You are what you do

When I was in my teens, I used to attend a camp in upstate New York called High Peaks, where we would spend most of our time climbing and canoeing in the beautiful Adirondack Mountain Reserve. As campers, we were expected to pull our weight when it came to carrying food, gathering firewood, etc. However, one thing that campers were not allowed to do (at least during my time there) was to fill or light the kerosene lantern that we used for light in the evenings.

For my last year at High Peaks, I returned as a counselor. Suddenly, my job included lighting the lantern. Although lighting the lantern is trivially easy if you have seen others do it in the past (and even if you haven't), I found it interesting that I had never been required to demonstrate this ability prior to being hired, particularly given that I had been forbidden from touching the lantern as a camper. My lantern-lighting knowledge did not suddenly change by virtue of being hired as a counselor.

In other words, for better or worse, you are identified by your title, and there are general expectations as to the types of skills and knowledge implied by that title, even if you were not required to explicitly demonstrate them prior to being hired. (No hiring process can be comprehensive.) 

I've noticed this feeling since then, particularly when starting a new position (which, in my case, has always involved moving to a different organization). My experience has never been "same job, different organization." Every time I've changed jobs, I've always been required to do things that I've never really done before (though I certainly have acquired general skills that are transferable to different contexts). I always feel that there is much more to learn to "live up to" the job title. 

At the same time, job titles are usually a poor measure of ability. Whether or not it is part of your degree or job title, if you create websites in your spare time, then you are, at some level, a web developer; if you play an instrument, you are a musician; if you analyze data, you are a data analyst; if you do watercolor, you are an artist. This doesn't necessarily mean that you are a great web developer (or musician, or data analyst, or artist), but that is a different issue.