Job titles on public profiles (LinkedIn, company websites, business cards) are often inconsistent, ambiguous, or misleading, making it difficult to understand a person's true seniority. Here’s why:
Title Inflation & Deflation
Some companies inflate titles to make employees feel more valued (e.g., a "VP" at a startup might be equivalent to a mid-level manager at a large corporation).
Others do the opposite—at large enterprises, a “Director” may have far more influence than a VP at a smaller firm.
Variability Across Companies
The same title means vastly different things depending on the organization.
Example: A "Senior Manager" at a Fortune 500 company may oversee 100+ employees, while a "Senior Manager" at a small tech startup could be an individual contributor with no direct reports.
Different Naming Conventions
Some industries use specialized naming systems that obscure real seniority (e.g., consulting firms use "Associate," "Engagement Manager," "Partner," while tech companies use "L4/L5/L6" levels).
Example: A "Product Area Lead" might be as influential as a Director, but their title doesn't make it obvious.
Lack of Standardization Across Regions
European companies may use “Managing Director” where a U.S. company would use “Senior Vice President.”
In some industries, “Engineer” may apply to both entry-level and highly experienced roles, depending on certification requirements.
Dossifier’s Global Seniority Levels solve this by classifying positions into clear categories, with additional resolution for finer comparisons.
Executives (Top-tier leaders) - CEO, President, Board Member, C-Suite (CFO, CTO, COO)
Senior Leaders / VPs (High-level decision makers) - VP, SVP, Managing Director, Partner
Directors (Strategy-focused leaders) - Director, Principal, Product Area Lead
Managers (People-focused leaders) - Senior Manager, Team Lead, Group Manager
Experienced Associates (High-skill individual contributors) - Senior Engineer, Senior Consultant, Engagement Manager
Entry-Level Associates (New hires, early career professionals) - Analyst, Associate, Junior Engineer, Junior Consultant
Each category is further broken down into multiple levels for fine-grained ranking. Instead of treating all VPs or all Directors as equals, we assign them specific levels based on scope, responsibility, and influence.
For example:
Executives could include:
Level 1: CEO / Founder
Level 2: Board Members, CFO, COO, CTO
Level 3: Regional or Division Presidents
Directors could be split into:
Level 1: Entry-level Director, first-time at this seniority
Level 2: Director with multi-team oversight
Level 3: High-impact Director (nearly VP-level)
This layered approach means that no matter how uniquely a company structures its titles, Dossifier can model it accurately—ensuring that your contacts are always compared in a fair, structured, and actionable way.
Dossifier offers two ways to assign Global Seniority Levels to your contacts:
Manual Assignment – You can directly assign a contact to a specific Global Seniority Level if you already know their seniority. This is useful for one-off corrections or cases where a title doesn’t follow a company’s usual hierarchy.
Org-Level Seniority Mapping (Recommended) – Instead of assigning seniority individually, you can map an entire organization’s hierarchy to Dossifier’s Global Seniority Levels. This ensures consistency and reduces manual work when adding new contacts.
Every company structures roles differently, so first, you set up the company's Org Seniority Levels to reflect how they categorize employees internally.
Example:
A tech company might have L3, L4, L5, L6, L7 as key levels.
A consulting firm might use Associate, Consultant, Manager, Principal, Partner.
Once the company’s levels are defined, they are linked to Dossifier’s standardized Global Seniority Levels.
Example:
L3 → Entry-Level Associate
L4 → Experienced Associate
L5 → Manager
L6 → Director
L7 → Senior Leader / VP
When a contact is linked to an organization, they can simply select their Org Seniority Level, and their Global Seniority Level is automatically determined. This means if you add a “Senior Manager, L6” from TechCorp, they will automatically be normalized to Dossifier’s “Manager” category—saving you from having to manually map every new contact.
With Global Seniority levels, you can avoid situations like the following:
Example: Comparing a Titles between Companies
Company: Giant Enterprise Inc.
Title: Head of West Coast Sales
Global Seniority Level: VP
Company: Startup
Title: Head of West Coast Sales
Global Seniority Level: Experienced Associate I
In the above example, we can see that both Contacts have the same title. However, the Giant Enterprise Contact most likely has several reports and a decent amount of influence in the organization. Although, the startup might only have a couple of salespeople, so each one has a large territory, even though they have no reports and relatively minimal influence.
There, once your Contacts are normalized to global seniority levels, you get the following benefits:
Instantly Understand Who You’re Talking To
Avoid misjudging a contact’s influence because of misleading titles.
Compare Across Companies with Confidence
Know when a Director at Company A is actually equivalent to a VP at Company B.
Identify Key Decision Makers Faster
Prioritize outreach to real senior leaders instead of chasing people with inflated titles.
Improve Meeting Preparation
See an accurate hierarchy of participants before a meeting, ensuring you tailor conversations to the right people.
With Dossifier’s Org Seniority + Global Seniority, you get clarity in professional relationships, ensuring you never misinterpret a title again. 🚀