In fact, the professional title is the first thing that a recruiter or a company sees when they open the material received and for this reason, it is essential that it is thought strategically.
Why is a job title important when applying for a job?
As explained above, the title is the first thing, along with the candidate’s name and surname, that a company is looking at. Even before scrolling through the document and checking that you have the right skills and experience, it is the title that makes the difference.
If you apply for a position of Senior Social Media Manager but on your CV you leave Social Media Specialist it is very difficult for a recruiter to be interested in contacting the candidate: despite the required experience it may be present, in fact, the title is completely misleading and disconnected from the job position. If you meet the requirements of the job advertisement, the title to be included on your CV must be, in this specific case, Senior Social Media Manager, precisely in order not to leave room for interpretative doubts and to use the words that the company expects to find in the document.
The advantages of a good professional title
It goes without saying that a good professional title is essential to break through the heart of a company, to simplify the evaluation of the CV and to have an extra opportunity to be called back. Specifically, these are the advantages of a good CV title:
- Adherence to ad requests
- Consistency with the rest of the CV
- Demonstration of professionalism and accuracy
If a recruiter is looking for Junior PHP Developers, they won’t even read those CVs where the title says Senior PHP Developer, Java Developer, PHP Developer with no specifics whatsoever.
How to write the professional title on the CV
Here are some tips to perfectly define the professional title to use on your resume.
Customize it according to the job advertisement
At the moment when replying to a job advertisement, the first thing to do is to create a personalized CV that responds precisely to the advertisement; it is, therefore, a question of personalizing all sections of the curriculum by highlighting the key characteristics required by the ad, in such a way as to immediately capture attention. And to get even better results, it is also necessary that the job title of the person sending the CV is specifically based on the job posting they are responding to.
Be brief but effective
A CV title is a short sentence that describes key competencies and doesn’t have to include a lot of information. There is a specific professional title for any profession, which can be further expanded in case you want to provide more information. And if an ad requires specific positions with a specific title, that specific title needs to be included in the CV.
Include keywords
We’ve already talked about the importance of keywords for a CV: in fact, the massive use of ATS software for the first screening of candidates can favor those who have correctly optimized their CV and disadvantage those who have not done this. It is therefore good to pay attention to the words used in the title, precisely in relation to the above question.
Returning to the previous example, writing Senior Social Media Manager is not the same thing as writing Social Media Manager with Experience: in terms of meaning it could be the same thing but reading software will certainly be different and choosing the second wording you could be immediately excluded from the selection.
Focus on specific skills
If you have specific skills or specific training, it is good to include them briefly in the title. Let’s go back to the example of the Social Media Manager. Writing only Senior Social Media Managers could be a competitive disadvantage because all candidates will write the same thing. Let’s imagine instead that you have particular knowledge of a specific social network, perhaps mentioned in the advertisement, for example, Facebook.
Write a title like:
Senior Social Media Manager Specialized in Facebook
It will put the candidate in an advantageous position over those who have not added this little specification.
Obviously this advantage is even greater if a specific feature and skill are mentioned in the ad and the same are included in the title, just like in the example above.
The job title on the CV when you have no experience
Broadly speaking, there are no disadvantages when it comes to the job title to add to your CV. However, there may be situations in which it is impossible to give yourself a title and insert it in the CV. For example, if you do not have enough experience but still want to apply, it is good to enter the professional title required by the announcement specifying your interest.
Let’s take the example of a non-specialized secretary who answers an announcement for a position as a secretary in a fashion company; her job title should be Experienced secretary interested in working in fashion. In this way, the recruiter will immediately know that he is facing a candidate with experience in the role but without experience in the specific sector, and will be able to act accordingly.
In summary
- The professional title is a fundamental element for any CV;
- It is good to think strategically about this element, aligning it with the requests on the ad;
- Always insert specific skills in the title, to increase the effectiveness of the CV;
- Do not forget to use keywords to allow the document to be read by ATS software too.
