If you are the only single employee at a company you just started, can you claim yourself to be the President/CEO?

If you opened up a small business in your neighborhood. Can you name yourself "President/CEO of Company XXX". And put that on your resume? So if you apply to other jobs, you have an impressive job title. Will the interviewer go like "WOW, you were the President/CEO of a company?"

11 Comments
 

Most will think it's interesting, but few will be "wowed" by it.

I also wouldn't put "president/ceo". Just say CEO or founder. It sounds overinflated as it is, no need to layer on extra titles

 
"TheBestMan" If you opened up a small business in your neighborhood. Can you name yourself "President/CEO of Company XXX". And put that on your resume? So if you apply to other jobs, you have an impressive job title. Will the interviewer go like "WOW, you were the President/CEO of a company?"

Ahh yes. You need to only ask two things: a) What were your sales? b) How many employees do you have?

These two questions get to the heart of the matter if the person's company is legit.

"If you always put limits on everything you do, physical or anything else, it will spread into your work and into your life. There are no limits. There are only plateaus, and you must not stay there, you must go beyond them." - Bruce Lee
 

President / CEO / Managing Director / etc...only has significance when you have employees underneath you. Otherwise, you are just the "Owner/Founder" and the significance comes not from your title, but from what you actually did that achieved some kind of success.

just google it...you're welcome
 

Not even if you have employees underneath you. If you are an 5-8 person tech start up, not managing contractual work to other companies on top of it, calling yourself CEO/MD/President is just sugar coating the fact you are a garage company.

I worked as a "C.O.O." of a small tech company, stated in my contract, but, I never advertised myself as anything other as Head of Operations. Everyone else were blatantly jacking themselves off as "C-level executives", and it ended up hurting the company and their business relationships. I am the only one who maintained business/investor relationships when the company eventually got crapped on due to the egos.

 

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