What's the first thing most people usually say after their name when meeting someone professionally?
Hi, I'm Benjamin Rancourt. I'm a INSERT_JOB_TITLE at INSERT_COMPANY_NAME.
Yeah, you probably guessed right. People say their current position. It's like the second most important thing about themselves. It's crazy, right? 😖
The craziest thing is that they try to sum up in a few words what they do in their workplace. They can work 32 hours a week, 46 weeks per year, but they didn't even respond with more distinctive information. 😮
Even though their position might completely replicate what they do in their company, it might only make sense in the same organization. A stranger might have a completely different description of the same job, but they both refer to the same job title. 😣
Who is right? They both potentially are.
With these thoughts in mind, I'll tell you: personally, I don't want to be defined by my current position.
What are the alternatives?
The best alternative to describe what I do professionally would probably be a text. A long text. Maybe an essay or even a book. 📚
I would have to describe what I do, how I do it, how I interact with stakeholders, how I collaborate and help my colleagues... This list could be really long. 🙄
Since I don't have time to write it and even if I did, people usually wouldn't have time to read it either. So I found another solution:
A tag cloud. ☁
If a job title isn't able to define me, maybe a bunch of them with related words might be a better approximation? 🙈
What does my tag cloud look like?
After throwing down a list of words that can partially describe me professionally, I was able to group them into two different groups: titles and qualities. I repeated the occurrence of some words to make them bigger and created the following tag cloud:
I haven't decided yet how I'll link this tag cloud on my personal website, but I know that I'll be changing my titles on social media platforms in the coming days. And they will probably not be identical to each other! 😉
If you're creating your professional tag cloud, let me know, I'd really love to see yours! 😘
