Know-How Exchange : Career/Training

Titles really don't mean that much, but in a heirarchial structure, from bottom to top, it should go Specialist, Coordinator, Manager, Director, and up. I would be more interested in duty allocation rather than title; have a clear cut difference from the powers-that-be regarding what those expectations are. Why are they hiring this position?

To whom do you report? Is this new person going to report to you? If they are going to report to you, I might suggest you ask they change your title to Manager, or at least a bump in compensation now that you are actually managing a person in addition to processes (you don't need to bring up past accomnplishments but I would want to find out what exactly is the deliniation of responsibility. Hopefully this new person is taking stuff off your plate). If you have a proper Review coming up, that would be the optimal time.

My advice: Take yourself out of the title race and just do a great job of delivering results based on what your boss expects of you. If you do your job well, you'll be noticed and rewarded appropriately. If you don't or aren't, find another job.

Within the context of your country's, industry's and specific company's cultures, the importance of title will vary. However in the 8 countries I have lived in (and couple of dozen I have done business in), "secretary" was a lousy title to have. The secretary might have had the ear of the boss. But "big dollars" did not come with that job title. Big dollars usually started with some kind of manager title.

A great many companies have salary ranges for job titles. Changing the title even though the salary stays the same can be a backdoor entry to making it much easier to get more authority and responsibility, an independent budget, a better office, your own secretary, etc. Eventually the salary increases also.

Be aware that doing a great job is not enough. You have to be PERCEIVED as doing a great job. And the brand new manager gets looked at harder (which is what you want) than the brand new "sub-sub-assistant."

An extreme case in point about title importance: a young American man in San Francisco was married to a Japanese woman and spoke it with her at home, knew the language fluently, when I worked in Silicon Valley 20 years ago. He had a middle level position for an accounting firm. The firm offered him a modest raise to open up its first office in Japan.

His wife told him he had to have the job title "partner," or in the Japanese hierarchal society he would fail to acquire customers. Trusting his wife, he said fine, but he needed the job title partner.

The accounting firm said no, he was too young and inexperienced. The firm went back and forth with him for over a year, going as far as offering to double his salary. He still said no.

Finally the firm caved, and sent him over as PARTNER.
He drew his normal salary, no fat raise. At year end he got a payment that was several times larger than his annual salary, to his complete, total, dumbfounded astonishment. He followed up and was told that was his PARTNERSHIP share of the firm's earnings. "You can not officially be titled "partner" without receiving a partner's revenue share. That is company policy."

Regards,
JH

Hi, a Marketing Coordinator, in most cases, performs the job of a manager. He/she is responsible for the implementation of the overall marketing initiatives and communication strategies of the firm, in addition to other responsibilities, depending on the company. If your company is adding another person to the marketing department, you need to clearly define responsibilities so that roles do not overlap - if this is the case, then I don't think there should be an issue of who "leads" but a matter of teamwork. Sometimes a specialist role is quite focused as opposed to a marketing coordinator which is quite broad. However, if responsibilities do overlap, then someone needs to lead, and this needs to be supported by management in order to develop a team, collaborative approach within the marketing department. I would suggest you ask your boss what is his/her vision in this new role, and how both of you will fit together before you request for a new title. How about that? All the best!