltmen or coopers in the situations vacant columns these days.

Just because a job didn't exist 20 years ago doesn't mean that it needs a complicated title. Whoever invents these titles wants them to sound better than they are, that is the true reason for these pompous and incomprehensible titles.

I used to be a Senior Training and Assessment Consultant

I was just a good old fashioned NVQ assessor

TheOriginalEmu
YANBU. And on a sort of, but not really, related note; I bloody hate when a job is described as a ‘role’. You’re not doing Am Dram, stop it.

Oh I agree, and I also hate the term 'customer facing'.

^Just because a job didn't exist 20 years ago doesn't mean that it needs a complicated title. Whoever invents these titles wants them to sound better than they are, that is the true reason for these pompous and incomprehensible titles.*

OK so what do you call someone who's a scrum master or QA lead or service designer, or a product owner - these jobs didn't exist 20 years ago, but these tell me exactly what that person does.

When I worked in a car dealership recently it struck me how original job titles had changed-

Car salesman/saleswoman- 'sales executive'
Mechanic- 'technician'
Receptionist- 'service advisor'

Lol. When I started out in FM I was known as the Stationery Overlord. My colleague was also known as Head of Labelling. Obvs informal but it was a bit funny.

I once received an email from someone whose job title was something like Customer Experience and Journey Agent.

I keep seeing Managers of Change around and can’t work out what it is exactly that they do? Is it project management?

banana
Give us an idea what those people do .

OK so what do you call someone who's a scrum master or QA lead or service designer, or a product owner - these jobs didn't exist 20 years ago, but these tell me exactly what that person does.
Not heard of 'scrum master' before so googled - sounds like a team leader/manager in an IT (?) environment - is that correct?

Yup, and it is off-putting to job hunters because you look at it and believe that it's some specialist thing that you couldn't do.

I used to work for a company that insisted on advertising such convoluted job titles. They had so few applicants and wouldn't listen to reason as to why that might be.

I'll never forget a bloke chatting me up many years ago and when I asked him what he did he said 'high altitude tubular technician' and clarified he meant scaffolder! I thought it was hilarious

it is off-putting to job hunters because you look at it and believe that it's some specialist thing that you couldn't do.

Perhaps, though the same situation would reward anyone who did a bit of googling research to work out what it might mean and simultaneously weed out some of the people who might not be suitable.

The really confusing thing in my organisation is that in the UK, a coordinator is below my level, whereas in the US a coordinator is senior to me. When I first started at my current job I got very confused about who was allowed to boss me around reporting lines

YANBU OP.

One of the employees at my place of work has been doing the same job for 23 years. They've recently changed his job title. He's now the Buildings Maintenance Operative. He still prefers his old job title - Caretaker.

Perhaps, though the same situation would reward anyone who did a bit of googling research to work out what it might mean and simultaneously weed out some of the people who might not be suitable.

I was about to comment this. Off-putting to job hunters?

Surely they can't be that serious about the job if they can't Google it.

banana
Give us an idea what those people do .

It's all roles in digital product design and development. For example, teams who make the websites and apps that let you do your online shopping, or online banking.

Scrum master - delivery manager who's trained in a very specific methodology for software development. They're not a team leader, because they don't lead a team. They're not a project manager, because Scrum is about self-organising teams, and it means they've got experience in working with agile methodology and have scrum certification.

A job description that says team leader means nothing, that could be anything! If you work in digital development then you want to know if it's a delivery role or a scrum role, or a management role, all very very different functions.

Product owner - the link between the development team and the business; they define what the service the team are designing and building needs to do. It has a specific function within agile teams - again, it's a very different role to a business analyst, and very very different to a project manager.

QA means quality assurance - they test and debug products and services to make sure they does what they're supposed to do before being deployed. They don't do the coding, they don't do the designing, they don't do the product or project management. You could call this a software tester, except that they might well not be testing software. So again, if you work in QA, you need to know what kind of IT job it actually is.

If they're on pointless, sure, they could just say 'I work in IT'. But doesn't help with job descriptions if you're looking for a job!

Just because someone outside the industry doesn't know what these mean, doesn't mean they aren't valuable descriptors.