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Let’s not forget the “Senior” and “Executive” modifiers.

Four-tiered systems of VPs are my favorite.

I agree that “vice president” is promiscuous title #1 and nominate “director” to be promiscuous title #2.

Also, titles seem to be more indicative of a person’s actual level of authority/responsibility at smaller companies than at larger companies.

vice-presidents are newbies; senior vice-presidents rock.

The situation seems to be worse in the US than over here in Europe, especially in the financial sector. We’ve actually had the CEO fly over to meet a “vice president”, only to find out this VP had very little authority over anything. Oops.

There’s also ‘Junior Vice President’, a position held by Homer Simpson at Compuglobalhypermeganet

I think it is driven by the desire for flat org charts. If you limit the number of levels in a organization you are likely doing something worthwhile. If you limit the number of titles you are probably just pretending. My first job had no title and it seemed perfectly normal at the time. I was amazed at how many forms required one though. Now I have a title that conveys absolutely no value in describing my responsibility or skill. Just for VP we have at least 3 levels.

I got news for you: in any company over a certain size, it’s all bullshit.

How about “Key Account Manager”? In every bank or insurance company they seem to call the dudes and gals at the desks “Key Account Manager” now, thus pretty much saying that that unemployed guy who just put 100$ in his very first account has opened an account that is cleary going to make a difference in the company’s EBIT .

@ Adam Perlow … managing director provides even more promiscuity

When graduating from college in 1997, I interviewed with a large national bank’s IT division. They explained that after a couple years of good performance, I’d be promoted to Vice President, and then after several more years I’d become eligible to enter management. It turned out that 1 in 6 employees of the tens of thousands who worked for the company were “Vice Presidents”.

I’ve seen “Geek” as a title of a signee in a consulting agreement.

Ed’s right, it does stem from flat org charts where there isn’t much room for promotion. Wharton did an interesting exploration of this phenomenon here: knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/createpdf.cfm?articleid=1748

Though it was fascinating to consider the theory of it being driven by the growing narcissim of those entering the job market in the last 2 decades – they expected to get A’s as students and they expect to receive recognition and importance as an employee.

Some would say the proliferation of the Vice President title stems from the growth of importance of financial services in the US economy. Everyone knows that the VP of a bank is nothing more than a sales person. My favorite quote from the Wharton article: ”...in the investment banking and brokerage industries just about everyone is a Vice President, including the guys opening the doors and serving you coffee.”

Yes, I was going to post the same as @Adam Perlow, “director” is one of ‘those’ kinds of titles. I’ve actually put my title where my mouth is (?!) and turned down a “promotion” to director as it was strictly in name only. Sure it would look good on a resume, but I’d always know that it was more my employer throwing me a bone than an actual increase in status.

The worst is titles that imply management, but do not involve management. For example, if you are the only marketing person at your company, you are not the “Director of Marketing” !! I was once told on a phone interview to please hold for the “chairman of the board” – this company consisted of 12 people in a loft. I hope it was tongue in cheek, but I have a feeling otherwise.

I’m part of a 19 person company where over half of the people have a title starting with Chief or Director. Several of the “Chiefs” have no one working under them.

I was given a title of Director last year, but I never use it. It’s stupid. When I introduce myself to clients or partners I just tell them what I do.

Most titles are completely useless.

As my father used to say: “Too many Chiefs and not enough Indians.”

I’ve been recently made “Development Team Manager”. I happen to like the title as it represents my new responsabilities: to coordinate the development efforts that the three of us developers do everyday. It’s important to have responsabilities and not so much titles, but in this case, I think the title plays well with our small and growing organization.

Likewise the mob of vice chancellors and associate vice chancellors and assistant vice chancellors for this, that, and the other thing at some universities (e.g., the University of California).

Love this post. It echos my sentiments exactly. Down here in Texas the concept is known as “big hat, no cattle.”

Agreed. Another BS title i see often these days is “Director”. It’s everywhere.

In the UK a “proper” director position actually means something and has legal responsibilities. The BS one is the craftily worded “Director of” which means they aren’t good enough to be a real directory but whined about their title.

Well put, Joe Fusco. Your comment made me laugh out loud.

I wonder if there’s some nice anthropology research about titles. Surely there has to be – if nothing else to parse the ambiguity around vice grand pooh-bah, associate grand pooh-bah, and assistant grand pooh-bah. I’ve never been able to figure out the distinction, especially of those latter two.

“Vice president” is a good title in some contexts because it implies there’s more than one person in the company. :)

My title is Senior Executive Vice President of Managing Directors and I still can’t get any chicks.

I think that at many banks here in the US each bank branch is reuires to have a VP-level person to get into the vault and such. Thus the proliferation at banks.

FWIW the VP of Engineering at my company left and nothing has changed – no huge meltdowns or schedule slips. Hmmm.

My understanding is that only certain officers of a corporation are allowed to sign contracts binding the corporation. Most of them can only be one person at a time—like the President or Treasurer—but a company can have as many Vice Presidents as it wants, hence the proliferation of them.

Personally, I think the title’s level of BS matches the holder. If you fill the role, great. But if you’re President of the Thirteen Colonies and your head’s down on the desk, you’re nothing and everyone will know it.

My all-time favorite title is: Life Artist.

There’s an exception for investment banks. As always.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Managing_director

At large software and consulting companies VP’s are often salespeople not managers, but to me, a VP manages a very large percentage of staff and helps make critical decisions.

@Ryan: perfect metaphor… XDD

In my experience (Europe, software industry) the majority of VPs are incarnations of the Peter Principle.

Forget the usual corporate titles. Let’s borrow from the movies.

Best Boy Key Grip Transportation Captain Standby Painter Negative Cutter Foley Artist

I’d love to see monikers like that on my business card.

My favorite job title is:

Chief Assistant to the Assistant Chief

I think that’s from Flanders and Swan or another comedy act from the 1960s-70s.

In the UK it’s “Associate Director”, or sometimes just “Associate”.

One caveat… I know someone who has been a VP for a very long time at one company. I asked him once, “How come you do not want to be President?” He replied, “I have been here for 10 years and I have been VP for 8, in that time I have seen 6 different Presidents get fired. I think I am fine with a VP.”

our company is all chiefs, no indians; and the chiefs have refused to let go of their meaningless titles

Lets start with some basic axioms. 1 – Every company needs a CEO . 2 – Every company needs grunts to build stuff. 3 – Every company needs sales people to sell their stuff. 4 – Every company needs somebody to manage the bags of money. 5 – Most people cannot directly and competently manage more than 10 people. 6 – Nobody but the CEO manages grunts and sales people. 7 – Some customers will only deal with people with expensive sounding titles because it makes them feel important and well-served.

That partly explains why small companies have lots of people with big titles. The managing 10 rule of thumb means that once a company gets to a certain size, you need JVPs, VPs, SVPs, EVPs, etc.

Out of college I interviews w/ Hantz financial group everyone I talked to it seemed like was a Vice President. I think Hantz financial did this on purppose so when people interviews for one of their scam jobs they would feel as if they were important, after all they were interviewing with the Vice President. Plus then when the scam artists at hantz went to sell commodities they could be like Oh I’m the vice prisident of hantz financial buy buy buy from my scam.