Job Title? Not sure here...
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@dashrender said in Job Title? Not sure here...:
the reality is that there likely isn't a title that would fit those responsibilities. Anything you call yourself will be a made up title that only applies to your company.
Scott makes a big deal out of this when it come to applying for future jobs, not lieing about titles just because that's what your company calls you.
It's okay to make up titles, that part is super fine. What's not good is using a title that is also a specific role and isn't accurate. Like your title could be "Lord of Customers" and like, whatever. Silly, but fine. But saying you were "General Counsel" when you are not actually an attorney nor the head of the legal department would be just false.
Titles need to either be an pretty accurate match to role, if such a thing exists. So it is common in the enterprise for the title of System Admin to be used for actual system admins who are focuses 99% on system admin duties, that makes sense. Or they could do that role and have a nonsense title like "IT Analyst" which means absolutely nothing and implies nothing (beyond being technical.) Either way works.
Just avoid titles like "System Admin" if your role is not also "system admin".
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@tim_g said in Job Title? Not sure here...:
@scottalanmiller said in Job Title? Not sure here...:
@jimmy9008 said in Job Title? Not sure here...:
So, i'm currently doing all this and more, and have the title 'IT System Administrator'. Which is probably fairly accurate.
I've seen this one a bit and I find it confusing, or maybe just odd. There is nothing wrong with it per se, but I can't see it without asking....
Why is "IT" in the title? Does this mean that there are system admins somewhere from a different department? What department would that be?
Basically, this seems to state that there needs to be additional clarification that you are not a general System Admin, but only a System Admin without the IT ranks. Which is fair, I'm sure that that is true. But who is the System Admin somewhere else?
Like is there an HR System Admin? Is there a Finance System Admin? If so, what the heck do those jobs entail?
Makes sense. I experienced that personally. I had a SE title taken away because there were SEs for the product we make, and I guess that didn't sit well with some people. I assumed they didn't want to prefix it with "IT" .Because there can be SEs in many fields... Not just product system engineers, but IT system engineers too as one example.
The whole thing is just political.
Had the title been with engineer instead of admin, I'd not have seen it the same way. Lots of fields have SE under both CTO and CIO, but SA is only under CIO, not CTO. Engineering and Ops both have engineers, but only ops has admins.
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@scottalanmiller said in Job Title? Not sure here...:
@tim_g said in Job Title? Not sure here...:
@scottalanmiller said in Job Title? Not sure here...:
@jimmy9008 said in Job Title? Not sure here...:
So, i'm currently doing all this and more, and have the title 'IT System Administrator'. Which is probably fairly accurate.
I've seen this one a bit and I find it confusing, or maybe just odd. There is nothing wrong with it per se, but I can't see it without asking....
Why is "IT" in the title? Does this mean that there are system admins somewhere from a different department? What department would that be?
Basically, this seems to state that there needs to be additional clarification that you are not a general System Admin, but only a System Admin without the IT ranks. Which is fair, I'm sure that that is true. But who is the System Admin somewhere else?
Like is there an HR System Admin? Is there a Finance System Admin? If so, what the heck do those jobs entail?
Makes sense. I experienced that personally. I had a SE title taken away because there were SEs for the product we make, and I guess that didn't sit well with some people. I assumed they didn't want to prefix it with "IT" .Because there can be SEs in many fields... Not just product system engineers, but IT system engineers too as one example.
The whole thing is just political.
Had the title been with engineer instead of admin, I'd not have seen it the same way. Lots of fields have SE under both CTO and CIO, but SA is only under CIO, not CTO. Engineering and Ops both have engineers, but only ops has admins.
My boss is the IT manager, but also the SA. His boss is the CIO.
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@dashrender said in Job Title? Not sure here...:
Head of Customer Services and Systems
I'm not a fan personally of "head of"... supervisor would be my preferred.. but that's just me and my like of specific words... so really it's meaningless.
I like both, but for different situations. Head of is fine to me, as long has he's actually the head of those things. Supervisor wouldn't be wrong, but is not expected or required to be the head of something nor even a manager.
