It is so customers can feel good about working with a VP for their personalized service.
Hierarchy theater.
Always remember to ask a VP “how many people report to you?” If they say none, then they aren’t a VP just sparkling wage slave.
I had 100 people reporting to me as a VP in a global bank. It’s still nothing. It’s all about relative size.
100 people in a company of 1000? Real VP.
100 people out of 100k? Middle manager.
That just reminded me of something I hated about a large consulting firm I used to work for. When doing the “laddering” (aka ranking people for promotions and raises), we had to justify why people deserved to be ranked higher than everyone else.
The people in that meeting were soooo full of shit. You’d have people claiming that their brand new analyst fresh out of college was managing a team of 100 people. Meanwhile I’m like “my new guy wrote some good test scripts and didn’t say anything dumb in front of the client.” Just couldn’t compete with all that BS.
In some industries you can be a supervisor with 100 reports. Job titles are so asynchronized even in similar types of companies that they’re virtually meaningless without company specific context.
How do you manage having 100 reports? It sounds like a ton of work. I don’t know what working in a bank is like though.
Layers. I managed managers of managers of people
They aren’t direct reports, probably 2nd or 3rd line manager.
In my company (not a bank) each manager has around 5 direct reports, but up to 15 is not unheard of, depending on the duties.
sparkling wage slave
😂
Very very much a thing in Finance, with tiers of VP too (Assistant VP, VP, Senior VP). Even for people doing internal support, it makes the internal “customer” feel good.
It was a learning experience when I was told not to prioritize anyone below SVP.
It’s often also used as a compensation aid when someone has maxed out their pay band or title but there isn’t a management slot open or they don’t want to do management. My team doesn’t have titles for team leads, but all our “unofficial” ones have at least an “Assistant” VP title.
“Assistant VP” or “Assistant to the VP”? lol
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It also looks better on a resumé, which can lead to a better paying job than they’d get otherwise.
It really is, just like ambassador, VP of sales when they are just sales people, or assistant to the assistant manager.
Assistant TO the regional manager…
I will just leave this little nugget of applicable wisdom from Napoleon Bonaparte:
A soldier will fight long and hard for a bit of colored ribbon.
I got so mad at my job recently.
I’m a dept lead. But the one who gives raises is two levels above me. And my teammate went to HR fully expecting to get a promotion, which they gave to her but without the salary. I raised a shit storm, and they said, “nothing we can do.” Which is BS.
I pulled her aside and told her to work less, and been pushing for her to get more raises so she meets the minimum baseline salary for her role.
Depending on your field a title only promotion still has value. It allows the person to put “Senior Whatever” on their resume instead of “Junior Whatever” when they start applying for jobs that pay what their worth in six months.
Most companies care about actual experience (years and past duties) when making hiring decisions. They only consider previous titles and salary when they think they it’ll help them negotiate a lower salary.
Assistant to the Regional Manager
The scene in American Psycho where they compare biz cards comes to mind…
Especially because a lot of these VP titles are what we call ‘business card promotions’, most common in the sales area.
At my old company all of our business development guys had VP on their business card, but they were just managers like me for all intents and purposes, including pay.
I’m surprised the practice persists though. It’s not like everyone isn’t sort of in on the joke at this point.
Also great for telling grandparents you’re the VP of xyz bank also acceptable to drop the title if you’re tech, look like a complete hippy and are taking shit for it.
This is common in the financial industry. VP is just the next step up from associate. It’s a pompous title, but it’s not really some conspiracy.
I don’t know if it’s still true, but it definitely used to be that way at every local bank in the area where I worked 15 years ago. I did a lot of contract work for them and everyone was a VP.
I left JPMC in 2021 and that was the case even corporate side instead of retail. Same thing at Huntington Bank in 2013.
I kinda like that my email signature and card doesn’t say my title. I like the small amount of mystery it creates for clients.
It’s a carry over from all the bank mergers from the 80s (and probably earlier). You never want to cut someone’s title, so when dinky 10-branch bank gets bought by JP Morgan, the VP just stays a VP even though you can’t possibly make them the second-most-powerful person at JP Morgan. With enough mergers you get a critical mass and you have to create a structure where all the current VPs and everyone around their stature get the title but it officially loses any meaning.
Tldr I blame the Savings and Loan crisis
The company I work for has multiplr VPs per division, and about 20-30 divisions. Then there are the group level and corporate level VPs… Functional VPs… And so on and so forth. They last about two years before they go on to be VP of some other bit of the company that makes more money than the last bit.
With so many vice presidents I am surprised they needed my tax dollars for the bailouts.
Paul Allen has mistaken me for this d*ckhead Marcus Halberstram. It seems logical because Marcus also works at P&P and in fact does the same exact thing I do and he also has a penchant for Valentino suits and Oliver Peoples glasses. Marcus and I even go to the same barber, although I have a slightly better haircut.
I was in love with Paul Allen until someone pointed out that he is jared leto.
Wait, so… is or isn’t Neelix a Starfleet Ambassador?
By title, yes, but he doesn’t have any official ambassador duties much like the other 10-12 thousand Starfleet Ambassador.
At my job we have a president and a vice president of sales. There are 3 sales people including those two lol
Wow, that Google guy is so helpful and knowledgeable.
25% are considered high performing? Daaaamn, I wish my professors graded on that curve…
From what I know about banks, they give out VP titles like candy; so I wouldn’t put much weight on someone with a VP title in a financial institution.
Depends on a lot of stuff, region, ability to hire, wage bands Vs market salary. Within my personal region it translates roughly to manager or senior dev with ~10-15 years experience.
I’m pretty sure everyone at Schwab is a VP. Not joking.
