Dear Cherubs, job titles have entered the space between branding and performance art — and sometimes it’s giving clown show. Lede aside: yes, some of these names are clever; others are just baffling and make hiring managers reach for a thesaurus.

WHY THEY DO IT
Companies rebrand ordinary roles for three reasons: to sound cool, to stand out on job boards, and to wrap a bit of culture around a mundane task. According to Harvard Business Review, creative titles can energise workers, which explains why Disney still calls its theme-park staff “cast members.” But energy isn’t the same as clarity; Forbes reports real harms when title inflation misrepresents seniority, and that can stick on a CV. LinkedIn even reported a big uptick in new-style titles tied to hybrid and future-of-work roles, which shows it’s not just startups being playful — the whole ecosystem is leaning into novelty.

What the title actually tells you is usually less exciting. “Director of First Impressions” is reception work. “Chief Happiness Officer” often maps to people ops or internal comms. “Growth Hacker” is marketing with spreadsheets and caffeine. Novorésumé and Ongig have compilations proving these labels aren’t hypothetical — they’re live on job boards and LinkedIn pages.

HOW TO SURVIVE THEM
If you’re a jobseeker, translate. Put the quirky brand title on your LinkedIn headline if you must, but add a parenthetical with the plain English equivalent so recruiters and ATS systems can find you. On your CV, use a functional title line like “Director of First Impressions (Office Manager / Reception).” When interviewing, ask for three measurable outcomes the role is expected to deliver — if they can’t state them, that’s your cue.

Employers: pair the personality with a plain job label. As recommended in reporting on this trend, creative titles are fine in culture decks, but your job ad should include searchable, standard terms to attract applicants who actually fit the role. Also, be honest about seniority: a “chief” without reports looks silly and creates expectation mismatch later.

THE LITTLE DATA POINT
If you like receipts: Business Insider, Coburg Banks, and Entrepreneur have long lists of weird titles, showing this is widespread, not niche. Treat such lists as an index of what to translate rather than career goals.

Final hot take: quirky titles are a branding tool, not a substitute for clear job design. They can make an employer sound fun; they shouldn’t make a candidate invisible to recruiters or future employers. Keep the sparkle, lose the obfuscation, and always include the job’s real duties somewhere obvious.

If you want, I can turn this into a 700–1,000-word magazine feature, draft a cheeky infographic translating 50 titles into plain English, or scrape active London listings for current examples. Bet you’ll find “Director of First Impressions” on at least one careers page.

Sources list — full URLs
Harvard Business Review — https://hbr.org/2016/05/creative-job-titles-can-energize-workers
Forbes — https://www.forbes.com/sites/rogertrapp/2022/09/30/why-modern-job-titles-create-confusion-and-frustration/
The Guardian — https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2015/aug/26/chief-happiness-officer-cho-employee-workplace-woohoo-google
Entrepreneur — https://www.entrepreneur.com/growing-a-business/the-wild-and-wacky-job-titles-of-the-future/390518
LinkedIn News (reporting on job-title trends) — https://www.linkedin.com/news/story/job-titles-are-getting-weird-5397396/
Novorésumé — https://novoresume.com/career-blog/weirdest-job-titles
Ongig — https://blog.ongig.com/job-titles/funny-job-titles/
Coburg Banks — https://www.coburgbanks.co.uk/blog/job-titles-that-sound-cool-but-mean-absolutely-nothing
Business Insider — https://www.businessinsider.com/unusual-job-titles-companies-hiring-millennials-2018-11
thisclaimer.com — https://thisclaimer.com