It may have started in Silicon Valley, but companies around the world are using more creative job titles. Here are some cutting-edge titles that may inspire you when completing your next performance appraisal.
Innovation Sherpa – Consultants at Microsoft who help people figure out how to come up with new ideas and meet unarticulated needs.
Swiss Army Knife – A Jill-of-all-trades, typically in a startup. The person whose only job descriptions is “all other duties as assigned” because they don’t have enough employees to cover every role.
Wizard of Lightbulb Moments – Actual duties include marketing, innovation and being a founder. Independent contractors may market themselves with this title, usually in the tech sector.
Happiness Hero – Vague enough, it could entail a number of things, but typically is assigned to those working in customer service.
Money Maestro – (Sometimes called Chief Bean Counter) is the title for the accounting manager. It is definitely a role of orchestration.
Paranoid-in-Chief – The people who work on cybersecurity at Yahoo! are called the Paranoids. Thus, the head of cybersecurity naturally gets to be Paranoid-in-Chief.
Problem Wrangler – This title can apply to an IT professional, a PR representative or even a mediation coach. It’s also appropriate for an executive or an administrative assistant.
Dean of Pizza – Pizza Hut trains employees at the Pizza Hut Academy; you can’t be in charge of an academy without being a dean.
All kidding aside, whatever your job title, it should describe the work you do. According to Glassdoor, there are five rules for effective job titles:
- Be specific
- Avoid abbreviations and acronyms
- Make it easy for candidates outside your company to understand
- Avoid superlatives or idiomatic phrases
- Leave out extraneous information
The road is easier together,
