Rant: Modern job titles

Modern job titles provide absolutely zero insight into what someone does for a living.

I recently looked at Linkedin, the job website.

I have no idea what a Global Neuro-diversity Strategist is, or what an Engagements and Alternatives Lead does. This is despite this website’s supposedly informing people about these things. If you are ‘managing a Freelance Executive Director portfolio’, what exactly are you doing on a Wednesday morning?

I have to ponder why employers nowadays feel the need to give job roles grandiose and unnecessarily convoluted titles. It’s as if they are trying to convince each role-holder of their unique importance. Not only is it an exercise in ego massage; it also screams of insecurity and actually confuses people.

My own workplace is not excluded from this. For some bewildering reason, the complaints department is known as the Client Services Team, and Human Resources has been rebranded as the People Team.

Now nobody has any inkling who deals with complaints, or to whom to speak if they have a gripe to raise. Even the finance department has got in on the act, albeit halfheartedly, calling themselves Financial Solutions.

The best jobs, those that garner the most respect in this world, are the ones with titles that instantly tell you what someone does.

Policeman. Doctor. Soldier. Usually one or two words in length, the names of jobs that people should aspire to provide immediate recognition and appreciation of that person’s profession.

Paramedic. Author. Plumber. These are jobs with the sort of community standing and longevity a Head of Customer Journey Insight can only dream of.

At what stage did most of the world’s professions get so vapid and boring that we had to start trussing them up with unnecessarily wordy titles? No one ever grew up wanting to be a Senior Creditor Liaison Policy Officer.

I should know. I am one. ADAM BURGESS