Carl Bradford

Job titles, or what some call “role titling”, can often improve the chances of attracting, retaining and rewarding top performers, especially when resources and bonus pools are underfunded as many are in today’s economy.

You don’t believe it?

Actually, a survey by Peal Meyer & Partners just surveyed 388 companies that indicated job titles are more important in times like these; i.e. times of economic stress.

The survey delt with issues such as “formal job titles” as well as a secondary title that is more specific to a particular individual’s responsibility.  The survey also reported that this seems to apply less so to senior levels of management where consistency is considered more critical.

So what are some ramifications of all of this?

For one, having a title on your business card that is specifically representative of what your role is, can be beneficial even though the official company records might have a more formal and generic job title.

For example, let’s say your official title is Engineering Fellow (usually meaning you have deep engineering subject matter expertise in a specific discipline) and your role is specifically leading the R&D initiative for new fuel cell technology.  In that case a business card and correspondence title that reflected this role would become much clearer to everyone.  For example it might read, Manager Fuel Cell Technology Development or Director Fuel Cell R&D.

This same rule also is true for titles on resumes.

Job titles often cause confusion for readers of resumes.  Recruiters and hiring managers who read resumes often let the job titles influence whether or not they’re interested enough to pursue an interview.  They often make generic, unfounded assumptions about an individual just by the choice of job titles they include on their resume.

An individual should always be truthful when creating their resume but also be practical at the same time.  If your official job title is Accountant III, but your role is really the lead cost accountant for your group, then say so.  Show your title as Lead Cost Accountant.

The intent here isn’t to deceive, but to communicate.

And for you recruiters and hiring managers, stop reading so much into job titles.  I agree that sometimes a job title can be accurate in indicating the size and scope of a person’s current or past role, but this isn’t always the case.

Take time instead to actually have a phone discussion with someone who has the right background and get the real facts on size and scope of current/past roles and find out just what the person wants in their next role.

Far too many hiring decisions are based on “reading the tea leaves” of resume content.