The newly minted richest man in the world, Elon Musk, has a new job title to match his wealth. Although his empire spans multiple industries, he frees himself from the CEO name at just one of the companies under his thumb and chooses the title “Technoking” at electric carmaker Tesla.
To Musk, the duties of a Technoking seem no different from those of a traditional Chief Executive Officer, as the industrial billionaire will see the previous role of his position remain intact, Wall Street JournalTesla’s former CFO, Zach Kirkhorn, will also take a similar redundant leap and change its official designation to Tesla’s Master of Coin. (His actual job is not expected to change).
Musk and Kirkhorn gave themselves crazy titles for being powerful men in control, but aside from a few clickable headlines and chuckles from Musk’s army of Acolytes, the titles themselves don’t mean anything. And strangely enough, that’s the case with most job titles.
“Technoking” gives the rest of us a little lesson, regardless of our calling: job titles rarely, if ever, explain your actual work. Since you’re not likely to wave a business card with some irreverent title that starts a conversation, when talking to someone about your job or even having a job interview, it is better to emphasize what you like To do
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Titles don’t mean the same for different organizations
Being a senior vice president of sales at one anonymous company does not mean that your responsibilities exactly match the duties of one SVP at another.
What you do for a living is a pretty inevitable topic of conversation. If it’s something you really want to talk about, you’re going to have to dive into details and not just give a three-word answer like “I’m a lawyer.” Everyone has a vague idea of what being a lawyer entails, but the actual details of a career always differ from person to person, even though they technically have the same job on paper.
To become more imaginative in your explanation
Of course, you don’t have to pretend to be one pseudo LinkedIn influencer spitting out business jargon, but feel free to really explain what you’re doing with a little more color and panache. Because bbehind many boring job titles at least lies some kind of goal. Of course we work to pay the bills and keep our heads above water, but every now and then there might be something worth sharing in a conversation that sets out the broader purpose of your job.
As Gene Marks wrote in Entrepreneur in 2018, job titles don’t actually have any meaning and are generally used to reinforce someone’s ego:
What do you say when people ask you what you do for a living? Are you a “small business owner”? An entrepreneur? ”A“ CEO? ”Don’t believe it. You’re none of those things. Those are just titles, designed to make people feel more important. This is not what you really do.
Instead, consider working out what you’re doing in more detail. You don’t need to write a speech, but if you are an immigration attorney, consider saying, “I help undocumented migrants access legal resources so they can reunite with their families,” or if you are a computer programmer, you can that says: “I’ll help build software the basis for popular apps and websites. “Your title is implied in the synopsis you are offering. Whether you are a Senior Web Designer or not, it really makes little difference to the person you talk to.”
To make a more interesting conversation
If you don’t expand what you’re doing, you will bring the conversation to a dead end; or worse, you run the risk of labeling yourself at best and sounding pretentious at worst. It is unlikely that you will use the title “Technoking” or Supreme Emperor of Accounts Payable time fast, but luckily you have more to talk about outside of your title, anyway.