Job title inflation is the practice of leveling up a job title without leveling up the associated responsibilities and requirements along with it. For instance, adding ‘Senior’ to a ‘Software Engineer’ job that only has mid-level or junior requirements. Title inflation is often a well-meaning attempt to add value to a job so it can attract a larger applicant pool. However, more often than not title inflation has a detrimental impact on candidate pools. Seemingly inflated titles that don’t fit the requirements can intimidate or confuse otherwise qualified candidates – or prevent them from finding jobs on search engines entirely. Subsequently, hiring teams may inadvertently attract unqualified applicants.