Job Titles Don’t Mean What They Used To (And That Affects Your Pay) — with Dr. Ben Zweig (Part 2 of 2)

#694: There are about 90 million unique job titles in the U.S. labor market.

Ninety million.

If you are trying to negotiate a raise, switch companies or launch a side hustle, that number has consequences.

If titles do not line up, you cannot easily compare pay, scope or seniority. You might be doing the same work as someone with a higher title and higher salary - and never see it.

That problem is the focus of Part 2 of our conversation with Dr. Ben Zweig.

Zweig is the CEO of Revelio Labs, a workforce data firm that analyzes millions of job postings and online profiles. He also teaches The Future of Work at NYU Stern School of Business and holds a PhD in economics from the CUNY Graduate Center. His work focuses on how jobs are structured and how they evolve.

We talk about taxonomy - the systems used to categorize work. A title acts as shorthand for a bundle of tasks. Trouble starts when the shorthand breaks down. Two people with the same title may do very different work. Two people with different titles may perform nearly identical tasks.

Zweig explains how large language models can group job descriptions based on actual responsibilities rather than labels. That approach could make it easier for workers to search accurately and for companies to organize teams.

The conversation shifts to management. He argues that managers spend much of their time reconfiguring roles as business needs change. Technology accelerates that reconfiguration rather than replaces it.

We close with stories about bank tellers and typists. Their titles remained familiar. Their tasks transformed over time.

Resource:

⁠Job Architecture: Building a Language for Workforce Intelligence⁠ by Ben Zweig

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