Job title

A job title is a designation of a particular position within an organization and is usually associated with a job description detailing the duties and responsibilities involved.

The etymology of the word "Job" from the term Jobbe of Job is uncertain. Possibly from a variant of Middle English gobbe ("mass, mass"). Alternatively, it may be related to Middle English jobben (“poke, poke, peck”) or Middle English chop (“piece, act”). Gob, jab, chop and more. A common etymology linked the word to Job, a biblical figure who suffered many misfortunes. For the semantic development of misery and work, the vulgar Latin *tripalium ("instrument of torture") and Roman languages such as Spanish trabajo and French trabeil (hence adopted into English trabeil) Compare descendants.

The word ``title is derived from Middle English title, title, Old English title (``title, headline, headline) and Latin title (``title, inscription). Tilde, titer/titer, titlo, tittle, titulus doublet.

what are job titles used for?

Most companies use job titles to indicate an employee's position within the company. An average organizational hierarchy typically consists of six positions, listed from high to low.

1. Chief Executive Officer (CEO)
2. Vice President
3. Director
4. Manager
5. Individual employee
6. Career entry

(Kim, Lim 2001, p. 32)

Each position represents a specific task and position within the company, and each position also has certain powers. To help you better understand what a job title is, what it means, and why it exists, here are explanations of six of the most common job titles, listed from highest to lowest. (Decorte, Van Hautte 2021, p. 6)

Chief Executive Officer (CEO)

At the top of the job hierarchy are executives. The CEO (Chief Executive Officer) typically oversees all other individuals holding C-level positions and oversees the president, if one exists. In some cases (usually during transition periods) the CEO may report to both the Board and the Executive Chairman.

Vice President, Director and Manager

Under the C suite, most organizations use the traditional VP, director, and manager tiers. Where:

• VP leads directors
• Directors leads managers
• Managers leads individual contributors

In turns each job title has a higher rank in the hyrarchie and solves problems from a bigger perspective. the managers can solve problems into the very little details, therefore this hyrarchie exists.

Individual Contributor (IC) job titles

Individual Contributor (IC) positions often represent the largest group within an organization. IC positions vary by department and often include qualifiers such as:

• Representative (e.g. sales)
• Professional (e.g. marketing specialist)
• Analyst (e.g. IT analyst)
• Coordinator (e.g. HR coordinator)
• Administrator (e.g. database administrator)
• Generalist (e.g. human resources generalist)
• Consultants (e.g. information security consultant)
• Associate (e.g. sales associate)
• Technician (e.g. network technician)
• Agent (e.g. customer care agent)

Entry-level job titles

Entry-level positions in large companies may be associated with internship/training/apprenticeship programs. Examples:

• Interns (e.g. IT intern, legal team intern)
• Trainees (e.g. financial advisor trainee, underwriter trainee)
• Apprentices (e.g. engineer apprentice, sales apprentice)
• Assistants (e.g. sales sssistant)

Smaller businesses often lack such entry programs and may skip such entry titles entirely. Instead, each contributor's job title can be used as the entry title (eg, Marketer, HR Generalist, Sales Representative, etc.).

How long should a job title be?

According to How Long a job title should be, employers looking to optimize the length of a job title to attract candidates can follow these three tips.

• 1-3 words
• 10-20 characters
• Less than 60 characters (because Google, Bing, and other search engines truncate them)

Location, symbol ($, !, *), your company name , and whether it is full-time or part-time (Kim, Lim 2001, p. 32)

Do you capitalize job titles?

Titles stand out, but should they be capitalized? It depends on how you use them. Writing in a professional setting may require the job title to be capitalized. Depending on the type of communication you're writing, you should follow a style guide.

The most popular style guides are in written documents or digitized in places like LinkedIn profiles and job listings.

• Job description - "Global Director of Talent Acquisition"
• E-mail signature - "Barry Hart, Head of Human Resources"
• cover letter - "applicing for a brand manager position" Manager…”
• CV - “Senior Recruiter, September 2022 – Present”

(Kim, Lim 2001, p. 32)

References

• Decorte J. J, Van Hautte J. (2021).Understanding Job Titles through Skills Ghent university.
• Javed F, McNair M, Jacob F, Zhao M (2015). Towards a Job Title Classification System. CareerBuilder.com.
• Le Q & Mikolov T . (2014). Distributed Representations of Sentences and Documents Google Inc.
• White J, Stafford J & Beaver J. (2019). A Comparison of Job Titles versus Job Action Statements University of North Alabama.

Author: Aron van der Putten