can my resume list a different title than my real one?

by Alison Green on March 31, 2025

A reader writes:

For some reason — largely due to how bad the job market currently is for replaceable lifelong individual contributors — I’ve been following one of those quasi-influencer recruiter types on LinkedIn for a little while. Some of his advice is decent, and at the very least he pokes fun of all the problems with job-seeking in 2025. But this appeared on my LinkedIn feed just now:

“Your job title matters. If your company gave you an internal title that no one understands, tweak it to something more industry-standard. Just keep it accurate…don’t inflate it. Your resume should be clear to an outsider, not just your past company.”

Wouldn’t this just open a candidate up to confusion at best during a reference check? Personally my own title is definitely more grandiose in name than in practice, but if I changed “ABC” to something more accurate like “XYZ” in order to get a new role and then they called my current manager to ask whether I was in fact XYZ, surely that would raise questions with the potential new employer about my trustworthiness and accuracy.

Interested to hear whether my suspicion was right or if I’m wildly off-base here!

Well, yes and no.

It’s true that you want to avoid problems where a prospective employer verifies your title during a reference check or background check and discovers it’s wrong.

It’s also true that it’s important for your resume to convey what your role really was, and some titles really don’t do a good job of that.

For example, let’s say you have a vague title like Analyst Level 1. One easy solution to that is to list your correct title but then a more explanatory one in parentheses immediately following it, like this:

Taco Institute, Analyst Level 1 (Taco Strategy Coordinator)

Or you could even do that in reverse:

Taco Institute, Taco Strategy Coordinator (Analyst Level 1)

That way, it’s clear what your job was but you won’t look like you were being misleading if they confirm it. (That assumes that the bulk of your work really is taco strategy, of course. Your descriptive title needs to be accurate.)

But let’s say you left out Analyst Level 1 entirely, and that came up in a background check. It’s not guaranteed that it would disqualify you; they might be perfectly capable of figuring out that the work is indeed the work of a taco strategy coordinator, and there might be no issues with moving forward. But it also might not go that way, and it’s better not to introduce the possibility of problems.

What you definitely can’t do is to give yourself a promotion. If your title is Taco Strategy Coordinator, you can’t list yourself as Director of Taco Strategy, even if you’re working at a director level and believe your title should have reflected that all along. However, in that case, you’d make very sure that the other info you list for that job makes clear the level you were working at.

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{ 118 comments }

{ 118 comments… read them below }

  1. Brandon*

    “Wouldn’t this just open a candidate up to confusion at best during a reference check?”

    I am often not sure where to go with questions like this, because the parameters required for the questions to be true are not. Job titles are not consistent across all companies.

    1. Bitte Meddler*

      I think they mean, “When the reference checker calls my current/old company and says, ‘I’d like to verify Brandon’s employment with you as a Taco Strategy Coordinator,” and the person on the other end says, “What? We don’t have any roles with that title.”

        1. AnotherOne*

          I imagine it depends on the job and what they do. I have a coworker, who just randomly made himself a senior llama groomer on his email signature (and presumably his linkedin.)

          he did eventually get that actual promotion, but our joint boss’s response was ‘well, that’s cheaper than actually paying him more’ and just let it go.

          it’s also possible he got this idea from another coworker whose brother apparently did a version of this successfully at a job. he created a job title. put it on his email. and essentially convinced everyone it was his job to the point that eventually it actually became his job, pay and all.

          note: i don’t suggest doing that.

      2. Don't You Call Me Lady*

        Yes but then wouldn’t the next question be, “Ok, well did Brandon work there, and what was his title?”

        Then when they tell you he was a Teapot Analyst 1 or whatever you can ask about that, but it really doesn’t seem like a big issue

        1. Resident Catholicville, U.S.A.*

          I feel like this is one of those issues that comes up in really large companies where there are layers between the employee and the HR/high level contact and someone might not recognize a name off the bat. I’ve primarily worked at small companies and if I’ve been used as a reference, there’s only one person there with that name and the title doesn’t matter. Or if they gave themselves a different title, I’d just chuckle at the difference and go on with it.

        2. QuiteQuiteContrary*

          Um, no. In my industry, there wouldn’t be a next question. It would be “wow he lied about his role” and they’d move on to the next candidate. Alison’s examples are spot on.

          1. Don't You Call Me Lady*

            I don’t know about your industry but in most that I’ve worked in you’re not checking job history until you have made an offer. You’d really just move on to the next candidate without even some clarifying questions?

            1. STEM Admin*

              You would probably be surprised at the frequency people lie to interviewers, but it’s distressingly common. After being burned a few times, I would be one who would absolutely move on to the next candidate rather than take time to sort out the truth. Especially if I had other solid candidates, but possibly even if I didn’t. It’s just too big of a mess when you ignore the red flags.

              1. Don't You Call Me Lady*

                Maybe I was lucky then. Several years ago I was in the background check stage for a job and the recruiter called me to say that one of my previous companies said that I worked there at a different time and in a different role than I actually did. Not sure why, some kind of error/glitch on their end

                I was able to get in touch with a recruiter who I still knew at the old company to let them know and they were able to clarify with the new job’s recruiting team and I was hired.

                This was for a Director level role in tech at a 2500 person company.

