It’s ironic because it’s in lower case! Get it?! Hahaha!
Ahem.
I need a new title at work. I changed teams and expanded my role, and my current title – which utterly lacks any kind of flair – no longer quite fits. Since I made up that title, I figure I should make up a new one to properly cover all my many many bases – but what to call myself?
My business cards currently state that I am the Technical Trainer and Documentation Specialist of my company. This is incredibly boring, and only a small portion of what I do – I’m also in charge of building our corporate intranet, planning company events, keeping morale up, and any other random project that falls into my lap. I work for the People and Culture team – it’s like HR with party hats – and I can’t for the life of me think of a suitable title for my position that I could actually get away with having in my signature and on business cards.
I was a unique entity when I started this job three years ago, and I’m still unique – no one else does what I do. My job has changed so much in the last while that we’re going to be re-writing my job description in the new year so we can price me at fair market value (yay raise!) .. but I have no idea what we’d call me.
So naturally, I turn to the internet.
Give what I outlined above, what title would you give me? And please, nothing with “Administration” in the title. I’m not admin, goddamnit. Yes, there is some baggage there.
“Fucking Awesome”
I’m sure they’d go for it.
My stodgy, lame and boring answer is to figure out which major component of your job has the highest paying potential titles, and pick that.
Does technical documentation pay more than HR? Go with something that reflects more of the docs stuff and leave the HR stuff to the job description.
I use about 4 titles interchangeably in my email signature, depending on the context of any given situation. But the one on my “official” file and on my business cards is the one I’m compensated on and what I’d want to be known for on my resume in the future.
And now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go finish some TPS reports. Right after I take my afternoon metamucil and yell at some kids to get off my lawn.
Any direct reports? (i.e.: Do you manage any people?)
You work for a single company or branch of a major corp?
You deal hardware, software, both?
Deal with future planning/project work?
Are at the company level, not in a department?
http://www5.hrsdc.gc.ca/NOC/English/NOC/2006/OccupationIndex.aspx
http://www.workingincanada.gc.ca/report-eng.do?action=display_allnoc
Kimli L. Wangzilla
Coordinator – Documentation, Team Building and Special Projects