Fire-Up Your Students with Fun, Futuristic Job Titles

Fire-Up Your Students with Fun, Futuristic Job Titles

Do your students worry that their careers will be dry, dreary, and difficult? Get them excited about their future endeavors by sharing these fun, creative, and motivational jobs titles. (If they’re fired-up about their future jobs, maybe they’ll tackle their school work with a little more gusto!)

“Energizing” Titles
The right title can make any job more interesting. Last year the Harvard Business Review explored the art of creative job titling and found that inspirational (vs. boring) titles could bring true psychological benefit to workers. Visionary titles can infuse jobs with more meaning, and energize employees. “Companies should recognize that [job titles] are powerful symbols of who we are, what we can do, and what others can expect from us,” the article states.

Innovative Job Titles of 2016
In this age of self-expression and out-of-the-box thinking, unconventional job titles – and job duties – are becoming more and more common. In Fortune you’ll find a list of the most interesting titles to hit the job scene in 2016. For example, while most companies now have Information Security Officers, how many have a Paranoid-In-Chief? At least one: Yahoo. Their cybersecurity division is now officially known as “The Paranoids.”

LinkedIn has a Hacker-In-Residence, Facebook has a Director of Sound Design, and Microsoft has perhaps the mightiest title of all: Galactic Viceroy of Research Excellence. But inventive titles aren’t exclusive to the tech realm. Did you know that in addition to “Actor and Singer,” Justin Timberlake now holds the title of Chief Flavor Officer? He helps Bai Brands develop and launch new antioxidant-infused beverages. Ford has a Master Clay Modeler that builds full-size clay iterations of every new car model, during Ford’s design phase.

Companies like Microsoft also offer something for future English majors – such as a Chief Storyteller role, responsible for “changing the perception of Microsoft through stories.” And if your students are real “people-people,” their future career might be in HR, as a Chief Happiness Officer.

Job Titles of the Future
What sort of job market will greet your students in the next 5-10 years? That’s a big question. We know high-tech and health care will continue to flourish, as those industries tackle some of the biggest issues facing mankind. But, as always, the world will also need marketers, lawyers, journalists, intelligence officers, business people, etc. It will need innovators who can break new ground. And for these future leaders, a creative job title will be just the beginning. 

For more futuristic, inspirational titles, such as Master of Disaster, send your students to this fun web page from Fast Company. And remind them that their future, like their job title, can be as exciting as they want to make it. 

What other creative job titles have you heard?