Growth hacker? Digital futurist? Job titles get a creative spin again

It’s not traditional marketing. It’s not digital marketing. Erm…no, it’s not simply frugal marketing either. And no, it’s definitely not rocket science, just a fair bit of data science. Often, it’s only after hacking off the myriad assumptions Indians make about his new-age job title of ‘growth hacker’ that 27-year-old Vaibhav Sisinty can get to what his role actually entails: helping small and big companies develop a game plan to quickly build excitement around a product or service or to put it simply, marketing on steroids. “It’s not a title,” says Mumbai-based Sisinty about growth hacking. “It’s a mindset.” medium79015190That statement could also describe the recent outbreak of new designations such as ‘sustainability developer’ and ‘digital transformation influencer’ that infects job-search platforms today. If international resumes are any indicator of future business cards in India, brace yourself for a hurricane of faceless superheroes such as “masters of disasters” (fancy term for crisis managers), and “digital prophets” (someone who predicts tech trends). While it’s tempting to dismiss most of these lofty titles — ahem — mindsets, as products of charlatan HR inventiveness or Silicon Valley posturing, dig deeper into designations such as ‘inclusivity specialist’ or ‘digital futurist’ and you’re sure to find not only the well-intentioned global courtship of technology with Gen Z’s vast conscience but also the various inevitable pivots and contortions forced by the post-Covid world.Before the lockdown, for instance, Thane’s 31-year-old Digambar Mohite was an old-fashioned business development manager who would file press releases offline but soon after the pandemic struck, he found himself upping his social media presence and gauging the political mood of the country. His organisation, a PR agency called The Oreo, had decided to bestow on him the position of Online Survey Researcher, someone who conducts and distills surveys on various subjects pertaining to clients including politicians who want to understand if aid has reached their constituency or if the CM is doing enough. medium79015237Many see such designations as “make-believe”, says Mohite’s colleague and fellow-business-development-manager Akash Sakaria who had to recalibrate himself as Virtual Strategy Manager in March this year. “You can call it a promotion or even a demotion but I see it as a good badge to have,” says Sakaria, whose job is to “get more traction online to the respective client” and who recently designed a campaign that helped a client reach every household of a district by telecasting his initiative on local cable channels. From 'inclusivity drivers' who are supposed to ensure representation for marginalised communities such as the LGBTQ community on corporate work-floors to 'sustainability developers' who must offer eco-friendly solutions to fashion startups, problem-solving is at the heart of many of these offbeat titles. A 37-year-old, whose LinkedIn profile describes him as 'digital transformation influencer and 'cloud evangelist', is supposed to demystify virtual problems faced by everyone from the "chairman to chaprasi" or what he likes to call "C2C". "If a client is looking for some other service or has another problem, we try to resolve it in the best possible manner. Internally, as well, if someone is unable to log an IT ticket, I assist them in doing so by talking to colleagues in other departments or branches,” he says.Some titles help break the ice in rural India. Just as the administration’s focus on healthcare has led to a new deluge of “Ashas” who provide medical assistance and “Mitras” who resolve psychological issues stemming from the vagaries of rustic domestic life, startups are finding their own relatable equivalents. This is why even though his pinstriped avatar would have been called `chief manager’ or `team leader’, Girijesh Shukla, an agronomist with Krishika — an agri-tech startup — introduces himself as ‘Varishtha Kisaan Saarthi’ to farmers. “A saarthi is someone who `walks along’, a kind of a friend who can help,” says Shukla, who trains a team that provides agricultural labourers with information that would be useful to grow their crop. “If I was introduced as someone with a very corporate designation, it would not have worked.” medium79015313While the rise of Artificial Intelligence has caused the demise of many age-old professions and turned designations such as ‘data entry clerks’ into corporate relics, some elderly-millennial titles seem to have aged well. Every alternate Friday, Rajesh Radhakrishnan, a 44-year-old ‘chief fun officer’ at the digital wallet firm PhonePe, finds himself entertaining employees half his age by taking song requests or organising virtual activities such as dumb charades and Pictionary to keep employees engaged—a task compounded by the pandemic.Frivolous as the role may seem, Rajesh’s performance targets are set like all others and his performance is evaluated on the outcomes of employee surveys. For Rajesh, fun is serious business. A couple of years back, when Rajesh had just taken over as the chief fun officer, he organised a Halloween event in which founder Sameer Nigam came dressed as the big bad wolf, who would sneak up from behind employees to scare them. “Sameer went around the office and this prompted others to leave their seats and venture into other bays of the office. “It was quite an ice-breaker,” says Rajesh. “Other than hard work, employees need to let off some steam as well.” Having fun at work is equally important. Making sure that happens is the task of a chief fun officer.boxcontentWhat Some Quirky Designations Mean* Masters of Disasters: Fancy term for crisis managers* Digital Prophets: Someone who predicts tech trends* Content Crunchers: Experts in advanced writing and communication skills* Creators of Opportunities: Business development managers in shorts* Poet Laureates: Self-help gurus who can motivate tech employees through language* Head of Remote Work: The person who helps you transition to WFH