Linguistic Jobs

All organisations create their own certain language and acronyms, but bear in mind that these might need to have explaining to an outsider. In reality, it may well be far better to avoid them altogether.

Now although you might not have enough organisational clout to decide what job title you go by in the workplace, it is a distinct kettle of fish when it comes to your CV. For example, if the job titles you’ve had over the years don’t adequately convey what the jobs had been about, really feel totally free to adjust some of the content of your CV to make it more readily comprehensible to recruiters.

The language utilised in the workplace has usually been tempered by historical practice and office politics. There was a story in the papers about 4 years ago concerning 1 of the main Whitehall departments that utilized to run a course referred to as ‘Getting the Most Out of Your Junior Staff’. 1 of the juniors objected to the title and the course was consequently renamed ‘Succeeding with Teams’. The content, needless to say, was identical.

CONFUSING JOB TITLES

Now let’s be clear about 1 factor. I’m not advocating gratuitous inflation of the facts in order to make you appear like a bigger organisational hitter than you genuinely are. For example, it would be plain wrong to call your self a Project Director when your most crucial contribution is to fetch everyone coffee. To describe your self as a Director in those circumstances is to be the sort of individual that the Texans call all hat and no cattle.

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On the other hand, what if your job title is something like Executive Officer (Finance Division)? I’d suggest that this title conveys comparatively little about what you actually do. If the reality is that you orchestrate and manage most of the company’s purchasing from outside suppliers, then calling your self a Buying Manager on your CV is a reasonable translation of your responsibilities into language that would be a lot more meaningful to somebody working in an additional business.

BIN THE ACRONYMS

 All companies have their own jargon and acronyms to describe numerous corporate activities. I was about half an hour into my very first day with one employer when a work colleague told me to staple the RD17 to the B303 and then forward them each to PDU. Prior to lengthy, of course, you understand the lingo and eventually you can even say sentences like that without having laughing. The danger is that after a while this language becomes second nature to the extent that we pepper our CV with acronyms that would baffle the typical reader and even need a recruitment consultant with a PhD in cryptography to pause for believed.

WHAT’S THAT IN ENGLISH?

I’ve noticed there’s a certain tendency for there to be a rush of linguistic blood to the head when organizations come up with names for key change projects. In my time as a management consultant, I’ve come across alter projects called Obtain, Xerxes, Lean Machine and Blue Sky. You rather wish that organisations would either go for some thing a little far more descriptive of the project’s purpose (I’ve often thought that Slash ’n’ Burn would work for most organisations) or for a much less macho name (wouldn’t you love to be put in charge of a change programme known as ‘Could Be Worse’ or ‘Mustn’t Grumble’?).

Really feel free not to use the project names that the business comes up with. It will almost certainly make more sense to the reader of your CV if you describe their purpose, possibly calling them one thing like ‘an organisation-wide alter programme focused on price reduction with out job loss’ or ‘a main alter programme created to boost the company’s customer management systems’.

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