Latest / Career Coaching with Fexingo: Professional Coaches, Career Counselors, and Guidance for Workers / How a Career Reverse Job Description Reveals Your True Role
Transcript
- Lucas: You know that moment when you're reading your official job description and you think, 'Who is this person? That's not me'? Luna: Oh, constantly. My first job out of college, my title was 'social media coordinator,' but I spent more time on Excel than on Instagram. Lucas: Exactly. And that gap—between what you were hired to do and what you actually do—is usually a source of frustration. But today I want to argue it's also a source of data. Specifically, a tool I'm calling the 'reverse job description.' Luna: Reverse job description. I like that. So instead of what the company expects, you write down what you actually do day to day? Lucas: Exactly. And you structure it in three parts: current reality, value delivered, and gap analysis. I came across this idea recently when I was talking to a marketing manager at a midsize B2B SaaS company—let's call her Sarah. Luna: Sarah, perfect. What was her story? Lucas: Sarah was hired as a 'creative strategy lead.' Her official job description focused on campaign ideation, brand voice, creative direction. But by her own estimate, she was spending about 60 percent of her time on analytics—dashboard building, A/B test analysis, cohort reports—and only 20 percent on actual creative work. Luna: That's a huge misalignment. And I bet her boss still expected creative deliverables. Lucas: Exactly. She was falling behind on campaigns, and her performance review flagged 'lack of creative output.' But from her perspective, she was doing what the team needed most—the data work that no one else was doing. So I suggested she write a reverse job description. Luna: And that helped her renegotiate her role? Lucas: It did. She documented her actual time allocation, then mapped it to the value she was creating. The analytics work was driving a 12 percent improvement in conversion rates on their top funnel. She could show, with numbers, that her real role was 'growth analyst'—not 'creative strategist.' And that gave her the leverage to ask for a title change and a shift in expectations. Luna: So the reverse job description becomes a negotiation tool. But I imagine it also works for self-clarity, even if you don't plan to renegotiate. Lucas: Absolutely. That's the first use case. Just writing it down can reveal whether you're in the right job at all. If your reverse job description looks nothing like the role you were hired for, that's a signal worth paying attention to. Lucas: And the second use case is for performance reviews. Instead of walking in defensive, you walk in with a document that says, 'Here's what I actually do, here's the value it creates, and here's where the disconnect is.' That's a conversation, not a complaint. Luna: I love that. And I think there's a third use case—for job seekers. When you're interviewing, you could ask the hiring manager to describe a typical week. That's kind of a forward-looking reverse job description. Lucas: That's smart. You're essentially crowdsourcing the gap before you accept the role. So let me break down how to write one. Part one: current reality. List your top five activities in order of time spent, and estimate the percentage of your week each takes. Luna: And be honest—don't list what you think you should be doing. List what you actually do. Lucas: Right. Part two: value delivered. For each activity, ask yourself: what measurable outcome does this produce? Revenue, efficiency, customer satisfaction, whatever. If you can't point to a metric, ask yourself if the activity is actually valuable. Luna: That's the tough part. Because sometimes we do things out of habit that have zero measurable impact. Lucas: Exactly. And part three: the gap analysis. Compare your reverse job description to your official job description. Where do they overlap? Where do they diverge? And crucially, is the divergence a problem—or an opportunity? Luna: I want to add a practical tip here. After you write your draft, show it to a peer—not your boss. A peer who works closely with you can validate whether your self-assessment is accurate. Sarah's peer might have said, 'Actually, you spend even more time on analytics than you think.' Lucas: That's a great call. External calibration keeps your blind spots in check. And if today's episode helped you think about your own role alignment—honestly, if it was worth a coffee to you, that's the link. Buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. Listener support is what keeps this show ad-free, and it genuinely helps us keep doing episodes like this. Luna: Yeah, and we don't run ads, so that direct support makes a real difference. If you've gotten value from the show, even a small contribution helps. Lucas: Okay, back to the reverse job description. One more nuance: the document should live in the present tense. It's not a wish list or a future plan. It's a snapshot of what you actually do this month. Luna: So you update it regularly? Quarterly maybe? Lucas: Quarterly is perfect. Because roles shift. Six months from now, Sarah's reverse job description might show she's back to 50 percent creative work. That's a positive signal. But if it shows she's even deeper in analytics, she might need to revisit the conversation. Luna: I think this also works for managers. As a manager, you could ask your direct reports to write a reverse job description and share it with you. That's a much richer conversation than the standard 'how are things going?' Lucas: Absolutely. It surfaces hidden workload and misaligned expectations before they become performance issues. I've seen managers discover that a top performer was doing two jobs—and getting credit for only one. Luna: And then the manager can either adjust the role or the compensation. Either way, it's better than losing that person to burnout or resignation. Lucas: Right. So here's my challenge to listeners: this week, write your reverse job description. Spend 30 minutes. Be honest about your time allocation and the value you're creating. Then decide: does the gap between what you were hired to do and what you actually do signal a need to adjust your role—or your job? Luna: And if you do it, let us know. We'd love to hear how it went. You can reach us through the Fexingo website. Lucas: We'll put a link in the show notes. And next episode, we're going to talk about another tool for career clarity—the 'career exit interview' you do with yourself before you leave a role. That one's a doozy. Luna: Looking forward to it. Until then, pay attention to what you actually do—it might tell you more about your career than your job title does. Lucas: Exactly. Thanks for listening, everyone.