Thursday 1 October 2009

Vague Job Descriptions

Okay, so I was just checking through the options for this blog to change my location from Swansea to Tewkesbury and I saw a section listing Work. It had a section for industry so I scrolled down it and found absolutely nothing that was appropriate for my job. Religion and Non-Profit being the closest two descriptions. Now, I can understand this situation for this sort of role, after all professional historian is not a job you come across very often outside of academia. It is, however, quite frustrating when the previous job I had as well had an equally vague niche in terms of industry description. Maybe I've just gone for unusual jobs but I have noticed how the actual responsibilities of a particular job often have very tenuous links to the title. At BackCheck there was someone called the First Impressions Co-ordinator. They were a receptionist. True, they did provide the first impression for many a visiting client, but what an overly convoluted title for such a position. At BackCheck I was an Human Resources Interviewer. From the title you would assume, as I did, that you would be working in the HR department conducting interviews for people wanting to work at the company. Now, to an extent that was true. I did "interview" people to some degree. But Call-Centre Operator, Customer Service Assistant, and International Investigator could all have been equally accurate descriptions of what I was doing. The crazy modern world of business eh. Where a lack of clarity fools people into assumptions that are not true. No wonder so many people dislike corporatism.

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