        3. Tio*

          ok so maybe they do find Brandon and say he’s a Taco Analyst actually. Now you don’t know what he did. Why did he “lie”? It’s a Taco Analyst better or worse than a Taco Strategy Coordinator? plenty of companies would just assume you lied to inflate your title and be done with that candidate.

          1. Don't You Call Me Lady*

            That sounds terrible – typically you are checking candidates references when they’ve been given or are about to be given an offer.

            If companies can’t even ask a couple of follow up questions about people they are at the offer stage with and presumably have spent a lot of time and energy on, they deserve all the karma they get from bad hiring

            1. notabene*

              I don’t understand why companies wait until after they’ve made an offer to do a background check

              1. Rainy*

                Laziness. They don’t think of it as something that will result in valuable information about the candidate, they think of it as a box to tick in the hiring process, so why wouldn’t you do it at the very end so you just have to do one?

          2. Rainy*

            My formal title at my last job was the equivalent of “Elephant Services Professional,” exactly the same formal title as basically everyone else in my office who wasn’t either a director or a receptionist. So no, I didn’t put that on my resume, I used my descriptive title. We all had one to distinguish what we actually did, but if you would have asked HR we were all Elephant Services Professionals. Even though I actually worked with elephant *shrews*.

            1. Emmet Dash*

              I worked in higher ed and everyone used working titles like “system administrator” because our real titles were opaque things like “Information Systems Analyst 3.” In fact I was gently admonished once early on for putting my official title in my email signature.

    2. Antilles*

      Job titles are famously inconsistent yes. I’ve mentioned this several times, but in my branch of engineering, “Staff Engineer” can represent literally any level in the hierarchy depending on company, from the most junior engineer in the building to a grizzled greybeard with decades of experience. And that’s before we even get into the mess of numbered titles, where Engineer IV could be either a higher or lower role than Engineer III and who knows how that compares to another company that has Senior Engineer I.
      But in the case of reference checks, it’s mostly about whether the reference checker asks about Jane’s time as “Taco Strategy Coordinator” and gets back a confused “uh, she was an analyst here”.

      1. MigraineMonth*

        I worked at an “egalitarian” company that had one level of “software developer”. You’re fresh out of college with zero experience? Software developer. You’ve been working at the company for 20 years and are the company-wide expert on 3 modules? Software developer. You could get merit raises but never promotions (unless the lone Systems Architect died and you got their role).

        Except to qualify for H1B1 visas they had to show they couldn’t find qualified applicants for a specific role, so they made up a way to rank us into Software Developer 1-4 for reporting purposes, then told us to never speak of our actual rank. Because… egalitarian, I guess?

      2. Sharpie*

        I keep seeing your name and thinking your job role is ‘starfighter pilot’ (as in, Wedge Antilles).

    3. JustMyImagination*

      Couldn’t this be solved by the resume vs application? It always feels like a waste entering the same info from your resume into the online application but on your resume you could list the descriptive and real title like Alison suggested but the online application you only list the actual title.

      1. Great Frogs of Literature*

        That makes a lot of assumptions about who’s looking at what, though. I’ve done reference checks, and I only ever look at resumes — I’m not sure I can even see the info in the ATS.

    4. Abe Froman*

      I have had this flagged on a background check before. My internal title was something no one outside the org would know the meaning of, so I did what Allison suggested Site Director (Llama Grooming Staff 1). I got notified that it was flagged and was able to provide an explanation, then got the job. I think it would have been fine anyway, but the fact that I had it on my resume that they had already seen probably helped reduce any notions of funny business.

      1. Lauren*

        A friend of mine worked at a start up and they changed her benign corporate-sounding title to “Ambassador of Wow.” *eyeroll* She put “Administrative Staff Support” or something similar as her title on her resume when she promptly started job hunting.

  2. Anonymous Interpreter with Confusing Job Title*

    I have this challenge. My job title includes a word with a different common meaning for people inside my field than those out – “interpreter”/”interpretation”. We mean, effectively, educator and tour guide at a historic site or natural area, but most people see that and assume “translator”, unless I’m applying for other jobs in my field. I’ve also got “coordinator/officer” (including the slash) in my role, and a number that indicates how high on the org chart I am. That’s helpful info for people in my organization as a shorthand for level of responsibility, but is confusing to people outside of it, even in the same field, because everyone has different kinds of org charts and position groups and levels. So I usually do what Alison suggested – I use my real title (especially when applying on internal roles at other sites) but then include a clearer, plain language title in brackets. E.g., “Bilingual Interpretation Coordinator/Officer III (Interpretation Team Supervisor)” for jobs that are in my field, or “Bilingual Interpretation Coordinator/Officer III (Team Supervisor, Educational Programs)”.

    1. Kazelle*

      As someone whose job title was once “Interpretation Officer”, I would totally understand what you do! I totally understand the potential confusion though, and think you have a great plain language approach. I currently have a confusing word in my current (non-interpretation) job title, and anticipate having to explain my role in future job interviews. Fortunately, I’m in government and will likely stay here for the rest of my career, and they are often used to weird titles and look more at classifications to help determine level. (That can be a problem in itself.)

      1. workswitholdstuff*

        Within that context, I too would understand. But then heritage is niche.

