Still impressive if the card is printed in bone-white.
In business, job title inflation is a rise in the general level of prestigious titles used to describe the activities, responsibilities, duties and tasks related to specific jobs over a period of time. When the general level of prestigious titles rise, each position that deserves a lofty title decreases in prestige; consequently, job title inflation is a decline in the real value of a job titles. A chief measure of general job title inflation is a LinkedIn People Search (LIPS), which can show the number of employees with a lofty job titles.
Job title inflation can have adverse effects in business. For example, uncertainty about future job title inflation may discourage employees from feeling proud about their current title. High job title inflation may also lead to economic recessions if too many employees begin valuing title increases over salary increases.
Business experts generally agree that high rates of job title inflation are caused by an excessive growth of job titles containing "Chief", "Executive", "President", "VP", "Director", "Supervisor", or "Manager". Views on which titles determine low to moderate job title inflation vary among experts, but most agree that an increase in the number of jobs including "Sr." prefixes, and "AVP" (Associate Vice President) are key indicators of low to moderate job title inflation. In the right context, "Engineer" can also be considered job title inflation (Custodial Engineer).
Job title Inflation is usually measured per job title by calculating the job title inflation rate of a job title index, usually the LinkedIn People Search (LIPS Index). The LIPS Index allows experts to search for specific job titles and displays the total number of results among all LinkedIn users. The job title inflation rate is the percentage rate of change of a job title index over time.
For example, in May 2008, the number of jobs containing the word "Executive" totaled 323,393 users. In May 2009, this same search returned 1,758,495 users. Although LinkedIn membership also increased during this same time, the formulas account for the increase in membership by accounting for the increase in the denominator. It still leads to a 207% job title inflation for any job containing the keyword "Executive".
The formulas used to calculate job inflation using the LIPS index:
Specific Job Title Index:
(Number of LinkedIn Users with specific title) / (Total number of LinkedIn Users)
Specific Job Title Inflation:
(Job Title Index in Most Recent Year - Job Title Index in Previous Year) / Job Title Index in Previous Year
Specific titles with high job title inflation rates since 2005:
"Chief": 800k LinkedIn users (2% of LinkedIn), with 275% job title inflation since 2005.
"President": 2.1m LinkedIn users (5.2% of LinkedIn), with 312% job title inflation since 2005.
"VP" or "Vice President": 1.5m LinkedIn users, with 426% job title inflation since 2005.
"Associate Vice President" or "AVP": 126k LinkedIn users, with 490% job title inflation since 2005.
"Director": 3.8m LinkedIn users (9.58% of LinkedIn), with 382% job title inflation since 2005.
"Manager" or "Supervisor": 9m LinkedIn users, with 245% job title inflation since 2005.
What does all of this mean?
If you have a job title that contains Chief, President, VP, Director, Manager or Supervisor, you might want to be prepared for layoffs. If 43% of workforce is managing the other 57%, there's some room for trimming. To those of you that fall into the shrinking majority, this could mean one of two things:
Best case scenario: You are making far more money than your colleagues because you value salary more than a meaningless job title.
Worse case scenario: You are also about to be laid off.
> Click here to read Job title inflation, part 2: Job title fluffing
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Related Articles: Is Donald Trump an unemployment engineer?, 7 habits of a typical bad manager, Job ad jargon
External sources used for this article: LinkedIn People Search (LIPS)
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Comments
How many % has the number of LinkedIn user increased with?? You need to take this into consideration or else this entry is useless.
This is an absurd analysis. As @Jan mentioned, at least you could normalize for growth of LinkedIN (which is considerable). A quick Google search and you'll see articles claiming a 3x growth in site traffic/users over that period. But even if your normalize for total user growth, you can't say for sure that more senior (or junior) people are joining.
This analysis is embarrassing.
Jan and FN - These comments never cease to amaze me.
Are you really questioning the math and formula used in this article? Really?
a) Regardless of the purpose of this article, the formula actually DOES account for growth of LinkedIn users as clearly stated in the article. Each index takes the total number of a specific title as a percentage of the LinkedIn membership total. It's right there for you to read.
b) You are questioning the math behind an article that was intended to take a concept like 'job title inflation' and turn it into an article similar to those written about currency inflation. Questioning the LIPS index, or any other item stated in this entire article would have also been a valid argument, because the entire article is a JOKE.
It's a very sad day when people read this and take it seriously. Even worse when people attempt to analyze it and can't even get that right.
Dudley please leave Jan, FN and their kind alone.. they provide so much entertainment for me and my friends on a daily basis... your critism may result in a 27% decrese in the responses and that may translate into a 17% decrease in my daily enjoyment...
You are right - I will hold back in the future.
"I aim to please."
- John Holmes
I think someone is jealous that I'm an AVP. Don't worry. You will eventually realize you aren't AVP material, and then you'll come crying back to all of us when your career is down the tubes.
Anyone who thinks you can make good money without being a director or manager just simply has no clue.
FN & Jan are idiots
And Rick - you are a tool. Where did he ever sound jealous of titled people? Where did he say you make better money not being director and above? And how can you say you have to have a meaningless title for some bs corporation in order to make money? You can't be for real, right? Just trying to stir things up?
My company has a lot of VPs. The execs finally decided the garage was getting too crowded and wanted to start limiting the number. They are now exploring lots of options on how to fix it; my favorite? Adding a tier of 'Junior VPs'. I swear that is not made up.
Around here we only have one title:
C^2BW = (C squared BW) Chief Cook and Bottle Washer.
This holds true for all technical and managerial positions.
Small companies do not worry about naming positions as much as large companies. In a small company everyone has to wear many hats and contribute. The environment is one of contribution and team work more than egocentric titles that induce behavioral issues.
Great article. I've been so sick of title inflation for years now. Some of the worst offenders include calling territory sales reps "regional sales managers" or "senior sales executive" - they manage no one! They just sell stuff. Many of them the title "Peddler" would be more appropriate. The "senior" in sales titles usually just refers to age and not some level of competence. So what is the Peddlers' boss called? Well it can't be "Sales Manager", so they become Director, or "Sr. Regional Manager's Manager's Manager, or the nice AVP of Sales, when they are a supervisor of peddlers.
And people without proper degrees being called some form of "engineer" is irritating too. The janitor one is a good example.
At one company I worked at, they had, and I'm serious about this, a "VP of Corporate Entertainment". They position did nothing but set up golf outings and fancy dinners for clients who came into town. Like Judy McCoy, the Cruise Director. Wait, she's called a "Director". :)
"How many % has the number of LinkedIn user increased with??"
What the...?????
I'd guess English wasn't your first language, but your second sentence is reasonably clear.
That must make you what? A Director? A VP? Great.
Oh, I get it. So I have to live by your standards of success which is purely just based on money? Maybe some of us out there expect more from life and we appreciate being respected at work. Being a Director, VP, or manager is not due to inflation. It's due to hard work and dedication which is something I'm certain you are not familiar with.
Jill, sorry that your life is so horrible. You are truly the poster child reminder for all of us to not huff paint.
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