Meaningless: fewer Hong Kong employers resorting to inflated job titles to attract talent, survey finds
- Less than 30 per cent of Hong Kong businesses use senior job titles to attract talent, though 60 per cent of young workers expect rapid promotions: Robert Walters poll
- Experts say the trend is mostly limited to digital businesses and client-facing roles
Hong Kong businesses are realising that job inflation – offering employees grandiose job titles, often without the experience or pay to match – has diminishing returns, according to a survey by recruitment specialist Robert Walters.
Less than 30 per cent of companies are relying on senior titles to attract or retain talent this year, having found the tactic to have limited success, according to the study, which polled about 3,300 Hong Kong employers and employees in March on LinkedIn.
“Inflated job titles used to be a tool used by weaker companies who struggled to retain staff,” said John Mullally, managing director of Robert Walters Hong Kong, on Thursday. He attributed the trend to the local job market being disrupted by a hiring boom and talent crunch in 2021 and 2022, leading to firms adding more titles rather than focusing on career growth.
But the job market has been weak this year, with hiring in the property and financial sectors hit by the economic slowdown in China. Vacancies in financial services, professional services and technology firms plummeted 35 to 38 per cent year on year in 2023, according to a report released in January by Hudson, another professional recruitment firm.
Leading banks such as UBS, Morgan Stanley, HSBC, Goldman Sachs, Citigroup and JPMorgan Chase have made unprecedented cuts to their investment banking teams in Hong Kong due to a slowdown in mergers and acquisitions and a dearth of initial public offerings.
Recruitment specialists cautioned that job title inflation was generally limited to certain sectors and roles, predominantly client-facing and sales positions and newer, digital-wave businesses like virtual banks and e-commerce platforms.
“It’s the infusion of fintech into banking, especially in B2C [business-to-consumer] businesses,” said Sid Sibal, vice-president of Greater China and head of Hong Kong at Hudson, adding that most industries had not seen a material change.
He cited an example of a tech firm client where an account director position – a role that typically asks for eight to 12 years’ experience – was held by someone with under five years’ experience.
“Five years ago, this wouldn’t have happened,” said Sibal. “People used to have to earn the title of manager, now it gets thrown around in some sectors more easily.”
Others said that job title inflation was most visible at tech-related organisations, but the trend has also started to seep into traditional banking.
“Some of these new roles, I’m not even sure what they do,” said Benjamin Quinlan, CEO of strategy consultancy Quinlan & Associates and a former banker, joking that in some newer firms, “you can have a head of something in a department of one.”
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At banks, underlying functions and salary bands in the traditional analyst, associate-vice president, managing director hierarchy have not changed.
“There’s definitely some title inflation, as more junior [employees] step into roles that require titles to be effective, especially in Asia,” said Quinlan, citing the creation of roles like head of partnership, head of innovation, head of data and regional head as examples.
But less flashy titles may be at odds with young workers’ expectations, with 60 per cent of younger Hong Kong workers expecting to be promoted within 12 to 18 months, according to the Robert Walters survey. It also found that 50 per cent of young employees consider managing a team to be the biggest factor in determining seniority.
In the case of traditional banks, it had become more common for promotion timelines to get strung out, said Quinlan.
There were more “career vice-presidents”– an upper-middle tier role – as banks delay employees’ progression to preserve cost structures and prevent the organisation from becoming too top-heavy, while trying to appease employees, he added.
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Employees used to be able to spend three years on average at each tier, and become a managing director by 35. “That’s more like late 30s to early 40s now,” he said.
There is a consensus on one point, however: exaggerating job titles is a poor long-term move for businesses.
“Titles must match compensation and length of experience, or it hurts jobseekers,” said Hudson’s Sibal.
Robert Walters warned that inflated titles could also lead to organisational inefficiencies and inequality.
“When employees realise that these titles hold no intrinsic value or external status, they can quickly become disenfranchised, especially if their compensation package does not match up to the title,” said Robert Walters’ Mullally.
