Our complete guide to entry-level job titles
Choosing the right job titles for your entry-level roles is critical.
A job title could be the difference between receiving hundreds of applications and seeing very few.
A great and accurate job title will show up higher in Google search results and bring in applicants of the right level. An inaccurate job title might leave your vacancy at the bottom of the search results, never to be seen by your ideal candidates.
I hope that this guide helps you attract your dream candidates and hire an amazing employee!
Entry-level job titles
Administrator
Administrators are organisation and IT experts, even at entry level. They support teams and entire offices with administrative tasks.
Administrative roles are common across all industries and are a great way for entry-level job hunters to gain office experience and kick-start their careers.
Few top graduates dream of administrative jobs, so you may see high turnover. But you might see a high volume of applications from graduates with degrees in Business Administration, HR and even Finance or Humanities subjects.
Common job titles include:
- Office Administrator
- Project Administrator
- Service Desk Administrator
Apprentice
‘Apprentice’ is more than a job title, it’s an employment category.
Apprenticeships are low-paid roles with a heavy training element. They’re designed to give entry-level job hunters practical skills and experience in a certain role.
You’ll often see apprenticeships in labour and construction, but they’re not uncommon across other industries too.
Common job titles include:
- Engineering Apprentice
- Service Technician Apprentice
- Apprentice Teaching Assistant
Assistant
Assistant roles are incredibly common across all industries and are a great way for candidates to get their foot in the door.
Assistants directly help their superiors with everyday tasks and often administrative duties. Excellent assistants often get promoted to executive roles.
Common job titles include:
- Editorial Assistant
- Marketing Assistant
- Projects Assistant
Associate
Associates are simply junior members of a company.
‘Associate’ is a job title commonly used in the medical field, but you can find it in other industries too.
Common job titles include:
- Associate Project Manager
- Research Associate
- Marketing Associate
Coordinator
Coordinators organise events, activities and projects to completion. This kind of role is a great starting point for any junior.
Coordinators must be excellent at communication, time management and organisation to excel.
Common job titles include:
- Operations Coordinator
- Sales Coordinator
- Project Coordinator
Engineer
Engineers are people that make things at any level. That’s why you’ll often see ‘junior’ or ‘senior’ affixed to these job titles.
Engineers are often well paid technical thinkers who build and fix machinery and websites.
‘Engineer’ and ‘technician’ are often used interchangeably, but there are ways to differentiate between the two roles.
Engineers use science and maths to understand problems and fix them, but technicians focus more on fixing issues and moving on.
In some parts of the world ‘engineer’ is a protected title and is restricted to people with a certain qualification or professional registration. In these cases it’s often replaced with ‘technician’ or ‘specialist’.
Common engineer job titles include:
- Software Engineer
- Site Engineer
- Data Engineer
Executive
Executive roles often causes confusion.
In creative and technical industries executives are often junior employees. In other industries, executives will be managers with lots of responsibilities.
Common job titles include:
- Marketing Executive
- Business Development Executive
- Account Executive
More senior job titles include:
- Chief Executive
- Senior Marketing Executive
- Sales Executive
Graduate
You can find the word ‘graduate’ added to all kinds of job titles in every industry.
Adding this to your role title is a great way to communicate the seniority of the role and the experience that you’re looking for. But it’s best to use it sparingly and only when a degree is 100% necessary for the job.
When you add ‘graduate’, you could put off perfectly skilled candidates.
Common job titles include:
- Graduate Marketing Assistant
- Engineering Graduate
- Graduate Teaching Assistant
Intern
Internships are low-level work placements that are built to give entry-level candidates a taste for the role. They’re about learning valuable skills and often become full-time junior roles.
We’ve written an internship guide if you’re interested in running one!
Lots of talented job hunters begin their careers in internship roles, so expect to see a lot of applications!
Common job titles include:
- Marketing Intern
- Software Development Intern
- Research Intern
Junior
Junior is often added to more general role titles to communicate seniority at a glance. These roles tend to be entry-level or only require a year or so of experience at most.
Junior is usually synonymous with assistant or executive.
Common job titles include:
- Junior Developer
- Junior Engineer
- Junior Accounts Executive
Manager
You shouldn’t see management level roles when searching for an entry-level one. But occasionally you might find ‘manager’ in a role title with a junior qualifying word.
Common job titles include:
- Trainee Account Manager
- Junior Business Development Manager
- Junior Project Manager
Officer
Officer is usually synonymous with executive or associate. Your officers will typically be junior level full-time employees.
But officers can also be very senior employees too, managing entire business functions and departments.
Common job titles include:
- Marketing Officer
- QA Officer
- Security Officer
More senior job titles include:
- Chief Marketing Officer
- Chief Technical Officer
- Senior Finance Officer
Operator/Operative
Operators or operatives tend to handle machinery or goods.
These employees are your hands-on, practical juniors and they are commonly needed at construction sites and in warehouses.
Common job titles include:
- Machine Operator
- Production Operative
- Warehouse Operative
Representative
Representatives or reps tend to be the sales equivalent of an executive or associate-level employee. This title is almost exclusively used for sales roles as your employee will represent the company to clients.
Common job titles include:
- Sales Development Representative
- Field Sales Representative
- Online Sales Representative
Specialist
Specialist jobs, despite how senior the job title seems, aren’t limited to experienced candidates. The word ‘specialist’ can get popped onto the end of any job title.
You might attract more overqualified applicants with a job title like this, so be careful.
Common job titles include:
- QA Specialist
- Talent Acquisition Specialist
- Paid Social Specialist
Technician
Technician roles are common in the tech industry and are great starting points for young job hunters.
Technician roles are great for practical problem solvers. They are often confused with engineer roles, which are more based on theory and understanding issues.
Common job titles include:
- Mechanical Technician
- QC Technician
- IT Support Technician
Trainee
Traineeships tend to be low paid, fixed-term work experience opportunities for young people. Students and graduates often complete them in their spare time to gain employable experience before moving on to a new role.
They can be unpaid, but as always we recommend paying your team members to get the best out of them!
Trainee doesn’t always mean traineeship, so there can be some confusion here.
Common job titles include:
- Trainee News Reporter
- Trainee IT Support Technician
- Accounts Trainee
If you need any extra help creating an accurate job description or sourcing great candidates, we can help.