Head of... means the head of a department or role. Manager means someone with a certain level of oversigt and responsibility, like the ability to fire or hire or approve vacation. Supervisor implies that someone is over other people, but not actually be their boss (necessarily, they can be.) Supervisor is typically seen as "less than a manager" - so it doesn't imply either way that you can hire, fire, etc.
All are fine, in the right context.
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@tim_g said in Job Title? Not sure here...:
@scottalanmiller said in Job Title? Not sure here...:
@tim_g said in Job Title? Not sure here...:
@scottalanmiller said in Job Title? Not sure here...:
@jimmy9008 said in Job Title? Not sure here...:
So, i'm currently doing all this and more, and have the title 'IT System Administrator'. Which is probably fairly accurate.
I've seen this one a bit and I find it confusing, or maybe just odd. There is nothing wrong with it per se, but I can't see it without asking....
Why is "IT" in the title? Does this mean that there are system admins somewhere from a different department? What department would that be?
Basically, this seems to state that there needs to be additional clarification that you are not a general System Admin, but only a System Admin without the IT ranks. Which is fair, I'm sure that that is true. But who is the System Admin somewhere else?
Like is there an HR System Admin? Is there a Finance System Admin? If so, what the heck do those jobs entail?
Makes sense. I experienced that personally. I had a SE title taken away because there were SEs for the product we make, and I guess that didn't sit well with some people. I assumed they didn't want to prefix it with "IT" .Because there can be SEs in many fields... Not just product system engineers, but IT system engineers too as one example.
The whole thing is just political.
Had the title been with engineer instead of admin, I'd not have seen it the same way. Lots of fields have SE under both CTO and CIO, but SA is only under CIO, not CTO. Engineering and Ops both have engineers, but only ops has admins.
My boss is the IT manager, but also the SA. His boss is the CIO.
My issue here would be the "the". The CIO would be "the IT manager", your boss would be "an IT manager", he's the sub-manager of IT to the CIO. The title CIO means the top IT manager overseeing all IT managers.
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Since I’m in the job market now, I often wonder what happens when you put your real title on a resume, which for most of us in SMB will be something like “IT Generalist,” but when a potential employer verifies your precious employment, your previous employee says “no, his title was Network Administrator.” Does it make the applicant look dumb by giving the impression that the applicant didn’t even know their title at their last job? I imagine the answer is “no,” since it show that the applicant is honest about what their job actually was; however, with the randomness that is present with hiring, it makes me wonder if the former is the real impression given.
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@jimmy9008 said in Job Title? Not sure here...:
@dashrender said in Job Title? Not sure here...:
Head of Customer Services and Systems
I'm not a fan personally of "head of"... supervisor would be my preferred.. but that's just me and my like of specific words... so really it's meaningless.
I'm sure Scott will have a word origin lesson for us that would make one more correct than the other.
As for your IT duties.. do you make the decisions on what to do in IT, or does someone else?
I report to a head of technology who is a programmer and manages the Dev team. That's just how it works here. Though, I make all decisions on IT. I will take something to him, as I have to, but he will say yes to it, said he defers to me on all IT matters as he doesn't know IT... lol.
Hence doing the budgets et al
So what you have here, regardless of titles in play, is that you are a CIO, but instead of reporting to a CEO directly, you report to the CTO. Not unheard of, not wise IMHO, but not unheard of.
I say this, and we have this happen other places. BUT, when we have it happen (I'm dealing with this a few times right now) we have titled the role COO, and then both CIO and CTO report to that role in a company more like yours. Now, the COO could wear either the CIO or CTO hat.
The difference being that the COO in those cases is knowledgeable of both the CIO and CTO functions and acts as a unifying point of management to both groups (plus ops additionally.)
But there is nothing wrong with a CIO reporting to a CTO, COO, or CFO. It just implies that CIO is a junior C role compared to CTO in that organization. There is no rule that Cs all report directly to the CEO. Common, yes, but not a strict rule.
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I'm going to make a video on this shortly, but really quick...
CIO is the head of IT (the business tech infrastructure.)
CTO is the head of product engineering (the software eng/dev group), can include hardware.
COO is the head of operations (aka "the business.")