        I ‘worked with collections’ and have had some entertaining contacts from Linked in before I point out it has a completely different meaning in our sector…

        I agree that Anonymous Interpreter with Confusing Job Title* approach is a good one – and what I did when going through restructures. (I eventually was able to stay put in a new role, but had to apply to others just in case in the meantime)

  3. Snarkus Aurelius*

    I worked for a lobbyist at one of my first jobs. The original title was Federal Government Affairs Assistant. I can’t tell you how many times people, including my family, thought I was an actual assistant. (You don’t want me as one!)

    When I started job hunting, I couldn’t get interviews for anything unless it was an assistant position despite my resume bullets explaining my daily work. My female name probably didn’t help my case either.

    A coworker suggested I change “assistant” to “associate,” and, to quote Aladin, it was a whole new world after that! That tweak was more aligned with my work to the point no one at my job noticed I unilaterally changed it.

    That’s the key: ensuring you’re not drastically changing or inflating your title.

    1. Spider Plant Mom*

      I had a similar issue a while back, my title outside of my company is always a Sales/Prospecting role, but at my company I was a project lead/business analyst. It made sense if you squint at the literal definition of each word of the title, but definitely how anyone else used it.

      But I’d constantly get LinkedIn recommendations and recruiters reaching out for sales jobs when in reality there isn’t enough money in the universe that would get me to take a sales job!

      1. Susan Calvin*

        Oh hey, same hat!

        With the added bonus that that title was also a pre-sales type title *within* my company, and I only got it by way of shoving round pegs into square holes, aka “post-merger harmonization”.

    2. H3llifIknow*

      I went to my son’s parent teacher conference when he was in maybe 2nd grade. The teacher said, “So Lucifer tells me you’re a secretary for ? I respond, “Say what now?” and explain my actual job as an Intel Analyst, and go home and ask son why he thought that, and he said, “You sit in front of a computer and type all day!”

      1. Rincewind*

        Ha! My daughter told everyone at school I was a doctor, “because you take care of sick people!”
        I am not a doctor. I am not a nurse. I was, at the time, an uncertified nurse’s aide.

    3. Freya*

      I’m in Australia, and in our public service, the Secretary of a government department is basically the director of that department. They report to the Minister of that department, who is the elected politician that the government has decided should be responsible for that portfolio, liaise with the Secretaries of other departments, and manage their own. Basically, the Secretary is the person in charge (of that part of government).

  4. Orange Cat Energy*

    I once had a job where my title was “Coatroom Attendant” but my employer listed me and others with this title as “Visitor Services Assistant” in their end of year report. It wasn’t exactly a lie because my role was managed by Visitor Services. I was really perplexed about why my employer wanted to hide the fact that there were employees whose sole job duty was to work in the coatroom.

    I’m also surprised that a lot of folks don’t realize that word order can also give a different meaning to your title. I once had a job as Conservation Assistant at a library. I did small conservation tasks on books, but I didn’t go to school for training. These were tasks that the trained conservators could delegate to an assistant. When I left that role, my successor (an intern who I worked with) decided to list her role as “Assistant Conservator” on her LinkedIn. For that employer, Assistant Conservator was very different from Conservation Assistant. Assistant Conservator would mean you had formal training in the field. I definitely knew there hadn’t been a title change for my old role, but it wasn’t my place to tell my successor about the difference. It was only LinkedIn and it was up to her to make sure things are sorted if she’s asked about her role.

    1. Consonance*

      Academia is notorious for that one. You can be an assistant, but you can also have assistant indicate the level of faculty (or similar-to-faculty).

    2. The Rural Juror*

      This is giving vibes of “Assistant Regional Manager” vs “Assistant to the Regional Manager.” :)

    3. Turquoisecow*

      That reminds me of Assistant Editor vs Editorial Assistant, two very different roles. The latter can be entry level but the former very much is not.

    4. Annie*

      There definitely is a different there. Basically if you’re the Conservation Assistant (or as suggested in a comment, Regional Manager Assistant) versus Assistant Conservator (or Assistant Regional Manager), one indicates that you are an assistant, and therefore could even just be a type of admin assistant, and not really an expert/trained in the subject matter. The Conservation Assistant could mean that you just get coffee, set up schedules, etc. for the Conservation professionals. Whereas Assistant Conservator may mean that you are just junior level to the Conservator, but still an expert and doing lower level Conservator projects (but not just being an assistant).

  5. Touchofthe'Tism*

    I dealt with this on my last job search. I was shifting to a different (but adjacent) field and my job title was one that would only make sense in my niche field. So I put a title that sounded more universal but still communicated accurately my role. I informed the people that they’d be contacting that I made the change, and said in interviews that while x was my official title, I put y in my resume to communicate clearly what my role was. This wasn’t a problem and I ended up landing a job, but that may not work for everyone.

    1. Elizabeth West*

      I did it too, for ToxicExjob. Old Supervisor was one of my references, and although my title was Receptionist, it didn’t really describe my role, because by the time the layoffs happened, I was doing a lot more than just front desk stuff. I didn’t want what was on my resume to clash with anything she said, so I consulted with her and we decided to just say Administrative Assistant. The company was gone and there was no one else to contradict it. It’s since dropped off my resume unless I’m tweaking it for something niche, but it’s still in my portfolio because I did some procedure manual work there

      1. Elizabeth West*

        Aack, hit enter too soon–

        I did some procedure manual work and a revamp of their ordering system.

