When Your Job Title Doesn't Tell the Whole Story

In 2022, I got passed over for a promotion for the second time. That was the point when I decided I needed to make a change.

Instead of immediately looking for another version of the same job, I started taking a harder look at what I'd actually been doing. One part of my role had grown considerably: digital marketing. I was involved in building campaign pitch decks, entering orders and helping execute campaigns across banners, pre-roll, OTT, SEO, geofencing and outreach.

I had practical experience, but practical experience can also teach you around the gaps. You learn how your company does something without necessarily understanding the broader discipline behind it. So I went back to school. Sort of.

Filling in What Experience Had Glossed Over

I enrolled in DMI's PCM Digital Marketing program in 2023 and passed the certification exam that July. I wasn't trying to become a marketer. I'd already spent years in marketing. I wanted to understand the parts of digital marketing that my experience hadn't required me to learn yet.

The certification filled in some of those gaps, but it did something else that turned out to be just as important: It gave me the confidence to apply for jobs I wasn't sure I was qualified for before.

That eventually led me to Mingo Smart Factory. And strangely enough, manufacturing technology immediately made sense to me. Both of my parents are engineers, and much of my extended family has worked blue-collar jobs. A plant floor wasn't an unfamiliar environment. My dad used to take me to BeeBee Station and the local hydro plant in Rochester once a year.

Then there was the product itself. Data that helps people understand what's happening and make better decisions? Yeah. I get that.

Now I'm Doing It Again

Three years later, I'm looking for the next company that just makes sense. Manufacturing and data are my bread and butter right now, but I'm open to learning another industry. More importantly, this job search has forced me to ask a slightly different question: What did I actually love doing at Mingo and Nulogy?

And I keep coming back to product marketing. Positioning. Messaging. Customer stories. Competitive content. Helping translate complicated technology into something people can understand. Working across Product, Sales and Marketing to figure out how we take something to market.

Then I started rebuilding my portfolio and noticed another pattern. Integrated campaigns have been a common thread through almost everything I've done for the past 12 years.

So has partner marketing. Back in broadcast, I was building sponsorship programs that required Sales, Promotions, News, digital teams, clients and outside partners to work together. In B2B SaaS, the products and audiences changed, but I kept finding myself at those same intersections.

That's why I'm now looking seriously at product, partnership and integrated marketing as possible next chapters.

But There's a Job-Search Problem

My titles don't necessarily tell that story. My recent title says Digital Marketing Manager.

An ATS sees that. A recruiter scanning hundreds of applications sees that. What they don't immediately see is everything underneath it.

They don't see the product positioning, GTM work, competitive research, customer storytelling, cross-functional launches and integrated campaigns unless they keep reading. And right now, I'm not convinced enough of them are getting that far.

That's frustrating. I understand why employers want someone who has already been a Product Marketing Manager for five years when they're hiring a Product Marketing Manager. But there's a strange circular problem there. How do you get the title when doing much of the work isn't enough to qualify you for the title?

I've already made one career pivot by looking closely at what I knew, identifying what I didn't know and deliberately filling in the gaps. I'm willing to do that again. If a Product Marketing certification helps formalize what I've already been doing while teaching me the pieces I haven't had exposure to yet, I'll take the course. I'm already exploring one, but I also don't want another certificate to become permission to claim experience I've already earned.

Friday Thoughts

That's what I'm wrestling with at the end of this Back 2 School week. Continuing education can fill knowledge gaps. It can introduce you to a discipline's language and frameworks. It can give you confidence to make a pivot. I've experienced that firsthand.

A new credential shouldn't be required to make your old experience visible. Careers get messy. Responsibilities expand beyond titles. Industries change. People discover that the part of their job they were best at wasn't necessarily the part printed underneath their name.

I'm open to where mine goes next. I know what I've done. I'm getting clearer about what I want to do more of. And I'm willing to learn whatever I need to learn when I get there.

Now I need someone willing to look beyond the title and give me the chance.

Has anyone else felt limited in a job search by the titles you've previously held—even when your actual experience tells a much bigger story?

Charting New Paths and Possibilities