Avoiding Title Inflation
Title inflation is the practice of leveling up a job title without leveling up the associated responsibilities and requirements along with it.
Some specific examples of job title inflation include:
- Including Lead /Principal in the title of a ‘Software Engineer’ job that only has mid-level or junior requirements. Read more about this trend in our Tech Hiring Report.
- Adding Senior in the title of a 'Data Scientist' or 'Financial Analyst' job that only asks for 1-3 years of experience.
Why is job title inflation problematic?
Title inflation can sometimes be a well-meaning attempt to increase the appeal of a job so that it can attract a larger candidate pool. In tight labor markets, inflated titles are thought to act as an incentive for candidates that will compensate for a non-competitive (lower) salary.
However, more often than not title inflation has a detrimental impact on candidate pools. Inflated titles that don’t fit the requirements can intimidate or confuse otherwise qualified candidates – or prevent them from finding jobs on search engines entirely. Subsequently, hiring teams may inadvertently attract unqualified applicants.
At Datapeople, we've found that in tech roles and non-tech roles, jobs with title inflation receive on average:
- 25-60% fewer applicants
- 35-50% fewer qualified applicants
- 25-60% fewer female applicants
Resources to learn more about job title inflation:
- Pithily described in this Wikipedia article.
- Business Insider article that describes the impacts of job title inflation during the Great Resignation.
- Job title inflation is part of a broader category of overqualified jobs.