For the last several months, I’ve been working as a temp for a very small local business. It started out as filing and data entry, but the job description has gradually expanded to include things like maintaining their new website, organizing their computer files, and being the office’s unofficial computer geek (as in, “Hey, c_carol, show me again how to print an e-mail?”), on top of all kinds of general secretarial stuff.
About a week ago, they finally decided to hire me away from the temp agency. Now that I’m a Real Employee, we figure I need an official job title, but none of us can figure out what it should be. “Administrative Assistant” doesn’t cover all of my responsibilities, and neither does “Webmaster”. One person suggested something along the lines of “Computer Manager”, but that sounds rather excessive to me - I don’t manage any employees, I don’t really even manage the office network, I mostly just design complicated spreadsheets and simple webpages. So what, exactly, am I?
I just made that up, but it sounds official and seems to me that it fits. You’re not a programmer, you’re not the network guy, you’re the person that people go to when they need help with common software applications like email and word and such.
…not that there’s anything wrong with being an assistant… it’s just that you’ve got the chance to make this look impressive on your CV.
I’ve had the chance to do this twice and I changed ‘Stock Auditor’ and ‘Programmer’ to ‘Inventory Analyst’ and ‘Development Manager’ (both were in fact quite truthful descriptions of the jobs I was doing - it was the original titles that were so lacking).
Well, I like it, but my boss has absolutely no sense of humor, alas.
This is my favorite so far. Sounds fancier than “assistant”, more accurate than “manager”. Futile Gesture’s “IT Support Somethingorother” suggestion has possibilities, too.
Probably I would opt for “Secretary.” Generally secretary refers to a person who keeps an office running smoothly, and in this day and age, being competent with computers would be a basic requirement, as opposed to something extra.
I know that the people who do pretty much exactly what you do (including web pages, e-mail questions, etc) at my institution are called secretaries.
