A title on a resume looks like a clear, comparable measure. Two people with the same title appear to have held similar levels of responsibility. In practice, that is mostly true in large, clearly siloed organizations where titles are tied to standardized job descriptions. In smaller companies or departments, it often is not.
Why this happens especially in smaller departments
Smaller marketing or product teams rarely have the resources to divide responsibilities into narrowly defined functions. One person may end up doing what a large corporation would spread across three separate roles: managing projects, owning product decisions, and leading the brand — all under a single, relatively generic title.
In that case, the title reflects the organizational structure, not the actual scope of the person's role.
The blind spot of siloed organizations
People who have spent their entire careers in large organizations with clearly defined roles can easily underestimate this breadth of responsibility. A title that has a clear definition in that environment can become an unconscious benchmark for evaluating roles everywhere else.
As a result, a title from a smaller organization may appear "too junior" or "not quite right" for a particular role, even though the person's actual scope of responsibility extended well beyond what the title suggests.
What to ask instead
Rather than using the title as the basis for comparison, specific questions about the person's actual responsibilities provide a much more reliable picture.
These questions deliberately move past the title and focus directly on the actual scope of the role. A clear, specific answer tells you far more than matching titles on paper ever could.
A title is shorthand for responsibility, not a complete description of it. Especially when evaluating experience from smaller organizations, it is worth looking beyond the title before drawing conclusions about what someone has actually done.