General Thoughts: If your current job title is “Transportation Director” and let’s say you work for a $500m revenue Manufacturer and are located at their main distribution center in the Midwest. Chances are I could come very close to guessing your salary range within $10K depending on time of service and geography (read cost of living), and off the top of my head write a pretty accurate Job Description for this position. Now, let’s take the exact same title “Transportation Director” but now you are located at the Corporate Headquarters (New York) of a global manufacturing conglomerate with revenues closer to $15B. Any thoughts on the differences in Experience requirements, Education requirements, Income Range etc…etc… Easy to see where this is going and a very common issue in transportation recruiting or job seeking, so just want to point out a few things to consider as to why an accurate Job title is so necessary, but also that the job description that follows is very clear on requirements and expectation. If both of these aren’t done well, you miss great candidates who should apply for the job, and/or you get way too many applicants who are not even close to the job.
For the Job Seeker: Just because your current title is “Transportation Director”, don’t get all wound up about that title. Your next great career move could have a title of “Logistics Manager”, “Transportation Supervisor” , “Transportation Manager”, “Logistics Supervisor” and the list could go on and on. Bigger companies have more layers and hence more Job Titles. Smaller companies have fewer layers and hence fewer titles and tend to make them sound more important to make the person in the role feel more important (and why not). In my opinion what is important is not the title but the responsibility you have and the compensation commensurate with that experience. I had a situation once where I was talking to what I considered a perfect candidate for a Transportation Supervisor position, but the person would not even consider the job because she was “only interested in Transportation Manager positions or above…” . Never mind the salary was $15K more, her reports would triple and with just a quick glance at the management structure you could see 3 cool promotions in the future based on performance, she just could not get past the title.
For my Clients: I basically take the ideas above and think broadly. In my searching I search every imaginable job title knowing that the bigger companies may have shall we say “less Lofty” titles and smaller companies will have more “Big Cheese” type titles, and then I look for actual experience, longevity and how many Key Logistic and Transportation Skills and Key Strengths match up to the Job Description. This once again illustrates how important a very well written and very specific Job Description is to make sure we find what you are looking for no matter what the persons current Job Title is.
To summarize, the best Transportation Pros I work with clearly never cared about titles, but did care about longevity and a progressive upward moving career path, and it seems like the accurate title always catches up to them sooner or later! At Crabtree & Eller we recruit specifically in Transportation and Logistics and focus on a high level of service in the areas of Ocean Freight, Air Freight, Logistics, Trucking and Rail. If you have hiring needs we can help. Give me a call at 303-278-2001 or email me at mark@crabtreeandeller.com .
Prior to co-founding Crabtree & Eller in 2004, Mark’s entire career was spent in Sales and Sales Management for Fortune 50 companies as both a direct employee and an independent distributor. He sold and distributed everything from disposable hospital and operating room commodities to devices for the operating room such as joint replacement implants and fracture management implants for Trauma. Mark has consistently ranked at the top of his peers, and was the recipient of many national awards. Working for large companies like Johnson & Johnson and Cardinal Health as well as owning and managing a small independent distributorship has given Mark a broad perspective and insight into Sales, Sales Management, Marketing, Client Services and the Distribution of Products.
