Dr John Sullivan Talent Management Thought Leadership

The Power of the “Genius” Title

You certainly don’t have to be a genius to get the “genius” job at Apple. There are no stated IQ or degree requirements for the job, and knowledge of Apple products isn’t even required. The title of “genius” at an admired firm like Apple is by itself compelling. Any Apple store manager can tell you that regular Apple store employees strive for months and even years to become a genius. The title alone may make your family proud of you and it will certainly help you in making new friends. And the title may even impress future employers.

From the organization’s perspective, you should also realize that there may also be significant direct business benefits because your customers may also assume that a title like genius or expert actually means that the people with the title are extremely well qualified. As a result, a title like this may mean more sales and a stronger product brand.

More Examples of Compelling Job Titles

Years ago, Starbucks demonstrated its understanding of the value of compelling titles with the use of “barista” for its coffee servers and the “coffee master” black apron to demonstrate a superior level of coffee expertise. The “geek squad” (now a part of Best Buy) is another illustration of Compelling Job Titling. As a result of the wild popularity of the #1 syndicated show “Big Bang Theory,” being labeled as a geek no longer carries the negative connotation that it once did.

Even the conservatively managed Best Buy has decided to make its compellingly named “geek squad” more prominent in the marketing and product areas in order to take advantage of its positive name recognition. The leaders of the geek squad go further than simply providing team members with a title; they also get to drive “a cute” and colorful VW bug with the name “geek squad” painted boldly across both sides. Other firms that have a history of using compelling job titles include Google and Microsoft, as well as many startups that use non-corporate job titles because they help get the person and the startup noticed.

The Power of a Title

For a few days, I actually had the official title as the “Godfather of Talent”; that is, until corporate nervousness forced a title change to the more mundane Chief Talent Officer. The goal of the Godfather title was to send a message to employees and potential applicants that our approach to talent management was different. The power of a title has been known for years but it has been used as a recruiting tool primarily on individual candidates. Any experienced recruiter knows that individuals frequently take jobs with low pay or other faults simply because the job has an impressive title. But for some unexplained reason, the strategic practice of “Compelling Job Titling” has seldom been implemented throughout major corporations.

Recruiting leaders and managers have been happy to accept the job names provided by the compensation function, even though the titles that they have traditionally provided not only have no panache but many are simply dull! A few firms have made small attempts at more compelling job titles by changing the title of “secretary” to administrative assistant, or by calling employees “associates.” But what I am proposing is a more strategic companywide effort to use marketing and branding techniques to make the development of compelling titles for key jobs a major recruiting and retention tool.

The desired impacts from a compelling job title

Compelling job titles are sales tools that can have five major results, including:

1. Confidence — the title gives the person hearing it confidence in the ability of the person in the job
2. Performance level – the job title may also infer a high level of performance
3. Understand the job — the job title, although unique, still unambiguously reveals what the job entails. The title also needs to be easily found with a job search string using traditional job titles.
4. It drives action — when a qualified person hears the job title, they instantly want to know more about the job and they should think “someday I’d like to have that job.”
5. The job description reinforces the action – the content of the job description equals or exceeds the selling power of the compelling job title. 

Factors That May Make a Job Title Compelling

In order to qualify as compelling, the job title should meet one or more of the following criteria.

• It discloses the impact of the job (receptionist = director of first impressions)
• It makes you want to find out more about the job
• It reveals excitement and maybe even challenge
• It makes you think
• It is memorable or catchy
• It is intriguing or interesting
• It is humorous
• It is provocative
• It describes the job’s goal or impact
• It includes foreign sounding words or a title (i.e. barista)
• The title mirrors or sounds like a famous movie/TV title or character (i.e. the Terminator)
• The title infers a high level of influence in the organization (i.e. AVP at a bank)

Examples of Compelling Words for Inclusion in Job Titles

Here are some quick examples of compelling words that might be included in a compelling job title. Note: many of the job titles used here as examples are the titles for real jobs.