CFO is the head of finance.In most organizations that have them, CFO and COO are the two most senior C positions. No rule there, it just makes sense that that is where your senior most people gravitate.
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@eddiejennings said in Job Title? Not sure here...:
Since I’m in the job market now, I often wonder what happens when you put your real title on a resume, which for most of us in SMB will be something like “IT Generalist,” but when a potential employer verifies your precious employment, your previous employee says “no, his title was Network Administrator.”
That would be totally illegal for your previous employer to lie about what you did. You have legal protections from that.
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@scottalanmiller said in Job Title? Not sure here...:
@tim_g said in Job Title? Not sure here...:
@scottalanmiller said in Job Title? Not sure here...:
@tim_g said in Job Title? Not sure here...:
@scottalanmiller said in Job Title? Not sure here...:
@jimmy9008 said in Job Title? Not sure here...:
So, i'm currently doing all this and more, and have the title 'IT System Administrator'. Which is probably fairly accurate.
I've seen this one a bit and I find it confusing, or maybe just odd. There is nothing wrong with it per se, but I can't see it without asking....
Why is "IT" in the title? Does this mean that there are system admins somewhere from a different department? What department would that be?
Basically, this seems to state that there needs to be additional clarification that you are not a general System Admin, but only a System Admin without the IT ranks. Which is fair, I'm sure that that is true. But who is the System Admin somewhere else?
Like is there an HR System Admin? Is there a Finance System Admin? If so, what the heck do those jobs entail?
Makes sense. I experienced that personally. I had a SE title taken away because there were SEs for the product we make, and I guess that didn't sit well with some people. I assumed they didn't want to prefix it with "IT" .Because there can be SEs in many fields... Not just product system engineers, but IT system engineers too as one example.
The whole thing is just political.
Had the title been with engineer instead of admin, I'd not have seen it the same way. Lots of fields have SE under both CTO and CIO, but SA is only under CIO, not CTO. Engineering and Ops both have engineers, but only ops has admins.
My boss is the IT manager, but also the SA. His boss is the CIO.
My issue here would be the "the". The CIO would be "the IT manager", your boss would be "an IT manager", he's the sub-manager of IT to the CIO. The title CIO means the top IT manager overseeing all IT managers.
Let me rephrase
My bosses boss is the CIO and one of the owners. My boss is an IT Manager, but also a SA. Everyone in the IT dept reports to him including myself.
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@eddiejennings said in Job Title? Not sure here...:
Does it make the applicant look dumb by giving the impression that the applicant didn’t even know their title at their last job?
It would make the potential employer look dumb for wanting to verify a title rather than what work you actually did.
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@tim_g said in Job Title? Not sure here...:
@scottalanmiller said in Job Title? Not sure here...:
@tim_g said in Job Title? Not sure here...:
@scottalanmiller said in Job Title? Not sure here...:
@tim_g said in Job Title? Not sure here...:
@scottalanmiller said in Job Title? Not sure here...:
@jimmy9008 said in Job Title? Not sure here...:
So, i'm currently doing all this and more, and have the title 'IT System Administrator'. Which is probably fairly accurate.
I've seen this one a bit and I find it confusing, or maybe just odd. There is nothing wrong with it per se, but I can't see it without asking....
Why is "IT" in the title? Does this mean that there are system admins somewhere from a different department? What department would that be?
Basically, this seems to state that there needs to be additional clarification that you are not a general System Admin, but only a System Admin without the IT ranks. Which is fair, I'm sure that that is true. But who is the System Admin somewhere else?
Like is there an HR System Admin? Is there a Finance System Admin? If so, what the heck do those jobs entail?
Makes sense. I experienced that personally. I had a SE title taken away because there were SEs for the product we make, and I guess that didn't sit well with some people. I assumed they didn't want to prefix it with "IT" .Because there can be SEs in many fields... Not just product system engineers, but IT system engineers too as one example.
The whole thing is just political.
Had the title been with engineer instead of admin, I'd not have seen it the same way. Lots of fields have SE under both CTO and CIO, but SA is only under CIO, not CTO. Engineering and Ops both have engineers, but only ops has admins.