  6. Stephen Steele*

    I’ve had the experience of being given a title are hiring, and then given a different title in practice. For example, I was hired by a husband and wife team and called “Head of Taco Technology” in my hiring documents. I’m wasn’t really bothered by it. But the one I reported to most wanted me to go by “Director of Taco Standards”, which was a more accurate title. Nothing was official.

    When I left them and went elsewhere, they didn’t confirm my title with anyone. And it caused some trouble. So in my interview I would just explain that I was called a director, and did director stuff, but they couldn’t call me a director due to their corporate structure.

    Didn’t have a problem after that.

  7. Resident Catholicville, U.S.A.*

    I’ve mentioned this here before, but I had issues when I looked to get out of my truck brokerage job and the title I had was, I think, holding me back. My boss listed me as a Dispatcher, which wasn’t entirely accurate- when you hear the word “dispatcher,” you think of people sending taxis to pick ups or assigning bus routes. I looked around at LinkedIn for people who worked for Very Large Truck Brokerage Firm in my city and found someone who basically had my exact same job, same duties, and his title was, “Truck Brokerage Admin Assistant.” Changing it to that got me some more interviews and I think it emphasized the “admin assistant” parts of my job more than “dispatcher” would have.

    I definitely didn’t change of my job duties or give myself a promotion. I like Alison’s strategy though- in my case, I could have done Dispatcher/Admin Assistant and it probably would have netted the same result.

    1. I'm just here for the cats!!*

      yes, I’ve had this problem too. I was a “student support specialist.” but I was essentially a sales rep/customer service for the educational company’s professional development team.

      1. SimonTheGreyWarden*

        Whereas I was a student support specialist (later changed to academic specialist) and was a professional tutor.

  8. soontoberetired*

    I would think most employers know job titles can be strange? I have had 3 different job titles in the past 10 years and I still do the same job. The current one is better than the last 2 but none of them really matched what I do.

  9. I'm just here for the cats!!*

    This is great advice. For example, when I started at my job at state university there were 2 classifications for administrative assistants. If you worked for an academic department you were an AA (academic admin I think) but if you worked anywhere else you were a USO (university staff admin. I don’t remember). Then they changed it so everyone is an Administrative Assistant. This was supposed to help have a real world title. In reality it makes it harder, especially to someone looking from the outside. I’ve been an admin for 2 departments and I’ve spoken to several other admins in different departments. We all do wildly different jobs. Some are just receptionists, some help with setting up class schedules, some do even planning, etc. So besides the official title many have working titles like “office coordinator” or “testing assistant”.

    1. Elitist Semicolon*

      My uni retitled everyone in an effort to bring us in line with industry titles*, which resulted in me now having a title that might possibly make sense in industry (where my job wouldn’t likely exist to begin with and the sense it does make isn’t actually what my job is) but makes no sense in academia.

      *WHY, tho? Ugh.

  10. Lacey*

    It’s also going to depend on the type of role.

    I’m a graphic designer. Sometimes that’s my title, sometimes people try to get fancy with it – but I always just put graphic designer as the title because no matter what fancy title they come up with for me (creative ninja!) the HR rep or manager will know that my role was as a graphic designer.

    Worst case scenario they’re so in love with their fun title, they’re going to say, “We call them Creative Ninjas!” and the person making the call will feel a bit sad for me.

  11. raincoaster*

    I have a weird, hostile ex-boss who decided a year after I left to call me Communications Director rather than my actual, more humble title of Social Media Coordinator. It’s not like I will ever get a reference from him, but it’s tempting to take the retroactive promotion, if only for LinkedIn purposes.

    1. ashie*

      I once held the title of “Director of Housekeeping” at a sporting camp because I managed the entire Housekeeping department. Which was just me. There were a total of 3 employees in the whole place and we all had very impressive-sounding titles.

      2. Opaline*

        I once held the role of Client Experience Director. Which sounds really fancy until you find out there were thirty Client Experience Directors at that company, and it was basically just a Customer Support Agent. You know, someone who directs the client experience….

      3. A Reader*

        My spouse was titled Chief Financial Officer while working at a family business with only two other employees. I joked that their title should have been OFO – Only Financial Officer. They use a title on their resume that more accurately reflects the fact that they were the QuickBooks person.

  12. Rogue Slime Mold*

    “Taco Strategy Analyst” seems like one of those roles that would have 1 job opening and 1200 applicants.

    1. Heidi*

      My taco strategy is to put the cheese in the shell first so it melts when the hot ingredients go on top of it. It can help hold it all together if the shell starts to break.

      1. Red Reader the Adulting Fairy*

        …. Head exploding. You may have just changed my taco eating existence.

      4. Cheese glue*

        This is even better than the Taco randomizer where Taco Bell makes a new item by switching around, adding, combining what they already have

  13. WillowSunstar*

    What about dumbing down your resume? This gets suggested on Reddit a lot. I have been keeping my job titles in because they show progression, but my last one was a Sr. (actually data entry person). So should I just leave the Sr. off and the III’s in the other ones when applying to more entry-level jobs, because I’ve been told a range of things that I’m either overqualified or not qualified enough, with my actual job titles in for entry-level positions. However on sites like Linked In and Indeed, most entry-level positions these days want at least 5 years of experience, but they also want you to work for peanuts.

