Don’t Confuse Your Skills with Your Job Title

“The map of reality is not reality. Even the best maps are imperfect. That’s because maps are reductions of what they represent. If a map were to represent the territory with perfect fidelity, it would no longer be a reduction and thus would no longer be useful to us.” ( source)

The Realization

During my last job search, I found myself exploring seemingly unrelated paths: Chief of Staff, Product Management, and Technical Program Management. While these jobs are distinct on paper, the alignment to me was crystal clear. Each would leverage the skills I had developed throughout my career even though none had been my primary job title.

This disconnect between my capabilities and my resume created a fascinating challenge—one I believe many of us face but rarely articulate.

The Map vs. The Territory

I’ve learned that my job skills related but entirely distinct from my job titles. It’s much like the difference between a map and the land it represents. I tell a two-dimensional story of what I’ve accomplished on my resume and LinkedIn. That story, however, is exactly that: a story. The territory it represents is much more interesting. It also extends far beyond the map of positions I’ve officially held.

My resume showed a history of Enterprise Technology and Developer Relations, but my capabilities are more interesting: product thinking, social connection, system design, program coordination, strategic planning, public speaking. These are rich and reusable concepts limited only by my ability to articulate them.

Breaking Through the Title Barrier

What worked for me—and what I believe works most often—is mapping existing skills to new job roles rather than fixating on title progression. This approach requires:

  1. Deep self-reflection about what you’re actually good at, regardless of your formal titles
  2. Business understanding so you can factor in essential context like org size, sector, and go-to-market strategy
  3. Translation work to express those skills and understandings in the language of the role you want
  4. Storytelling ability to connect the dots for others so they see what you see

To put it in perspective, I hadn’t strictly held a product manager title when I became a director of product management, but I knew I had the skill. I always possessed product mindedness, questioning feature naming conventions back in my post-college tech support position. I honed this product sense through multiple startups where I witnessed the value of direct customer engagement and effective framing. I’ve scoped and launched hundreds of launches and updates in the open source world as much as I had invested at work. After years of compounding this understanding, I had developed strong product management capabilities without ever having “Product Manager” on my business card.

The truth is that most of us regularly operate beyond our job descriptions. We solve problems that need solving, regardless of whether they fit neatly into our official responsibilities. These experiences build skills that transcend our titles.

Speaking Their Language

Every hiring manager wants someone who will excel at solving their specific problems. It’s my opportunity to help others see that I was that person, even if my resume wasn’t the most obvious fit. The skill wasn’t just doing the work—it was translating my experiences into evidence that resonated with their needs.

The key breakthrough came when I learned to highlight the work that matters in the way that matters for each role. For product positions, I emphasized outcomes while illuminating the why and how I reached them. For program management, I showcased timelines, stakeholder coordination, and crisp decision-making. Ironically, having a nonlinear career path can make for a standout resume when you do it well. Having diverse knowledge but knowing how to say it in the right way can get more attention than “doing it right” pathways sometimes.

Finding The Path

I know job transitions are challenging, especially when moving between domains or shifting my professional identity. But by focusing on the skills I bring rather than the titles I’ve held, I’ve been able to open doors that might otherwise have remained closed. It’s helped those I’ve coached through similar thinking, expanding opportunities while seeing more of the autonomy a job seeker holds during a–let’s be honest–horrible process of hunting.

For those navigating a similar journey, I created a spreadsheet system called the  Job Hunting Pipeline Blueprint that helps organize the search process.

The ultimate realization is this: our resumes are not our titles. A resume is an accumulation of problems solved, challenges overcome, and value created told as a story. When we work within the bounds of our titles but see beyond them, we free ourselves from the constraints of how we’re labeled and discover a much wider field of possibilities for where we can go next.