In the current economic climate and with competition in the jobs market becoming ever tougher, some people have resorted to using imaginative and creative job descriptions to help them take the next step on the career ladder.
This trend has been seen most clearly on LinkedIn, an online portal where people can ‘connect’ with colleagues and friends and then in turn with these people’s contacts and grow their business network. This will then enable them to use these new contacts to explore employment or business opportunities. Below we look at the 10 strangest job titles that can be found on LinkedIn and question whether using one of these is really the best way to further your career.
1. Digital Overlord. This person is someone who works in IT and sees themselves as something of a guru.
2. Wizard of Light Bulb Moments. A great ideas person.
3. Retail Jedi. Someone who considers themselves to be a great salesperson.
4. Creator of Happiness. Less of a job description and more a description of the type of person you would be employing.
5. Change Magician. Someone who could turn your business around, or who at least thinks they could.
6. Chief Chatter. Good talker and someone who is probably in telesales.
7. Dream Alchemist. This one is very unclear so employers would be likely to think the same.
8. Direct Mail Demi-God. A direct marketing professional.
9. Chief Biscuit Dunker. Someone who is good at making the tea. Not sure if this would be enough to get them the job.
10. Accounting Ninja. A good accountant.
Problems for Employers
Attributing ‘proper’ descriptions to those job titles and descriptions was very difficult so spare a thought for potential employers who would probably be equally baffled when confronted with a job title such as ‘Chief Biscuit Dunker’. There is no doubt that the increase in use of social media for networking and looking for work opportunities is partly responsible for this. Sites such as LinkedIn hold the details of many thousands of people so if you have a profile then you need to make yourself stand out from the crowd. However, the last thing you want is for prospective employers to not take you seriously because you could miss out on some great opportunities.
Many businesses use sites such as LinkedIn to do research on prospective employees and business contacts so using an unclear or ‘informal’ job title or description might not be the most appropriate thing to do. Potential employers and employees both need to be wary of using or relying on such strange descriptions as both could end up dissatisfied with the outcome of any new working arrangement. If you find yourself in difficulties at work for this or other reasons it’s important to get employment advice now.
Using unique and novel ways to describe your role may not be the most obvious way of furthering your career but it will certainly get people talking about you and the job that you do, or even the job they think you do!