[richbell]

That's exactly what it is. Many organizations have strict pay bands and cannot attract talent without overly inflated titles; cue dozens of "directors" with no reports, and people with < 5 years experience being hired as "Staff Engineers" to build web apps.

[tuwtuwtuwtuw]

I'm not really following but want to understand.

How does inflating titles help to attract talent?

Do you mean this: let's say they want to hire a senior software engineer, but the salary for this level would not attract any candidates so instead they try to hire a staff engineer?

Mostly trying to understand if this is middle-managers tricking their higher ups or if it's the company trying to trick the candidates.

[richbell]

It's the former. Larger companies tend to have strict pay bands relative to the seniority and responsibility of a position. Let's say intern>junior>senior>manager>director>vp.

If the salary range for "senior" is 50-70k, this might be attractive for a customer service rep but not for a senior software developer. Thus, you'll need to inflate the title to be either a manager, director, or staff/prinicple (if HR recognizes that) to be authorized to offer market compensation for a senior software developer.