What's in a name?

Depends on who you ask.

A Wizard is someone who possesses magical powers. Not to be confused with a Customer Service Wizard who's only power might be to hope that the 'rest of your day goes well'.

Weird job titles are everywhere, they are the reason you are surrounded by ninjas, gurus, wizards and rockstars. There is nothing fundamentally wrong in refreshing an old job title to sound exciting but many believe that taking it too far might actually be restricting applicants from these roles. I tend to agree and in my personal experience have on a few occasions stopped short of applying for jobs with strange sounding titles.

There is however a bigger debate about job titles in general which has been raging for a number of years - whether they are relevant at all anymore? Many pundits think not and there is no shortage of articles announcing their death altogether. While wierd titles is one reason, the phenomenon of title exaggeration is the other (you've probably noticed that the number of GMs, VPs and Senior Managers is at an all time high).

Whichever side of the debate you are on, there are a couple of things to keep in mind about titles -

• They become more relevant as you go up the ladder. There is a certain power and definiteness to being a CEO, CFO, Chairman, Partner, etc which is unlikely to dissipate any time soon.
  

• Despite the above, no matter where you find yourself on the ladder, titles can be imprecise and may not say too much about the job. I have personally held roles including 'Research Analyst', 'Commercial Analyst', and my personal vagueness favorite 'Pricing Corrections Leader', all of whom elicited the same response upon introduction - "So what is it that you do?". If you find yourself in that category, prepare and practice a 15 second pitch about what your job entails and use that to introduce yourself instead.

“Titles are to jobs what names are to people. Sure, it's who you are and your character that defines you but that does not make your name irrelevant.”

​Consider this: titles are to jobs what names are to people. Sure, it's who you are and your character that defines you but that does not make your name irrelevant. To that extent job titles will always remain an integral part of corporate life, defining company hierarchies and serious organisations and applicants alike using them as negotiating chips, much in the same way as they do salary.

Further reading -

https://www.fastcompany.com/40514090/your-weird-job-titles-are-making-you-miss-the-best-candidates

https://positivesharing.com/2007/12/who-cares-about-your-job-title-tell-me-what-you-do/