On Job Titles and Responsibility

I'll admit it; I have invented job titles for myself. However, in my defense I'll note that I either (a) gave myself a job title that more accurately depicted my role (I was once hired as a recruiter but quickly became an HR rep - it seemed natural to not the proper description of my duties); or, (b) was in a job without a title and needed to put something in my email signature (and when I appropriated "Operations Manager" for this role, my boss was completely on board).


Further, I have never adopted a title for the purpose of self-aggrandizement. However, I have known people who have.

In a past job, I had a senior staff member quickly attach the word "Manager" to his duties once a junior employee (me) was in the fold. Thus, the "Senior Recruiter" became "Recruitment Manager". Soon, he started adding roles and the "Recruitment Manager" became the "Recruitment and Proposal Manager". When he temporarily filled the role of a departed Branch Manager, the title "Interim Branch Manager" quickly came from his lips when he would speak to someone. I recently noticed on his LinkedIn profile that he had added "Human Resources Manager" to his list of titles at that job. This was news to me (and kind of funny, as when we had a complaint filled with the labour board from a former employee, I was the one who took care of it).

Also at this job, we had a sales person. The title sales person, account manager or account executive was never employed, though. She quickly adopted "Business Development Manager. To be fair, although this was never her official role, the owner told her to use it when dealing with clients; it made her sound more important, apparently. One shouldn't note that we had no other sales team and no official Business Development strategy, so what she managed, I'll never know.

Quickly, though, this title seeped into her identity. She became quick to throw it around, and started behaving as part of a management team with the "Human Resources Manager". Granted, she was the most junior employee, hadn't earned the respect she coveted (or even a sale of her own) and, most significantly, was vested with no such authority by the owner. Nonetheless, she was "Business Development Manager".

(Add to this, we had a bookkeeper who was tasked with the duties of an office manager, read: she placed orders for office supplies. She quickly got enamoured with being the "Office Manager"... to the point that she didn't seem think bookkeeping was a primary duty. Our year end financial reports - not too mention monthly payroll - were a testament to that. Yeah, it was a healthy work environment at that place.)

I have absolutely no problem with people seeking designations that most accurately reflect the work that they do. If they have a senior role (in more ways than just tenure), then recognition in the form a title seems appropriate. We all have egos. And occasionally, they all need to be fed, if only a little. Whatever, that's fine. That's human.

Issues arise when people get enamoured with titles. In the examples I have given, we are not witnessing people who had adopted titles to accurately reflect what it was they did. The Interim Branch Manager and Business Development Manager were more interested in holding the titles than executing the duties. In the end, we had more phony titles than we had clients, and that's no way for a business to survive.

So, what's my point? I'm not eschewing the use of titles, and I'm not even suggesting that wanting a nice title is bad. I'm just suggesting that it's best not to get too hung up on them. Do not fixate on your title. The more important it is for you to be something, the less important it will be for you to do something.

And if you find yourself working with people who seem to enamoured with their title, watch out. These people are unlikely to be beneficial to the health of your career or your employment.