Put yourself out of a job before AI does.
Rapid change means nobody — not even companies — knows what they need.
Let’s play a game. I’m going to give you three job titles. Two of them are real, one is fake — guess which one.
Cybersecurity Ninja
Space Lawyer
Chief Vibe Officer
Wrong. They’re all real.
I’ve either seen these open roles on LinkedIn or been sent the job listing. After you roll your eyes at the absurdity — which, fair, please do — I want to make the case that these titles are worth paying attention to. Not because they’re ridiculous. But because they’re signals. And right now, in this job market, signals are about all we’ve got.
I think unconventional job titles are a symptom of something bigger. They’re not HR departments getting quirky or companies trying to seem innovative. They’re what happens when the shape of work changes faster than our language can keep up. When a business needs something it’s never needed before but doesn’t quite know how to name it yet, you get titles like Responsible AI Principal Model Launch Lead, a role a friend actually just started. When a startup wants to signal culture but hasn’t figured out what that actually means, you get Chief Vibe Officer.
WHAT WEIRD TITLES TELL
It’s not just job seekers who are confused. Companies don’t know what they’re looking for either. They think they do. They post the job, write the requirements, run it through whatever AI-assisted HR tool they’re using this quarter, and what comes out is a description that reads like three jobs stapled together with a salary range that makes no sense, and years of experience that baffle us.
I’ve heard from coaches and recruiters a few times about this subject. “Companies may not know what they want,” and “often they post and then change the JD after the first round of interviews.”
I don’t believe it’s ill will or neglect. It’s an inability to keep up. The speed of change inside organizations is just as fast as outside them.
Add AI-generated job posting slop, and you get roles with mismatched responsibilities, impossible requirements, and keyword-optimized descriptions written for a bot to find, not a human to read. The gap between what companies say they need and what they actually need has never been wider.
WHAT THEN FOR JOB SEEKERS
I talked to the CEO of an AI-first enterprise software platform company called Unqork, inc. His name is Gary Hoberman and he’s the kind of person who makes you feel slightly embarrassed about how conventionally you’ve been thinking about something. (Happens to me regularly.)
He started his career in finance as an IT guy, and he carried one belief with him from day one: his job was to put himself out of a job. If he could automate, systematize, or make his role run without him he could move somewhere more meaningful. He called it the termite principle: termites eat their own home and then move to a bigger one.
With AI in the picture, he’s saying the same thing louder.
Stop asking which jobs AI will take.
That question puts you in the position of the person watching the storm roll in, standing there waiting to see if your house is in the path. Instead, ask: how do you use AI to make your current job unnecessary — and get somewhere better before it does it for you? Put yourself out of a job before someone else does. At least then you’re the one driving the evolution.
If you’re old enough to remember the early days of the iPod, the pace of those product releases was kind of unbelievable — new colors, new form factors. The Nano! Each one made the last feel suddenly outdated.
The story that circulated was that Steve Jobs believed in cannibalizing Apple’s own products before competitors could. He’d rather make his own stuff obsolete than hand that power to someone else. Shorter cycles, more risk, more reinvention. It wasn’t reckless. It was strategy.
Which is exactly what all of us need to be doing with our careers right now. Not recklessness. Not burning everything down. Reinvention with intention — courage supported by strategy.
About a year ago, I had a conversation with Dr. Sarabeth Berk Bickerton, whose consulting practice is built entirely around helping people move beyond their titles — figuring out who they are and what they offer outside the job description they’ve been handed. At the time, I thought it was interesting. Now I think it’s essential.
Titles are going to keep getting weirder, the roles that don’t exist yet will eventually have names, and some of them could be yours. But only if you’re leaning into what you could become rather than defending what you already are.
I recently took my daughters skiing. First time back on the mountain in a while for me. And what I remembered — what I had to remind myself every single run — is that your instinct when you’re scared is to lean back. It feels safer. But leaning back is actually how you fall. The boots, the bindings, the whole physics of skiing — it’s all designed for you to lean forward. That’s where the control is. That’s where the momentum is.
The job market right now is the mountain. You can spend your energy leaning back, protecting your current title, andoptimizing your resume for a job description that was already outdated when it was posted. Or you can lean forward. Figure out what problem you solve, use every tool available to get better at solving it, and then — here’s Gary’s move — figure out how to make even that unnecessary so you can get to the next thing.
The titles are going to keep getting weirder. Lean into it. ⛷