    1. What_the_What*

      A recruiter reached out to me with a job opportunity that required “25 years experience in ABC process and policy”…. ABC Process and Policy has only been in use since 2017. Sigh.

  14. ChaoticNeutral*

    I run into this with my org. We are identified primarily by ownership in the company; outside of that, it is just what our functional role is (e.g., landscape architect, architect, engineer, designer, etc). So even if you are a project manager, team lead, manager, etc your title without being an owner (which takes an avg of like 12 years to achieve) is just “engineer.” I have had great success with just listing my title as “engineer project manager” to reflect both my listed title and what I actually do. This is what we put on external resumes to prospective clients so they can understand our hierarchy a bit better and it’s never been an issue.

    1. Generic Name*

      I used to work at a small consulting firm that had job titles like this. I used to think it was just them being clueless about the industry, but then I realized that they could insist that everyone was paid fairly because the job titles didn’t accurately reflect the level of work someone was doing. So a “geologist” who was a project manager and negotiating deed restrictions with local governments would see what other “geologists” (aka shovel bums) were getting paid and see that their (low) pay was on par with what they were seeing on the market. Even when I told HR my new position was paying me $35k more than they were paying me, they didn’t believe they underpay anyone. I guess it helps them sleep at night.

  15. Lemons*

    Some of these LinkedIn guys recommend changing ALL your resume titles to match the job you’re going for! Like??

      1. Resident Catholicville, U.S.A.*

        I’ve always inherently distrusted anyone whose sole job is “self help” without any other credentials- academic, work experience, etc. I feel like this falls in this category- if their job is only “Influencer” and they have no real world experience, their opinion means very little. One boss was very big into gurus- Tony Robbins, Tai Lopez, etc- who, as far as I can tell, were only successful by making themselves be the business. Another job had a speaker come in who had written a self help book, but he had had multiple businesses before then and this was his retirement gig. Turns out he was a jerk, but at least he had had another job other than selling himself.

    2. WillowSunstar*

      Yeah, but once they actually call your old HR dept., they’ll quickly learn your resume title was CBA instead of ABC. Wouldn’t they just think oh, that person lied and put resume in the reject pile?

      1. Analytical Tree Hugger*

        As a commenter in the first comment thread said, these checks are going to be right before/after the reference stage, so the company is likely to take a bit of time to dig into this (e.g., ask the candidate what’s up).

        Now, the advice to change all your titles is terrible; AAM’s advice to list the official and a descriptive one is good. One could even add some more clarity, which she may have suggested in similar past advice, e.g.,

        Taco Institute, Taco Strategy Coordinator (Officially: Analyst Level 1)

        2. Turquoisecow*

          Yeah this will be after they’ve extensively interviewed the candidates and had a conversation where they explained that the old company called them a Taco Design Coordinator but their duties were closer to a Taco Analyst, and the hiring manager can decide at that point whether those are the skills they want in the Taco Analyst role.

          They’re not cold calling the applicants’ former employers, hearing, “she was a design coordinator,” saying, “they lied!” and refusing to interview them.

  16. Wendy Darling*

    For a long time my title was a bunch of corporate nonsense that was misleading as to what I actually did. Like my title was “Customer Engagement Strategist” but my actual job was llama training program design and optimization. Which, yes, had to do with getting customers to engage with the llamas, but that’s not what “customer engagement strategist” typically means.

    On my resume that job title is down as “Customer Engagement Strategist (Training Program Design and Optimization)”, which is long but includes both my actual title AND what I did so my description of my job isn’t so incongruous.

    At my current job they finally changed my title from an actual job title for a job that is NOT what I do (we just use that title wrong at my company) to a job title that actually describes what I do and it’s gonna make my life way easier.

  17. GovSysadmin*

    Years ago, when our organization changed its logo, a bunch of us ordered business cards, and we were allowed to put whatever we wanted as our title. I changed mine to “Senior Systems Administrator” rather than the weird way the title was worded way in our HR system, but it wasn’t a promotion. One of my teammates, however, requested his say “IT Manager” because, he claimed, he managed IT systems. Our actual manager was Not Happy and made him order new ones.

    (And I still use those business cards, even though I’ve since gotten a promotion, because there was really no need for me to have 1000 of them.)

  18. Can’t think of anything clever*

    I worked in local government for many years. Generic titles like “Clerk IV” are very common. You’re Volunteer Coordinator within your department but Clerk IV for HR, Civil Service, and payroll purposes. I learned very quickly when doing background or reference checks with both public and private employers that it’s easy enough to just ask if the volunteer position is a typical Clerk IV assignment. If they weren’t sure they’d ask the appropriate person in the relevant department or refer me to them.

  19. Current Fed*

    This is a major problem for Feds leaving Federal service, voluntary or otherwise. The U.S. government uses broad job titles and job titles that are antiquated. Only a couple years ago could we start using Data Scientist in a job opening – even though industry has been using it for over a decade. My job title in the government is a completely different job in industry. Makes it difficult to move from the government to private industry.

