One thing I’ve learned after almost 30 years in the working world is how much I appreciate it when I interact with someone in HR who truly grasps the nuances between job roles. This article hammers home how difficult that can be for hiring in IT.
What has your experience been around hiring, applying, and navigating your career with respect to job title confusion?
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Anyone who has ever tried to use LinkedIn to find a new job will know that you need to have alerts set for about 6 different job titles in order to find something that is approaching accurate… and even then it’s pot luck as to whether the rest of your requirements are catered for.
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Too true, and even then you are lucky to get accurate responses.
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My job title changed at my work and my duties stayed the same.
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tim-smith
(Tim-Smith)
5
I have had these titles:
- System Technician (I & II)
- Business System Analyst
- Network Admin
For this job:
Seriously, all of them involved managing switches/networks (LAN, WAN and VPN), servers, users (both supporting and CRDU operations in AD), and even some things that are only “IT” related because they have a power cord and buttons (eg, TVs and electric desks).
Edit:
I do find some irony that in an article about differentiating IT titles, you use the blanket term “Software Development” and go on to say “Software developers design computer applications or programs, while QA analysts test and report defects in the code that runs them.” A programmer will make a piece of the whole project (eg, a function that multiplies two passed values together). The developer will make the whole project (eg, a calculator app), and a software engineer will oversee the entire lifecycle (how its installed/deployed, memory consumption, underlying language, etc).
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When times are good, they give you a raise.
When times are bad, they give you a title.
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egp_dave
(egp_dave)
7
I don’t even know what my current job title is.
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I think that means you can just make one up. 
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In many orgs, you totally can. There might be a back-end system that HR uses to track the hierarchy, but in some cases you can make your outward title whatever you want on site profiles, etc.
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I started off in a small corporate office in 2007 as “IT” that was it…we did everything, all of us. We were system admins, network admins, support/helpdesk, ERP support, security, mainframe/database admins, you name it…I especially loved handling server and network infrastructure…fast forward 15 years, the company had grown so much (and moved…) that we all became a number on some spreadsheet so when I started creating the admin accounts for the internal jobs I was asking for (and being told “we don’t have any open positions”) I knew it was time to go…so I jumped when a recruiter told me about a network admin job…turns out it was a Windows System Admin position with a little bit of networking and a whole lot of manager over my shoulder…oh well…two-ish years later, I’m somewhere else and a manager! Never thought I’d see the day when I got a chance to manage! But, I love the new challenges that come with that role. IT job titles are all over the place, but in the end what matters is do you fit the assigned role and can you manage scope-creep?
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very similar the other way round.
when our team wants HR to open job offerings, it takes quite a while until they can match the requirements of the position to the fancy-name-of-the-day.
and I guess everyone here enjoys (from time to time) to chuckle while browsing job offerings.
HR is in most of the cases unable to pinpoint the requirements, as they have not understood these in the first place. 20 years old with 30 years hands-on experience and all that stuff…
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egp_dave
(egp_dave)
12
When I was in US Navy Boot Camp, the troublemaker was known as “The Company Bug.” I should call myself that.
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shnool
(SHNOOL)
13
I was once asked what I wanted my title to be.
I responded with “Computer Guru.”
I was shot down.
These days I am “Director IT Network and Security.” Feels like I’m doing the same thing I was doing when I was the “mismanager” sorry “MIS Manager.”
Lots more people, direction of infrastructure, planning, etc., but I am still very technical. Sadly I seem to never get past the technical, despite also being a very successful with people management, and big picture planning.
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My title is Network Administrator, but it’s much more than that…closer to IT Director.
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