My boss is the IT manager, but also the SA. His boss is the CIO.
My issue here would be the "the". The CIO would be "the IT manager", your boss would be "an IT manager", he's the sub-manager of IT to the CIO. The title CIO means the top IT manager overseeing all IT managers.
Let me rephrase
My bosses boss is the CIO and one of the owners. My boss is an IT Manager, but also a SA. Everyone in the IT dept reports to him including myself.
Right, that's more clear. Basically you have the really unhealthy "single line of command" problem - two IT Managers one directly over the other. So their workloads are overlapping. This is a lot of overhead and makes for a lot of confusion. It's generally considered a pretty bad organization structure to have a manager with only a single report who then has report(s) of his own. Of course if the whole company is two people, one is in charge the other is not that's fine.
It's when there is a CIO whose only job is to manager the other IT Manager.... if you need a one to one manager to worker management structure, it implies at least one of them is doing nothing
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@scottalanmiller said in Job Title? Not sure here...:
@tim_g said in Job Title? Not sure here...:
@scottalanmiller said in Job Title? Not sure here...:
@tim_g said in Job Title? Not sure here...:
@scottalanmiller said in Job Title? Not sure here...:
@tim_g said in Job Title? Not sure here...:
@scottalanmiller said in Job Title? Not sure here...:
@jimmy9008 said in Job Title? Not sure here...:
So, i'm currently doing all this and more, and have the title 'IT System Administrator'. Which is probably fairly accurate.
I've seen this one a bit and I find it confusing, or maybe just odd. There is nothing wrong with it per se, but I can't see it without asking....
Why is "IT" in the title? Does this mean that there are system admins somewhere from a different department? What department would that be?
Basically, this seems to state that there needs to be additional clarification that you are not a general System Admin, but only a System Admin without the IT ranks. Which is fair, I'm sure that that is true. But who is the System Admin somewhere else?
Like is there an HR System Admin? Is there a Finance System Admin? If so, what the heck do those jobs entail?
Makes sense. I experienced that personally. I had a SE title taken away because there were SEs for the product we make, and I guess that didn't sit well with some people. I assumed they didn't want to prefix it with "IT" .Because there can be SEs in many fields... Not just product system engineers, but IT system engineers too as one example.
The whole thing is just political.
Had the title been with engineer instead of admin, I'd not have seen it the same way. Lots of fields have SE under both CTO and CIO, but SA is only under CIO, not CTO. Engineering and Ops both have engineers, but only ops has admins.
My boss is the IT manager, but also the SA. His boss is the CIO.
My issue here would be the "the". The CIO would be "the IT manager", your boss would be "an IT manager", he's the sub-manager of IT to the CIO. The title CIO means the top IT manager overseeing all IT managers.
Let me rephrase
My bosses boss is the CIO and one of the owners. My boss is an IT Manager, but also a SA. Everyone in the IT dept reports to him including myself.
It's when there is a CIO whose only job is to manager the other IT Manager....
Right, but that's not the case here. In this case the CIO is an owner, my boss is super busy with other things.
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@tim_g said in Job Title? Not sure here...:
@scottalanmiller said in Job Title? Not sure here...:
@tim_g said in Job Title? Not sure here...:
@scottalanmiller said in Job Title? Not sure here...:
@tim_g said in Job Title? Not sure here...:
@scottalanmiller said in Job Title? Not sure here...:
@tim_g said in Job Title? Not sure here...:
@scottalanmiller said in Job Title? Not sure here...:
@jimmy9008 said in Job Title? Not sure here...:
So, i'm currently doing all this and more, and have the title 'IT System Administrator'. Which is probably fairly accurate.
I've seen this one a bit and I find it confusing, or maybe just odd. There is nothing wrong with it per se, but I can't see it without asking....
Why is "IT" in the title? Does this mean that there are system admins somewhere from a different department? What department would that be?
Basically, this seems to state that there needs to be additional clarification that you are not a general System Admin, but only a System Admin without the IT ranks. Which is fair, I'm sure that that is true. But who is the System Admin somewhere else?
Like is there an HR System Admin? Is there a Finance System Admin? If so, what the heck do those jobs entail?