  20. Three Flowers*

    I have this issue because all the jobs I held in grad school were technically “graduate [teaching/research/administrative] assistant,” like every single other graduate student at that institution, whether you were grading essays or running logistics for a whole lab. I generally give myself the de facto title I had within a project or unit and then below it, “title of record: graduate whatever assistant”. It’s the only way I can make it make sense.

    1. Nerf*

      I had this issue from my time in Americorps. I’m pretty sure there was no official job title. I’ve generally gone with “Elementary Education (AmeriCorps Member)” to at least attempt to describe what I did and why I was there.

  21. Anonymous Librarian*

    That’s exactly what I did with my resume. My first library job was a normal early-career/library school student position, but the title was something specific to my library that wouldn’t be recognizable outside that context. So I put Actual Title (Typical/Standard Title) on my resume, and as far as I know it was never an issue. My next job was a similar position with a pretty in-depth reference check, and everything went fine.

  22. Skytext*

    I definitely think the way to go is to put both your unique title plus the more commonly understood version. I would put actual title, then more commonly understood title in parentheses. This happened to me once. I worked for horse breeding farms, and at one farm I worked at I was in charge of the breeding stallions. My title was “Stallioneer”, which I still find a bit odd and very funny (reminds me of the movie Rocketeer lol). I think they were trying to come up with a more gender-neutral title than “studman”, which has been used for centuries. But “stallioneer” never caught on in the industry, you will mostly find titles like stallion manager, stud handler, etc.

    2. mango chiffon*

      for what it’s worth, as someone not in that industry at all, Stalioneer sounds like the coolest thing ever.

    3. Rogue Slime Mold*

      I am begging one of AAM’s authors to give us the tale of an amateur detective who is also a studman slash taco strategy analyst.

  23. Endless TBR Pile*

    Previously, my organization was very “flat” – we didn’t really have titles or a hierarchy. One year and many changes later, and we all have shiny new titles. Cool! Except my actual job responsibilities are a bit all over the place. I handle our fleet of trucks, all the equipment, all the safety / OSHA stuff, all the workers comp injuries and vehicle accidents, and a few other company-specific tasks. My working title is Fleet Coordinator. I’m not really looking, but apply when I think a job sounds interesting or offers some perk I’d be interested in. On my resume, I state my title as it is. But in my resume I say (more polished), “Look, my title is X, but I really handle UVWXYZ.” Results getting interviewed and a few (rejected) offers later have been pretty successful with this strategy.

  24. Jinni*

    I remember the early days of the dot com boom and all my friends had these way out titles – like human wrangler, etc. I always wondered how this might cause problems later. (Everyone I know got subsequent jobs based on knowing people, so maybe it’s a non issue.)

  25. Elara Harper*

    Mr. Harper had the opposite issue. His job went through a reorganization, and his title went from “test engineer” to some whimsical job title which included “manager”, but he didn’t manage anyone or anything, except his own time. He didn’t want to include that title on his resume for fear that someone might actually think he had some manager experience. I don’t recall the exact title, but it sort of sounded like a Disney job.

  26. Bacon Eggs and Toast*

    Follow up question: what if your boss tells you to use a more grandiose title. Example: using the title Llama groomer manager (more grandiose and accurate because I do manage people) rather than Llama groomer specialist (HR title). Do I need to go back to my old title if I’m job searching?

    1. Zephy*

      I mean, I think if you do actually manage people (for real – like you have hire/fire authority, disciplinary authority, the whole nine), you can and should call yourself a manager and the company should also agree to update your title accordingly.

      If your “management” responsibilities are more along the lines of setting schedules, training new hires, QC’ing work before it goes out, and being the primary point of contact between your team and the person who does have the hire/fire/disciplinary power, that’s a Team Lead. You can call yourself that (e.g. Lead Llama Groomer Specialist), and I’d still maybe chat with HR about updating your title officially.

  27. Banana Pyjamas*

    Does the answer change at all if you were performing a different role than you were hired for? That happened at my last job. I was hired as a data analyst, but ultimately worked as a data collector. So far I have chosen to address it in my cover letter. That also gives me the opportunity to address the high turnover that I was eventually subject to.

    In [most recent company] I was hired as a data analyst, however due to high turnover I ultimately functioned as a data collector.

    1. What_the_What*

      Hmm I think I’d have gone with “Data Collection and Analysis” maybe, which sounds like you’re collecting, collating and then analyzing the data–unless that’s inaccurate, of course.

      1. Banana Pyjamas*

        Sadly no. They are very different types of roles in my field. Data collectors are also entry level, while data analysts are usually high-level IC or managers depending on the team size, if offices are able to fill those roles at all.

  28. Hellohellohello*

    I got an MBA to switch careers from Fashion Design to finance. A mentor advised me to list my role on my resume as fashion designer/brand manager- most people in finance don’t know what a fashion designer does, but usually have some idea of what a brand manager does (and the two roles have a lot of overlap). It has worked really well in explainer what I did in my old industry.

  29. Sunshine on My Shoulders*

    I feel like this is especially relevant if you are changing industries. I recently did that, and my old industry described the work as something that was totally meaningless to my new industry, even though the work is the same. So I used a title in my resume that described the work that I was doing in old industry, but using new industry lingo. I think it helped recruiters understand me, and I used the bullets to provide clear descriptions of my actual accomplishments so they could verify I had the skills they wanted.

