---
title: Improved seniority parsing for VP and Staff roles
description: Seniority classification now correctly handles Vice President roles as Senior level and limits Staff seniority to explicit IC positions like Staff Engineer, fixing misclassifications
url: https://theirstack.com/en/product-updates/2025-09-12-improved-seniority-parsing
---

The `seniority` field in every `job` object in the [Job Search endpoint](/en/docs/api-reference/jobs/search_jobs_v1) can take one of these 5 values: `c_level`, `staff`, `senior`, `mid_level`, `junior`

Previously, seniority was not being correctly assigned for certain job titles:

-   All “Vice President” roles were sometimes misclassified, being considered as mid-level roles, and all "VP" roles were considered C-Level.
-   The “Staff” seniority label was applied too broadly, including roles like “Staff Nurse” or “Staff Physician” that do not represent Staff-level IC (Individual Contributor) positions.

With this update, seniority assignment has been improved:

-   All “Vice President” roles are now consistently marked as Senior, rather than C-Level. While VP might sound like a C-Level title, in many organizations—especially banks and financial institutions—VP is a very common title that better aligns with Senior-level responsibility.
-   The “Staff” seniority is now reserved only for explicit Staff-level IC roles, such as “Staff Engineer” or “Member of the Technical Staff.”
-   Roles like “Staff Nurse” or “Staff Physician” are no longer misclassified as Staff; instead, they are mapped to more appropriate levels, often mid-level.