What's In A Name?

How much do job titles matter, anyways? A Systems Administrator by any other name would do just as much work.

Think back, think of your most ridiculous title. Almost everyone can think of a title they've had (or seen) that was downright absurd, or had no relation whatsoever to the job's actual functions. Sometimes job titles are so vague as to be meaningless. Others are simply meaningless inflation, either to assuage workers in want of a raise or to mask the fact that there is no room for upward movement. It's not a rare occurrence that someone is "promoted" from Senior Director to Executive Director with no change in job responsibilities.

To stick with our first example, how many titles can you think of that apply to the maintenance and optimization of an office's computers? System Administrator, Network Administrator, LAN/WAN Administrator, Network Support... I'm sure you can think of more. While sometimes in very large organizations these can be different roles, most people who have these titles have near in-differentiable job responsibilities.

Confused about what your title might be if you were working at another organization? CompTIA has a TechCareer Compass to help IT folks narrow down just what title (most classically) applies to them, or discover the job functions that are most normally associated with a job title (no matter what you might actually be doing).

While this Compass can point you toward an apt title, it unfortunately can't direct you right to that next perfect job opportunity. Fortunately, that's where Comrise comes in. Happy job hunting!