  30. Turquoisecow*

    My old company, shortly before bankruptcy, gave a bunch of us a job title that was one small part of our job.

    Let’s say we made teapots. At one point there was a team that was responsible for selling teapots, one team responsible for designing teapots, and one team responsible for the administrative processes of creating teapot contracts in our computer system. All of these were consolidated into one role (with many people being laid off) which was called Teapot Seller.

    Now it was true that while we did sell teapots, it was only a small percentage of what we did, and no other similar companies (making coffee pots or carafes or pitchers) inside or outside the teapot making industry, called their teapot sales team “sellers,” the would have been “sales associates.” And selling teapots was like .20% of the total job.

    So when we all inevitably began looking for new jobs, both before and after company shut down, some people emphasized different parts of the job. Some of us wanted to be sales associates so we listed the role as Sales Associate (Seller), while others wanted to be the administrative staff, so listed the role as Teapot Contracts Administrator (“Seller”). I’m not sure how long anyone in HR had a job to verify employment, but the bosses knew enough about our roles to be able to confirm that, yes the “Seller” knew a lot about sales or Contracts Administration that the role was comparable. So if you have a supervisor who can give you a reference and confirm that yes “weird title” included x, y, and z tasks that people in “normal title” do, that will probably go a long way.

  32. Not The Earliest Bird*

    I have had one ex employee ask me to downplay their title. “Please don’t tell them I was CFO, tell them I was the Finance Manager. They think I’m overqualified.” I decided to just confirm dates that they were employed, and said anything else was against company policy.

  33. Saint Elmo*

    I had to do this when I was applying to my current job. I was working as a “summer student” for the Government in a position that was meant to last three months. However, my position was extended multiple times so that I worked up until December. I also ended up doing a lot of work that they hadn’t assumed I would do in my original position (I will note that I did get a pay increase, but not a title change). My manager and I agreed that the title didn’t really reflect the work I ended up performing for them, so we agreed to list it as “policy intern”. Granted, I was only applying to another Government position so they would have known the internal lingo, but sometimes the job title really doesn’t reflect the actual work.

  34. el l*

    “I’m Assistant Regional Manager!”
    “You’re Assistant TO the Regional Manager!”

    In all seriousness, I’ve been in a similar but not same circumstance – title didn’t change in 12 years (but where all the important things certainly did). What worked for me was to just spend all the resume talking up what I did. AND work the cover letter.

    Do that first before playing with titles.

    1. Disappointed with the Staff*

      At university we had a technician put “Associate of Professors” on his office door. The sign matched the official ones, and may have been produced on the same machine.

      It was obviously a joke and lasted several years. Eventually a visiting official noticed it as Was Not Amused so it had to be removed.

      1. Disappointed with the Staff*

        If you want a really silly job title, Melbourne University had an Assistant Deputy Vice Chancellor for a while. Hopefully the Deputy Vice Chancellor had two assistants, the latter of whom temporarily had a junior. An Acting Junior Second Assistant Deputy Vice Chancellor.

  35. Eukomos*

    Ha! I work at a giant company and at my last job I had one official title that made no sense to anyone, a common historically used title that most people in my office actually used for my position, and a new commonly used title that the higher ups used for my position as part of an attempt to better coordinate that job function between offices. Any of the three would have equal chance of confusing someone called by a reference checker.

  36. H3llifIknow*

    This was an issue for me when leaving a large 3 letter govt. contractor. We were “consultant” “senior consultant” “associate” “lead associate” “senior associate” “principal” “vp” and so on. That tells nobody ANYTHING about what I did. So, I used “ABC, LLC, Senior Associate/Llama Grooming Lead,” it was clunky but it was better than just “Senior Associate” because the firm based their titles on Law Firms, for some reason from the way back times.

  37. cactus lady*

    I have worked at a couple different universities where they had generic job titles (like “program specialist”) for the purpose of compensation classification but your actual job title was different. Like, my business card said one thing but my HR file said another. I never really thought anything of it. I always put down what my actual job title was on my resume – it’s never caused an issue during background checks.

  38. Disappointed with the Staff*

    My field (software) has the problem of generic titles. You start as a programmer or junior programmer, a few years later you might stop being a programmer and become a senior programmer, or get demoted into management. It can be annoying on both sides of the interview because the candidate is obviously saying “I’m the best of the elite programmers” and the interviewer is trying to work out whether they have one years experience ten times or ten years experience.

    I suspect that’s why references are important, and silly programming tests plus talking to actual programmers. But I’ve definitely had interviews where they were just looking for another bum in another seat, even when they were paying above market salary (the opposite is regrettably common). Especially in contract roles (which can be another interview technique – hire someone for a 3 or 6 month contract and see whether they’re useful)

  39. Audiophile*

    I’ve had this issue several times over my career. This is giving me flashbacks to company that gave all the front desk staff the title of “Director of First Impressions”. Put it in the handbook and everything. I’m sure none of the staff put that on their resume because it’s an absolutely ridiculous job title. What’s the title for people who get promoted-“First Impressions Chief”?

