What's in a name?

Headnote

Job titles are becoming more creative, but why? Virginia Matthews investigates.

Last month, a weekly business publication ran a job ad for a "360-degree marketing manager". While the firm did not identify itself beyond saying that it was a "well-established force in healthcare", the notion of an everspinning manager is just the latest in a long line of highly-creative job titles to have hit the image-conscious marketing sector in the past five years. This trend for ever more creative job titles is called 'uptitling'.

With more than 150 different job titles, including 'b2c manager' (business to consumer), 'CRM executive' (customer relationship management), or 'marcoms director' (marketing communications), in regular use, marketing now has more official titles than any other UK sector, according to specialist recruitment agency Marketing Professionals UK.

"We have seen many examples of managers who manage no-one but themselves and marketing managers who, in reality, do no marketing whatsoever," says the firm's marketing director, Jenny Cainer.

"While the flashy job titles are a testament to the creativity of the marketing profession, they can make it very hard for HR people and company directors to hire the right person and can simply confuse jobseekers," she says.

Yet, the practice of creating glamorous new names for the same old jobs is by no means restricted to one particular industry, according to Jessica Jarvis, adviser to the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD).

"My favourite example of uptitling was the ad I saw earlier this year for a 'director of people and profits', which was presumably a grandiose alternative to the more standard title of director of HR. I must admit we all had a giggle over that one," she says.

So who comes up with the 'strategic communications adviser' or 'controller of internal resources' titles that we all love to hate? Who, in short, are the job snobs?

In Jarvis' view, job titles in retail, manufacturing or public service go in and out of fashion just as much as pop bands or kitchen designs. "The people who think up job titles are HR and senior management, and it's a process that rarely stands still," she says.

"Fuelled by American...