Job titles don't define us, and yet...
We're working in an archaic model of hiring, career navigation, and defining who we are and the value we bring. What we actually do brings the impact, not what it's 'called'.
We talk a lot to job seekers, those looking to transition into other industries, and people currently happily either in consulting, freelancing, or full-time employment and they all have one thing they agree on:
Job titles don’t accurately define what they do or the value they bring.
We’ve been talking to:
Project Managers
C-level executives
Product professionals
Recruiters
Business Owners
Entrepreneurs
These people have moved mountains with their work, building teams, companies, and innovating everyday. And yet when someone asks them what they do, just using their job title sells them short.
If they try to explain what they do, the higher the level in their career the more they focus on the impact and value they bring.
But people still focus on the job title.
Why is this broken?
Our definitions are all different
One person’s definition of a role can be very different from another’s, and organizations and candidates both spend an inordinate amount of time trying to identify if a given role is a fit for the skills and abilities needed by the company and those possessed by someone.
You can be a ‘Marketing Director or VP’ in a Marketing department of one or ‘Marketing Manager’ doing the same work in a large company on a team of ten.
You can be a CEO of a multi-national corporation and never touch or consider how the company is truly knit together, or a CEO of a small company and do everything from run the profit and loss, to hiring, to Sales, to taking out the garbage after meetings.
The title you have and what you actually do is very highly dependent on your company, industry, and other factors.
Our systems are setup for traffic, churn, and inequality, not value
A lot of job boards run their matching and searches off of job title, not skills, so here’s what happens:
Job seekers see jobs that don’t fit, but the system says they do
People apply for these jobs
People think they are a fit for these job titles, so they go find more
Companies get 1,000 resumes for one job
AI systems are built to do the ‘first pass’ on these resumes based on job title, and maybe some skills. They rely on keywords and rigid criteria rather than a nuanced understanding of skills, further entrenching biases and reinforcing inequality.
A very small percentage of people actually fit the need, under 10% is not uncommon
Recruiters don’t get enough candidates, the hiring manager wants more to compare (or company standards require it)
Recruiters repost the role to get more candidates, because they need more to show a hiring manager
Job seekers see the role reposted and begin distrusting the system
Job seekers sign up for AI to help them mass apply for more roles
Job scams emerge into the noise, knowing that people will apply either with AI or out of desperation, these scammers use/sell their data all over the place, build up their hopes, and foster further distrust in the system
Recruiters get even more resumes than before
Recruiters post more jobs to try to define and tune the need
Recruiters start to burn out and get overwhelmed
Job seekers start to get burned out, frustrated, and overwhelmed while being out of work for months, even a year or more.
And we go back to the start.
That entire scenario above is real life right now, the system is just churning through information, failing both candidates and companies alike.
Candidates are blaming recruiters and companies, recruiters are blaming candidates. But it’s the system that is setting up everyone for failure.
We rely heavily on titles to define us, and they fail
Talking recently to someone trying to show their value as a Operations Management professional, we had to think through how to show off those skills on a resume, and on LinkedIn, while still be truthful to the title. Because if someone calls to get a reference from the HR department, they will ask what title a person had. If that doesn’t match up it’s a problem.
So how does one show the true value they bring across departments doing Operations Management level work with an Operations Coordinator title?
Recruiters scan quickly and look at the title someone had, and the dates. They’ll spend their first seconds doing that then go into the real details. Due to the volume they are dealing with, they have no choice but to do this quickly. They are drowning.
On average, a recruiter spend less than 7 seconds on a resume, scanning it for fit, before having to move on.
At a cursory glance it either doesn’t match the title they want, they will pass on the candidate, even if the skills are absolutely there and sharp for what they need.
Humans like to label things, but what if we labeled things in a different way for those that don’t fit into the easy bucket?
There are some people fortunate enough to say what their job title is and people immediately know. To some extent, the roles that have persisted for hundreds of years are easy to but in that zone - doctors and lawyers are a great example. But they also have extreme fields of discipline. Would you go to a cardiologist for an issue with your vision? There are clear specialties, words that came from an ancient language (Latin). They been written in stone. Newer titles aren’t in our long-term understanding.
It feels like something Monty Python would have covered. What’s a business analyst in Rome?
But what about data scientists, project managers, anyone with ‘consultant’ in the title, civil servant, or user interface designers?
If your parents or grandparents have a hard time understanding and explaining what you do, you are probably in this bucket.
This bucket is huge. Hi, welcome in, we’ll gladly make room.
Not saying we need to get rid of job titles, but what if we were able to better surface the great skills we have, validate the level of those skills with our peers, and show them off in a different way so no matter the title people can see what we really bring to the table?
What happens when titles shift again, and new focuses are needed? There will be new skills to add but there are some core skills across that will remain.
It seems like it would be better to show our value by addressing the skills that we bring and how we apply them.
We believe this will help to surface true talent, paths for growth, and position us better for whatever might come.
On average, workers can expect that two-fifths (39%) of their existing skill sets will be transformed or become outdated over the 2025-2030 period.
Clearly, we need a better foundation to shift upon. Less focus on the label, and more on the contents.
Skill gaps are categorically considered the biggest barrier to business transformation by Future of Jobs Survey respondents, with 63% of employers identifying skill gaps as a major barrier over the 2025- 2030 period.
85% of employers plan to prioritize upskilling their workforce
70% of employers expect to hire staff with new skills
40% planning to reduce staff as their skills become less relevant
50% planning to transition staff from declining to growing roles
What does this mean? If we focus too much on the title, the skills can get lost, and people left behind.
Given the numbers above that means employers, and more importantly, individuals, need to understand what they bring as a foundation, so they can shift the label as needed.
This system is excluding many diverse groups
Skills and abilities acquired in non-work related areas, such as activities, volunteering, or familiar caregiving, often are missed entirely even though they often provide skills highly relevant to a workplace.
People are fostering skills helping the world be a better place, supporting communities and families, and giving of themselves. Yet they are being punished for it by it not ‘counting’ enough.
This dynamic results in highly skilled people being passed over, and people hired into organizations frequently do not match the needed skillsets for a given challenge.
These systems and focuses fail to adequately recognize the diverse skill sets that candidates bring from non-traditional backgrounds, which not only hinders economic growth but also disproportionately impacts gender equality. Women and marginalized groups, who are frequently involved in non-traditional roles, are unfairly excluded from employment opportunities, perpetuating existing disparities and failing to recognize the full potential of available talent.
We’re at the start of building something better
We want to help people understand the value they bring through the real-world work they do.
We’re building a system that will:
be individual-centric: data owned and managed by the individual, not walled in by an organization to be lost when jobs shift
reduce the noise and churn of non-validated claims of success
match companies to people who fit the skills they need
match people to mentors and mentees looking to grow and share knowledge
validate and elevate the real-life work that solves problems
help build habits to log the work you do behind the bullet points on your resume so you know how you solve, what went into it, and how to better tell your amazing stories of success
Want to join us on this path to build something better? Remove the BS and the fluff? Articulate the value you bring to the world quickly at holiday dinners so you can dig into the potatoes or nail an elevator pitch to that perfect client or future manager?
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Even better? Subscribe to our paid plan to show that you feel something needs to change, needs to be built, and that you want to unlock pre-launch pricing at $5 a month forever once we launch.
Let’s push for something better and make our own rules, define our own selves and get out of this cycle.