I have always considered myself a public relations and communications professional by trade. I am passionate about story telling. As the owner of a company this passion can be a challenge to convey to potential clients that are solution oriented. To this end I have been careful to find ways to engage a conversation about the benefits of story telling in business.
So I ask the question: how to convey creativity and culture through a job title?
Recently Mashable published a post about Should Your Job Title Be More Creative?
I’m sorry, but if you have a business that you want to be taken seriously, you don’t hire someone as a Chief Playtime Officer for $100K a year. It sounds like a kindergarten monitor.
The fear is that super trendy titles are terrible and dated. I agree that this is a real problem and one that we often face; however, our company has adopted non-standard titles for our organization as a way to convey culture and skills. As a small agency, everyone understands their role in the team and occasionally those “lines” are blurred by project or implementation. By having unique titles we have established our primary roles to the company and to the client it appears to be a more unified team approach.
The flip side is that we also have established “backup” titles for principle and executive management roles communicating the association of our creative titles when needed in a traditional scenario. The key for this balance is to look at the point of the title verses style or ego in choosing how to describe a position and personality within the organization.
The catch is that we are defining our role and personalities in the market, while a job seeker is often looking to fill a role. To this end, if you are seeking to game an algorithm for pushing a resume to potential job opportunities it is best to use a more generic title definition. A good rule of thumb: is if you have your eyes set on a more progressive company, then a list of edgy previous titles may just catch the recruiter’s eye, but make sure that you are submitting to that company.
So is this approach appropriate for everyone? I don’t think so, yet I believe this tactic has worked in a positive manner for us.
Comments are closed.