  40. goth associate*

    I have this problem a LOT, most specifically with my most recent job, where my job title was “video librarian”. I am not a librarian & have no qualifications to be one, technically I was working in the “archives” of a newsroom but I’m not a qualified archivist either; the job was light video editing and database management with a side of customer service. I had a resume consultant workshop it with me because she agreed it was probably why I was getting contacted for jobs I literally can’t do, & bounced from ones I COULD do because they assumed I was applying way out of my field. We settled on “information manager”, which I could then explain in more depth once I got past any AI filters, & while I can’t say it’s drastically helped me get a job, it has somewhat stemmed the flow of “we need an archivist for our private boys school” & “want to apply to work in the preservation department of our museum” requests I get lol

  41. cncx*

    My most significant job experience had an official title of Systems Engineer due to the international company aligning job titles across entities, when I actually am a mix of IT admin and helpdesk. Job hunting was hard until I had a few jobs under my belt with titles that accurately reflect what I do. People were always disappointed I was not, in fact, a systems engineer. During the alignment, I lobbied hard to get « systems analyst » like in The Onion, with no success.

  42. Nebula*

    I think it is always good to clarify what your job title means if it isn’t immediately obvious, but in the way Alison says here, include both. Though a fun related issue to this is when employers revamp job titles, so your job hasn’t changed but your title has. This happened to me many years ago, and to be honest I used it to my advantage on my CV to make it look like I’d had a promotion. The new job title looked like it was at a higher level and, simply by virtue of having been there longer, I was doing more complex stuff by the time the job titles changed. Since there was a widespread feeling that the changes were just to make people look more important (think changing ‘Assistant’ titles to ‘Coordinator’) without actually providing any material improvements, I felt my actions were in line with the aim of that little project.

  43. bamcheeks*

    On a related note: do not use overly engineered acronyms in actual job titles!

    I had a job title fifteen years ago which was LATE Officer, where LATE was an acronym for Llama Appreciation and Training Excellence, which was the name of the llama-related training programme that I managed. Barely anyone except me, my predecessor in the role and the guy who came up with the acronym (and thought he was sooo clever) remembered what it stood for — even my manager used to ask me all the time.

    I work in a field that usually requires full job histories, so although it’s not on my CV I usually have to include it in a full job history, and it STILL ANNOYS ME. I usually put LATE Officer (Llama Training Officer) just to make it clear. It would have made absolutely no difference to call me a Llama Training Officer and have me run the LATE programme.

  44. Dark Knight in White Satin*

    In the past, I’ve had to list both “office title” (which determined my duties) and “payroll title” (which determined my salary) on my resume.

  45. liisa*

    Adding some anecdotes: I have several jobs on my resume where my official, HR, on-paper job had nothing to do with my day to day responsibilities. My resume lists a more accurate job title. I’ve had several background checks and every single time it’s gone like this:

    Them: “we found a discrepancy at X job, can you explain?”
    Me: “yup, on paper that company listed my job title as Llama Groomer. My actual responsibilities were that of Llama Dance Coordinator so that’s what’s on my resume.”
    Them: “cool sounds good”

    Never had a problem with it at all. Maybe part of that is luck, part is my industry (tech) where people are used to startups who do things like give everyone an identical title on paper “to make things easier” but it’s never been a problem just a quick 10 second explanation.

  46. Not a dr*

    A former boss of mine proposed giving us all “cool” titles like “Communications Ninja” and “Marketing Guru” which obviously would mean nothing when applying for another job (besides that you work on communications) so I think this would be a good place to say Communication Ninja (Coordinator) or whatever title seems to match standard job titles for a lateral move in your field.

    1. Kevin Sours*

      I know some companies that do “fun” titles quietly have boring titles that you can put on your resume and the company will explicitly confirm. On the other hand “Communications Ninja” can be better than “Taco Strategy Coordinator” because while it doesn’t convey much information it’s so out there that people are unlikely to make incorrect assumptions.

  47. a perfectly normal-sized space bird*

    My current title is Teapot Director, which sounds like it’s a higher level than it actually is. I’m only a few steps up from the lowest rung, hardly a director. A better title would be Teapot Specialist. I put my official title on my LinkedIn resume and ever since I’ve been getting job postings for director-level positions, plus the occasional recruiter thinking I’m qualified to be a Director of some institution.

    I should probably do something about that, my biggest client just lost a bunch of federal funding (that was already appropriated but the you-kn0w-whos don’t seem to care about that) so I might be job hunting next year.

  48. I've Been Here the Whole Time*

    I regularly change my titles on LinkedIn and my resume to reflect industry titles because none of the companies I’ve worked for will use the correct titles. Art Director is a great example. No corporation I’ve worked for will let you use Director in the title unless you’re what they determine is Director level. In my field, Art Director is middle management. I use Art Director externally and it’s never caused an issue for me. On my resume I may put my actual title in parenthesis or I’ll mention it in my first interviews to be clear. Currently, the company that hired me is using a lower title than what I’m doing because they’ve never had the role before. I changed it to something more generic on LinkedIn to help explain it when I interview.

  49. Jellyfish64*

    Re: #1,
    15 years ago I was with coworkers at a bar on a Friday night and an alcoholic coworker called another coworker a racial slur. I’m not sure if he was a racist in his heart or if he was just looking for something hostile to say and in his uninhibited state made a bad choice. But he didn’t come to work on Monday while HR interviewed witnesses and he was fired by the end of the week. This was despite the famously ‘permissive’ company culture. Sometimes HR gets it right!

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