Article by Ceri Wheeldon
What’s in a job title? Does your job title reflect what YOU do? If you are looking for a new job over the age of 50, you probably have at least 30 years work experience to offer. But does your job title accurately reflect what you do?
When looking for a new job it can be so easy to get sidetracked by focussing on job titles rather than job content, both when putting together your cv (and social media profiles) and searching for job vacancies.
What does your job title mean to the outside world?
Many job titles have been developed to fit into an organisation’s own structure- and can be fairly meaningless to the outside world. Think of Melody in the current series of the Apprentice, nobody had a clue what she actually did when she gave her job title! I can remember being given a title of ‘Vice President of Search Operations – National and International’ . A lofty title in a medium sized company – but far from dashing off in a helicopter to rescue missing ships and planes as the title might have suggested, my own role was far more desk based and involved managing headhunting division of a recruitment company. Easy to explain face to face, but if I was registering my own CV on a recruitment database, not likely to be found that easily in the context of any job I might wish to be considered for. Of course my description of my role and my achievements would help clarify, but the objective is to prepare a CV which makes it as easy as possible for recruiters to locate you for the right jobs.
Job titles change as trends and business language develop- make sure titles you use are current!
When writing your CV think about what words somebody might look for if they were to ‘google’ a descriptive job title to find somebody to do exactly the job you’re doing today (or your previous job).
Many CVs are held in a database and ‘searched’ against for keywords by recruiters- make sure you have the keywords to best reflect your skills and abilities as prominently placed as possible – if they can be incorporated into your job title so much the better.
The aim of the CV is to get the Interview
Remember – the aim of the CV is to get you the interview – not the job itself. You can expand upon your skills and achievement at interview. Ideally you should be tailoring your CV to a specific job description to ensure that you emphasise the relevant parts of your experience matching the role’s requirements.
Think hard about the job titles you include- make sure they are meaningful to people outside the company you were employed by- and accurately reflect the role you were employed to do, and the role you are applying for.
Good luck in your job search!
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Ceri Wheeldon
Ceri is Founder and Editor of Fabafterfifty.co.uk She is a frequent speaker at events and in the media on topics related to women over 50 , including style and living agelessly. With 20+ years experience as a headhunter Ceri also now helps support those looking to extend their working lives.
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Deborah Robinson
I am having a terrible time finding work-one rejection after another. I was laid off June 2011 and that is almost a year out of work. I have amazing skills, great personality, great references and do not look, nor act 57. My unemployment has run out, have to wait for income support because of the backlog of applicants. I found your articles really helpful, and I have pretty much been practicing all of the suggestions. But what is the point, if the general mindset out there has not changed? How can we change that? I am not ready for the pasture, I am in danger of not having a place to live. 🙁