What’s in a Job Title? More Than You Might Think

December is always a good time to reflect, and one thing that’s come up again and again this year is job titles. They sound simple enough, but from an HR and recruitment perspective, they’re surprisingly powerful and occasionally problematic.

From an HR standpoint, job titles serve several purposes. They help define seniority, accountability, pay benchmarking, and progression. They also play a huge role in how people perceive themselves and how they’re perceived by the market. Studies consistently show that job titles influence everything from candidate attraction to employee motivation, even when the role itself hasn’t changed.

And yet… we still get them wrong. A lot.

When policy gets in the way of talent

I worked with a client recently a large, international consultancy who had a very clear internal policy: they would not recruit anyone at Director level.

Candidates could only join as Associate Director, and then, once they had “proven themselves”, they’d be put forward for promotion internally.

On paper, I understand the thinking. It protects existing team members, manages internal politics, and ensures consistency. But in reality? It became a barrier.

They missed out on some exceptional candidates who had already reached Director level, were operating comfortably at that level, and simply were not prepared to take a step backwards. And fair enough. A job title isn’t just ego it represents responsibility, credibility, and often years of hard-earned experience. For those candidates, it was a full stop.

Title inflation the other end of the scale

On the flip side, I also see the opposite problem.

There are businesses out there handing out senior titles willy-nilly to attract people through the door. I’ve seen “Directors” on £50,000 with nowhere near the level of experience, autonomy or capability that would usually be expected at that level.

This can be just as damaging.

From an HR perspective, inflated titles can:

Raise unrealistic expectations internally Blur reporting lines and accountability Make pay benchmarking almost impossible And crucially… limit future career moves

Candidates can find themselves “over-titled and under-experienced”, which makes moving to another organisation extremely difficult without taking a perceived step backwards.

Some interesting HR facts around job titles

Many organisations use job titles as a retention tool, especially when salary budgets are tight but titles without substance rarely retain people for long. Job titles significantly affect external marketability. Recruiters (and hiring managers) will often benchmark candidates based on title before even reading the detail. Inconsistent titling across businesses is one of the biggest causes of misaligned salary expectations at interview stage. Internally, unclear or inflated titles can stall progression if someone is already a “Director”, where do they go next?

Getting the balance right

Getting job titles and levels right is a difficult balancing act. There’s no one-size-fits-all answer. But it is vitally important to take the time to do it properly.

The best businesses I work with:

Align titles clearly to responsibility, capability and scope, not just tenure Are flexible enough to recognise genuinely senior hires when they come along And think carefully about how a title will serve someone not just today, but in five years’ time

Because when it comes to job titles, getting it wrong doesn’t just affect one hire it can ripple through teams, careers and entire organisations.

Food for thought as we head into the new year…