Execs say inflated job titles are weak recruitment tool

New York, Executives have spoken their minds about the worldís most effective recruitment tool: itís money. According to a survey of 677 job seekers in the $100k market conducted by executive job search service TheLadders.com, 84% would prefer a salary increase to a bump up in title.

Marking a departure from the boom time of the late 1990s, when it was common for new employees to be lured with the promise of a fast-track title (however contrived some of those titles may have sounded), executives in todayís market are far more interested in tangible compensation. The executives participating in TheLadders.com survey were asked: Youíve just landed your dream job. Given the choice, which would you take: 10% more in salary or a bump up in title? Eighty four percent of respondents chose the salary increase while 16% said theyíd prefer the title boost.

The survey of registered $100k executives was conducted on TheLadders.com Web site from November 8, 2004 through December 16, 2004. The margin of error is 3.76%.

Cash isnít everything, though. In a related survey of 1,566 job executives conducted in October, TheLadders.com found that the prospect of job fulfillment was perceived to be slightly more critical than total compensation when evaluating a new job offer. Thirty seven percent of the executives surveyed ranked job fulfillment as the most important career consideration, while a very close 32% placed the higher value on compensation. Twenty-one percent said that ìroom for growthî was the most critical factor, and 10% ranked ìproximity to existing homeî as the most important factor.

ìThe days of trumped up titles and non-transferable monikers like Managing Director of Rainmaking and Senior Marketing Guru are largely behind us,î said TheLadders.com founder and president, Marc Cenedella. ìBoth job seekers and recruiters have gotten wise to inflated or contrived-sounding titles that donít mesh with real world experience. So, while a big title without the experience to back it up might make your mom proud, it isnít going to help your career.î

Now reaching over 207,000 readers and featuring over 3,000 new $100k job listings each week, TheLadders.com is the largest online job search service catering exclusively to the $100k market. Marc Cenedella founded TheLadders.com in July 2003 after a tenure as Senior Vice President, Finance & Operations, at HotJobs.com, ultimately shepherding that companyís sale to Yahoo, Inc. (NASD: YHOO) in 2002. In May 2004 he was named Entrepreneur of the Year by award-winning marketing newsletter, MarketingSherpa, which cited TheLadders.comís unique business model as a key to its sustained growth.