The labor market is without a doubt a very competitive place. This applies not only to employees but to employers, as well. Companies come up with a variety of ways to attract new candidates. These embrace perks and benefits, modern office equipment and flexible system of work, a to name but a few. The fight for the best candidates begins yet at the level of job ads. They may attract attention through creative content or graphics.
Some hiring managers go even a step further and try to stand out when it comes to job titles. They call the advertised positions in a very original and unusual way. At least they think so since the phenomenon is getting more and more common. It applies especially to the recruitment of developers or IT recruitment, in general, and to marketing. Anyway, we’ve gathered some examples of the creative approach to job titles. We may find it both on LinkedIn and in job offers published elsewhere.
Recruitment of developers: Ninja, Guru, Rockstar, Overlord
Rockstar, Guru, Ninja, Overlord… This is an interesting group of job titles within the recruitment of developers because these words have well-defined associations. Ninja connotes excellent training and speed, while guru is for charisma and authority. The rockstar, on the other hand, is just an amazing person like Mick Jagger or Elvis Presley. No wonder that marketing and Employer Branding specialists use these words to distinguish job offers from dozens of others.
As for Ninja, it turns out that today anyone may become one. Apart from web developers, programmers, and DevOps, these often are marketers and social media specialists. It’s important to remember, however, that one should only use these names with offers that are truly unique. The “big” words shouldn’t be overused or misleading; this way they may soon become empty and meaningless. A rockstar who is “just” a developer or a guru doing “ordinary” testing may sound funny, if not pathetic.
All these may backfire and discourage job seekers who will immediately see through such offers. If you want to make sure to have perfect job ads try the professional recruitment process outsourcing. Not only nobody will laugh at them, but the right RPO team will assure that they attract great candidates. And all these with saving money.
And then comes the Digital Overlord. A position that sounds like a reference to a supermodern army or “Star Wars” is actually a… website manager. Which, let’s be honest, doesn’t sound that exciting anymore. The tasks include ensuring that websites work well, monitoring their performance, creating content, preparing reports and updating software. The responsibilities and job itself may be standard, indeed. Many people, however, seeing such a name will picture Lord Vader tapping away on the laptop.
IT recruitment: hackers and knives
What we may often find within the IT recruitment are job ads for ethical hackers. But is it even possible to see hackers in a good light? Well, that’s the case with Penetration Testers responsible for checking the security level at various companies. Such a tester performs a controlled attack on ICT systems to find potential week points and highlight the strengths. This differs dramatically from the standard hacker, of course. The ethical one simply has the official consent of the system’s owner to hack it. After completing the task, the ethical hacker simply prepares a detailed report on his actions. If someone wants to be a hacker without breaking the law, an ethical hacker may be the perfect match.
In addition to negative associations, the word “hack” has a more positive meaning we find at growth hackers. That is an improvised solution to the problem. One could say that such a solution is a bit ugly but it works well. Growth hackers are, quite often, marketing specialists who deal with finding ways to grow businesses. For that, they use new, creative and sometimes unusual techniques. Combining marketing with development, they help to create and implement appropriate strategies.
Within the recruitment of developers, we may also find… knives. Swiss Army Knives are simply one-man bands. You probably won’t find many job offers with this title. But if you type “Swiss Army Knife” in the LinkedIn search engine, you may get thousands of results. In IT, these are mostly web developers who develop applications, write code, create graphics, decide on the page layout. They also cooperate with clients or management to develop a strategy. People also use Swiss Army Knife name for other professions that require versatility and skills in several areas.
Non-IT recruitment: interesting job titles
Thus, interesting, or just weird, job titles are not only limited to IT recruitment or recruitment of developers. Quite often, we may meet awkward names in other areas, like marketing, sales, or creative industries. There are many cases of positions that had been advertised that way in the past. Some of them include Retail Jedi, Chief Chatter, Conversation Architect, Chief Troublemaker, Heart Officer, Dream Alchemist, or Digital Prophet.
As we can see, the “spiritual” component appears in job titles quite frequently. There is another example of that trend – the so-called evangelists. Who are they? We may forget about Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. The evangelists of the 21st century are people responsible for promoting and building support and enthusiasm for certain things. They just need to have excellent knowledge and passion in a given field. Thanks to that, they can “infect” others and convince them to their or their company’s vision. It’s good to know that this meaning of the word evangelist was created by Guy Kawasaki. He was the man responsible for promoting the Macintosh computer in the eighties. In short, an evangelist is a person who has amazing skills when it comes to sales, marketing, and communication.
And have you heard of sherpas? They operate in high mountains helping carry loads to places that are hard to reach. Unsurprisingly, the Sherpa of Innovation is to provide ideas that will help the company reach the top. Innovation Sherpa supports and improves processes within the company and introduces changes by having an outsider perspective. And, in turn, is able to make objective decisions. There is also another position – the Wizard of Lightbulb Moments – that has a similar function. But, in addition to introducing innovations, they also deal with marketing.
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