Makes sense. I experienced that personally. I had a SE title taken away because there were SEs for the product we make, and I guess that didn't sit well with some people. I assumed they didn't want to prefix it with "IT" .Because there can be SEs in many fields... Not just product system engineers, but IT system engineers too as one example.
The whole thing is just political.
Had the title been with engineer instead of admin, I'd not have seen it the same way. Lots of fields have SE under both CTO and CIO, but SA is only under CIO, not CTO. Engineering and Ops both have engineers, but only ops has admins.
My boss is the IT manager, but also the SA. His boss is the CIO.
My issue here would be the "the". The CIO would be "the IT manager", your boss would be "an IT manager", he's the sub-manager of IT to the CIO. The title CIO means the top IT manager overseeing all IT managers.
Let me rephrase
My bosses boss is the CIO and one of the owners. My boss is an IT Manager, but also a SA. Everyone in the IT dept reports to him including myself.
It's when there is a CIO whose only job is to manager the other IT Manager....
Right, but that's not the case here. In this case the CIO is an owner, my boss is super busy with other things.
How does being an owner impact if it is good or bad?
For example, assuming your boss is good and doesn't need to have his hand held to make sure he keeps working, what is the purpose of the CIO? Why does he need to manager your boss?
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I say this as someone that owns companies and has to deal with this exact thing. Why would the owner want to be the CIO, but only have one manager under him? What scenario makes that a good structure?
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@scottalanmiller said in Job Title? Not sure here...:
I say this as someone that owns companies and has to deal with this exact thing. Why would the owner want to be the CIO, but only have one manager under him? What scenario makes that a good structure?
I don't know, I'm just an employee of 5 years out of 30+ the company has been going.
All I know is they are both extremely busy with their appropriate tasks, both are very respectable, and I have no complaints.
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@tim_g said in Job Title? Not sure here...:
@scottalanmiller said in Job Title? Not sure here...:
I say this as someone that owns companies and has to deal with this exact thing. Why would the owner want to be the CIO, but only have one manager under him? What scenario makes that a good structure?
I don't know, I'm just an employee of 5 years out of 30+ the company has been going.
All I know is they are both extremely busy with their appropriate tasks, both are very respectable, and I have no complaints.
How much IT management is there that needs two full time people to oversee it? What kind of things keep them so busy?
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@scottalanmiller said in Job Title? Not sure here...:
@dashrender said in Job Title? Not sure here...:
Head of Customer Services and Systems
I'm not a fan personally of "head of"... supervisor would be my preferred.. but that's just me and my like of specific words... so really it's meaningless.
I like both, but for different situations. Head of is fine to me, as long has he's actually the head of those things. Supervisor wouldn't be wrong, but is not expected or required to be the head of something nor even a manager.
Head of... means the head of a department or role. Manager means someone with a certain level of oversigt and responsibility, like the ability to fire or hire or approve vacation. Supervisor implies that someone is over other people, but not actually be their boss (necessarily, they can be.) Supervisor is typically seen as "less than a manager" - so it doesn't imply either way that you can hire, fire, etc.
All are fine, in the right context.
Head of would be accurate in respect to the newer job functions (customer helpdesk and customer training). Not for the IT side, as I have to run that past my manager, even though he will approve. I don't feel its legit to say I'm the Head of IT or anything when I have to qualify things with him as he is the 'Head of Technology'... which really likely should have been 'Head of Development'.
For the new function I will fill I will have overall say, but I also still keep my IT stuff that I do. That's not going.
So, i'm looking towards 'Head of Customer Experience and IT Systems'.
Or I guess two titles that are separate, is that even a thing?Customer Experience would cover the helpdesk and training side of things, IT Systems would cover all the IT fluff that I do... but does it at least make any type of sense?
I just don't know...
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Or even, 'Head of Customer Experience and Systems Lead'.
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'Customer Experience Manager & IT' - could also be a good fit.
Would just saying 'IT' here in the job title enable me to cover that list of areas within my role in the OP?Would 'Customer Experience Manager' jump out at others as the person who manages the training customers receive, and the helpdesk that the customers use?
