Reader Camilla is fed up with employers who ignore skilled candidates like her, just because they have low-key official titles. Our Jobs Guru James Innes is here with some advice
I’ve often wondered why recruiters seem to get so hung up on job titles. Surely what matters is what you’ve actually done, not whether your title happened to sound grand enough.
In my own case, I’ve had jobs where the title was fairly ordinary, but the work itself was actually quite ‘big’ – like my current role.
But I can’t shake the feeling that people see the title first, make up their minds in a split second and never really look properly at what the role actually entails.
Camilla, Birmingham
Well, there’s not exactly a question here, Camilla, but, yes, I agree with your statement! There’s a lot of truth in it… job titles do carry far too much weight. They shouldn’t, perhaps, but they do.
Part of the reason is simply that they are quick and easy. A recruiter sees a title and thinks, “Right, I’ve got a rough idea what this person is.” That may be unfair – but it happens all the time.
You can be doing a far bigger job than your title suggests, especially in smaller companies, family businesses, etc. ‘Coordinator’, ‘Officer’, ‘Administrator’, ‘Manager’… Those words can hide all sorts. One person may have a modest title and be carrying half the business on their back. Another may have a splendid-sounding title – and be doing next to nothing!
If your title undersells you, you do need to deal with it. Don’t sit there hoping the recruiter will somehow work it out for themselves. Spell out the scale of your role – team size, budgets, decisions, projects, whatever helps to sell you.
Don’t let your job title do all the talking for you!
Top Tip:
If your job title sounds smaller than your actual job, don’t fiddle with the title itself unless you can really justify it. Just make sure you explain the real scope of the role very clearly.
Spotlight On: Job Titles
This catches people out more than you might think. Some employers are very good at handing out underpowered titles.
They expect people to do senior work for middling pay and with middling labels attached. It saves them money – and flatters the ego of the person above them. Then, years later, the employee goes out to the job market and discovers that the title on the CV is working against them.
Any decent recruiter really should look beyond job titles. But many don’t!
So if your job title is a poor reflection of your real level, don’t leave it sitting there unexplained as if it tells the whole story.
Get a head start in your job hunt with James’ new book, The Job You’ve Always Wanted – out now from Pearson at £16.99.
Our Jobs Guru, James Innes, is a best-selling careers author and founder of the world’s leading group of professional CV and resume writers .