• Rockstar/badass (e.g. software rockstar)
• Expert (e.g. systems expert or customer service expert)
• Master (e.g. master electrician or master mixologist)
• Virtuoso (e.g. teambuilding virtuoso)
• Specialist (e.g. financial specialist)
• Connoisseur (e.g. cheese connoisseur)
• Champion (e.g. service champion or integration champion)
• Advocate/evangelist (e.g. customer advocate or IT pro evangelist)
• Coach (e.g. customer choice coach)
• Doctor (e.g. car doctor)
• Guru/Kahuna (e.g. social media guru)
• Wizard / Wiz (e.g. software wizard)
• Star (e.g. design star)
• Ace (e.g. ace service provider)
• Professor (e.g. professor of sound)
• Chief (e.g. chief of service or chief recruiter)
• Warrior/Jedi/Ninja (e.g. service warrior or retail Jedi)
• General (e.g. supply train general)
• Ambassador (e.g. ambassador of great beer)
• Terminator (e.g. problem terminator or bug terminator)
• Investigator/detective (e.g. complaint investigator or software bug detective)
• Czar (e.g. marketing czar)
• Advanced (e.g. advanced trainer)
• Principal (e.g. principal accountant)
• Artist (e.g. cake artist or office design artist)
• Authority (e.g. SEO authority)
• Hotshot (e.g. hotshot service pro)
• Maestro (e.g. maestro of yogurt)
• Overlord (e.g. digital overlord)
• Trailblazer (e.g. applications trailblazer)
• Creator/Magician (e.g. creator of happiness or change magician)

In addition to titles and job descriptions, employees can be given symbols of excellence to excite them. For example, the black apron to demonstrate a superior level of coffee expertise at Starbucks. 

Action Steps to Implement a “Compelling Job Titling” Strategy

If your recruiting or management team decides to adopt a “Compelling Job Titling Strategy,” here are a list of action steps to consider.

• Develop strategic program goals — develop measurable goals for the compelling job title program. These goals should include impacts on recruiting, retention, employer branding, job satisfaction/engagement, as well as business impacts.
• Put together a business case — work with the CFO’s office to identify and quantify potential benefits of the program. Demonstrate to senior leadership the potential high impact and low cost of the program. Consider running a pilot on a single job to demonstrate its business impacts.
• Identify targeted jobs – start with identifying high-volume jobs or job families where recruiting and retention has been a problem. Next identify high-impact and mission-critical jobs where a better title might bring in higher-quality candidates.
• Get compensation out of the picture – at most firms, marketing and sales skills are a rarity in the compensation function (I’m being kind here). For a targeted job, do not let compensation utter a word about comparability for salary surveys, compensable factors, or equity. The focus needs to be on improving recruiting and retention.
• Benchmark other compelling job titles – identify benchmark examples, especially in your industry. Search job boards, company websites, and work with external compensation consultants to identify any existing compelling titles that can be adapted to your firm.
• Involve market research – work internally with market research, branding, and product development to understand the processes that they use for naming products. Your job titling approach should mirror those proven data-driven naming processes.
• Identify the components of a compelling job title – put together a list of the factors or characteristics that change a job title from interesting to compelling (see the list below). Survey applicants, recruiters, your employees, and people in similar jobs at other firms at conferences or on LinkedIn, in order to identify any compelling words to include or bad words to exclude. Remember the title must be written so it impresses applicants, jobholders, and their friends, colleagues, and family.
• Involve your employees — involve your employees who work in the job to get their suggestions and buy-in. Also work with a sample of applicants to get their feedback and suggestions. Always pretest any title with incumbents before you finalize it.
• Pretest the new name in a position announcement – post a few sample position announcements with the new name to see if it has a measurable impact on the number and quality of applicants.
• Fix the job description also – a great title will only get you so far if the position description for the job is painfully dull. So it’s also wise to adopt a corporate wide strategy for making job descriptions more compelling. Once again, a data-driven marketing effort must be undertaken to determine how job postings and position descriptions can be modified so that they also serve as compelling sales tools. Again work with employees in the positions to find the aspects and the wording that will excite outsiders. I suggest that you look up the Apple genius position description because it clearly fits the definition of compelling.
• Program results metrics – at the end of the year, survey your new hires in the targeted job during onboarding to see if the compelling job title appears on their list of reasons for applying or accepting the job.

Final Thoughts

The time has passed for lawyers and job analysts to dominate the creation of job titles and job descriptions. Today recruiting and HR professionals need to realize that job titles and job descriptions are both marketing and sales tools that can have a tremendous impact on recruiting, engagement, retention, and product sales. Currently job titles are under-managed at large corporations. It’s time for recruiting to take charge and put together a strategy and program to ensure that for at least key jobs, the title and the content of the job both become key selling and branding points. The costs are minimal but the results can be amazing. The only real roadblock is a lack of courage.