How Gen Z and the Great Retirement created a wave of inflated job titles

Associates are now “Partners” and each is a “Senior Executive VP”. Why did normal job titles suddenly sound so pompous? iStock; George Marks, Sellwell, CJ Burton/Getty Images; Robyn Phelps/Insider

As early as 1993, the Financial Times ran a column bemoaning the grandiose job titles that were popping up in the US and UK. “Currency inflation may be under control in Britain, but job titles are not,” wrote Adrian Furnham, a professor at University College London. “Almost all Americans over the age of 23 seem to have the title ‘Executive Vice President’ stamped on their business cards.”

But here’s the thing about inflation: it never ends. American job titles are even more grandiose today than they were when Furnham was nagging about the state of corporate taxonomies, according to a new analysis of 2.4 million job postings by Datapeople, a provider of recruitment analytics. Since 2019, employers have tripled the use of the word “lead” in junior tech jobs, increased the use of “principal” by 57%, and reduced the use of the word “junior” by half. “It shocked me how dramatic it was,” says Maryam Jahanshahi, director of research and development at Datapeople. “It’s widely used in many different types of jobs.”

So what’s driving companies to release more and more outlandish titles? There are four factors fueling rampant stock inflation:

1. Screw employees out of overtime wages. Federal law requires employers to pay workers for their overtime hours unless they are classified as salaried managers. So companies exploit the loophole by giving low-wage workers important-sounding titles. In a study published in January, researchers at Harvard and the University of Texas at Dallas found that some front desk assistants are now “first impression directors,” while carpet cleaners have been transformed into “shampoo managers.” The savings add up: The study estimates that employers are using job titles to cheat employees out of $4 billion a year in overtime pay.

2. Attract and retain skilled workers. In higher-paying jobs, employers are using title inflation to try to attract higher-caliber candidates and discourage employees from leaving ship. Compared to the temptations of higher pay and benefits, adding an additional “senior” to the job title is free. The practice became particularly common during the Great Resignation, making it difficult for companies to hold on to employees. “Because the market is so tight,” says Michelle Reisdorf, district manager at staffing firm Robert Half, “a lot of hiring managers are definitely going to be creative in every way they can to attract top talent.”

3. Make young people and medium-sized companies appear more important to external customers. That’s why investment banks give virtually everyone the title of vice president — to give a touch of authority to green bankers, whose clients are typically much older. Goldman Sachs once announced that it has nearly 12,000 vice presidents — a third of its entire workforce. Last year, auditing firm EY gave its associate partners in the UK the title of ‘Partner’ in hopes it would help them do more business. (The new title didn’t come with a raise or profit sharing.) I’ve even heard of some companies keeping a database of two titles for each employee: a regular title for internal purposes and an inflated title Sales Rep – sorry, Corporate Development Manager — use in their calls to customers. A recent marketing study found the tactic works — even when deployed by artificial intelligence. When a chatbot introduced itself as a “customer service manager” rather than a “customer service representative,” people rated it as more personable, trustworthy, and knowledgeable.

4. Meet Gen Z expectations. Over the years, as titles have become more bloated, younger employees have come to expect fancy titles much sooner than previous generations. They also expect to be promoted more often, which inflates the titles even faster. When JobSage, a site for employer reviews, surveyed workers last year, 58% of Gen Z respondents said they expect to be promoted every 18 months, compared to 20% of Baby Boomers and 27% of Gen X Gen Z -Staff also estimated that it only takes three to six years to become a vice president. Boomers, on the other hand, said it takes at least a decade of experience to become a vice president.

Title inflation has gotten so bad that companies are running out of lofty new words for their employees. Some mix a few old words together, resulting in monstrosities like “senior executive vice president” — not to be confused with senior vice presidents and executive vice presidents. Others try to give new authority to words that don’t sound old-fashioned at all. At large tech companies, for example, HR engineers are typically seated above senior engineers and the most senior engineers are called fellows – the title many companies use for interns.

But the biggest problem with title inflation isn’t confusion — it’s that inflated titles don’t really attract better talent. In one analysis, Datapeople found that appending the word “senior” to positions that are actually junior financial analysts results in 39%. fewer qualified applicants. That’s because junior candidates see the fancy title and think they’re unqualified for the position, while senior candidates read the job description and realize they’re overqualified. “This leads to a very inefficient recruitment process,” says Jahanshahi. “People feel baited and replaced.” Worse, the deception is leading to a 27% drop in the number of female candidates, making it harder for companies to diversify their workforces.

There are also risks for employees. Instead of making you look impressive, a bunch of awesome titles on your resume can actually lead to missed opportunities. “Sometimes you can take those high titles out of the race for a job,” says Reisdorf, CEO of Robert Half. “Someone looks at your big, fancy title and says, ‘Well, you’re overqualified’ or ‘This job isn’t going to satisfy you.’”

Despite the downside of title inflation, I think the state of affairs today has some redeeming qualities. I used to admire the egalitarian ethos at Bloomberg, where most of my fellow reporters and I were called reporters, regardless of our level of experience. But since joining Insider, I’ve appreciated how its more transparent hierarchy, with six titles ranging from junior reporter to chief correspondent, offers writers a clearer and fairer path for career advancement and raises.

There are even perks to the kind of creative titles we’ve ridiculed. In one study, renowned organizational psychologist Adam Grant found that allowing employees to create their own titles resulted in less burnout. The titles adopted by an organization’s employees seemed particularly absurd — “Minister of Dollars and Meaning” (COO), “Goddess of Greetings” (administrative assistant), and “Magic Messenger” (PR manager) — until you realized that they worked for the non-profit Make-A-Wish Foundation, which fulfills the dreams of dying children. If including a quirky title in their email signatures helps these employees handle an emotionally challenging job, who are we supposed to make laugh?

It shows that our job titles aren’t just a summary of our day-to-day duties or an indicator of our place on the org chart. They also shape our identity as human beings. It means something to us that the world calls us by a name that reflects how we see ourselves. But the Goddess of Salutation study revealed another important detail: The employees who gave themselves crazy job titles also kept their usual boring ones. It’s one thing to call someone a magical messenger at work. Posting it as a job on ZipRecruiter is another matter.

“If you want to appoint someone internally as chief happiness officer, absolutely,” says Jahanshahi. “But off-world you have to use industry-specific titles that match the seniority of the role. Otherwise, no one will find that job — unless someone on Twitter decides to make a meme out of it.”

Aki Ito is a senior correspondent at Insider.

Juliana Kaplan contributed reporting.

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