Avoid Using the Word 'Senior' in
Financial Analyst Job Titles
Overqualifying a position by
including the word 'Senior' in the
title on a job post can shrink
your candidate pool, regardless
of the requirements.
Because job seekers use the
title to help gauge whether
they should apply and may
question whether they're
Senior.
What does overqualifying a role mean,
anyway? Overqualifying a role can mean
giving it a title that seems more senior
than the requirements imply. It can also
mean asking for non-standard
requirements or requirements that don’t
fit the job market.
For example, a tech job in San
Francisco, where the candidate
pool is large and differentiated,
can ask for different
requirements than a tech job in
Boise.
What companies in the U.S. say about these
roles depends on who’s speaking. Some
companies think of a Senior Financial Analyst
position as a junior role. Others think of
Financial Analyst as a mid-level role and Senior
Financial Analyst as a senior role. How
companies act is something else.
Companies use Senior in over half of all titles
for financial analyst roles requiring less than
three years experience, while less than one
percent for Senior Financial Analyst roles
require more than eight years of experience.
This suggests that companies are inflating
titles.
So, how does including
Senior in financial analyst
titles impact the size, quality,
and diversity of candidate
pools?
To figure that out, Datapeople
collected recruiting process data
for financial analyst roles in the
United States. Then we
compared jobs with Senior in the
title to those without.
Compared to jobs without, roles
with Senior in the title receive on
average: 29% fewer applicants,
39% fewer qualified applicants,
and 27% fewer female applicants.
The impact is clear.
Final note: You can actually
use any title you want
internally, just so long as you
avoid using Senior in the title
on your external job posts.
Contact Us At:
https://datapeople.io/
.