Degree Tiers

Pretentious? Maybe. Funny? Definitely. I say list 'em all!

Being surrounded on this forum (and its sister forum) by several posters who hold multiple degrees just got me to thinking. I once worked at a place where people placed their bachelor's degrees in their signatures. I think the world is on that trajectory, and I'm climbing aboard that ship.

Studious One, MBA, MPA, MPH, MS, MA, MEd

Meanwhile, I still don't know which of my imaginary master's degrees should be listed first. I finally decided on the MBA ... because I'm all business.

 

Captain Doctor Rich Douglas, AA, AAS, BA, BSc, MBA, PhD, DSocSci, CPTD, PCC (and soon a couple of others). It would be exhausting.

I have none of it in my LinkedIn moniker.

But Lerner's right. It depends on the society and the setting. And even within those there is quite a bit of variance.

 

I have a friend who would put the whole shebang on her LinkedIn: Nicole D, PhD (followed by about 10 HR certs like SHRM and so on). I checked earlier, and I guess 2025 is the start of a new phase, where she's just Nicole PhD lol

 

I agree. Putting them on your actual LinkedIn user name is a bit...much. Especially when the LinkedIn user name begins with "Dr So-and-so...."

Another place I removed them from is the top of my resume. They're listed under other sections, of course, but just my name at the top. Not that I use my resume anymore. For anything. Ever.

 

Yes, sometimes you adapt to conventions around you. It's like how TV actress Theodora Greece is actually Princess Theodora of Greece and Denmark.

 

Its nice to be able to tell bots from real people when they message me with "Hello Dustin K" though.

 

I do think one should list degrees only where the list is relevant to the purpose of the communication. A clinical psychologist, for example, should list his Psy.D. in publications as author, on his professional card and in his professional advertisements but nowhere else ever.

If he has a relevant advanced degree, a masters in whatever Psy.D.s might get a masters in, it too should be listed.

No others degrees should be listed.

The one exception I make is that I don't think a lawyer should list any degrees ever. That's plain cussed old fashioned prejudice but there it is. It's also the usual practice in law.

Yes, I know I list my LL.M. in my signature line but I put it there as a lark and the Legendary Levicoff said he liked it. So there it remains.

 

Eh. I removed it.

 

Oh, my opinion about self aggrandizement is unpopular enough without carving out an exception.

 

I think listing only advanced degrees already implies that the undergrad was completed. In fact the only time I ever saw anyone officially list their undergrad degree as a post-nomial was in a grant proposal, where the academic nature of the thing was paramount and it was required.
There was a section that wanted a listing and background for all of the members of the team and it specified that post-nomials be used for all college degrees, so I was listed as Acolyte, BA.

 

There's two things wrong with this assumption...

1. No one assumes someone with a PhD spends more time studying than working. Your resume, and the experience therein, should speak for itself.

2. A PhD does not make you overqualified for a position. It might make you overeducated for that role and that may be a bad hiring decision but it isn't because you are overqualified.

Actual overqualification is somewhat rare in the realm of hiring. It has much more to do with your experience and skills vastly exceeding those required for the role. The concern then becomes that you will 1) Get bored and not want to do it very long 2) have unreasonable expectations for advancement in terms of timing and level 3) that you may not be able to stick to the lane you're supposed to stay within because you have such a broader view of how things work that you may start coloring outside of the lines.

A good example of this would be if I applied to work as an entry level HR Assistant somewhere. I am overqualified for that position because I have had programmatic oversight and it would be hard for me to turn off my brain to see that broader picture. That's a problem for a role that is often (not always) more of a head down, churn out work/data entry sort of thing that doesn't require much judgment to be exercised.

Rich Douglas would be similarly overqualified for that role. But his doctorates have nothing to do with that overqualification.

One CAN be overeducated for a role. This typically happens when a role is relatively low in terms of compensation and status. There too much education can lead to the same sort of dissatisfaction as above. But generally speaking we're talking about not hiring PhDs to sweep your floors.

Two software developers come in with identical experience, one has a bachelors and one has a PhD. The education in that case is likely neither a help nor a hindrance.

 

More to the current topic, I never use degree post-nominals. I list my highest HR certification as a post-nominal because it's common for HR people to do that. However, the only place said post-nominal appears is on the business cards which no one takes from my desk.

I very much feel that it is a read the room sort of scenario. If you're in an academic setting and everyone is doing it? Go to town. If you are the only person at work who lists a post-nominal then maybe this isn't a good way to stand out and may come off as pretentious.

A few years ago we had this with a newly minted MBA who was VERY upset that his cubicle name plate did not reflect "MBA." Our policy is not to include ANY post-nominals on those plates. Just a name. He went on a rant about how he earned that MBA and deserved the respect that goes with it. I pointed out that the person one cube to his left had a PhD and the one to his right had both an MBA and an M.Eng. and neither of them were throwing a fit over this. He eventually got over it and looks back on it as "cringey things I did in my 20s" as many of us do.

I sort of roll my eyes a bit when anyone uses a degree post-nominal for anything below a doctorate. Though that's just my own personal and wildly arbitrary cut off.

 

I agree with reading the room. As a general rule, I include the post-nominal "PhD." I sometimes use "CPTD" and/or "PCC" when it is context-relevant. I almost never use "DSocSci" unless I'm just showing off.

Our return address stickers simply have our names, no titles, for example.

As for office nameplates, I used it in government and academia--where it was more common. In the private sector, I generally left it off.

Side note: The Air Force didn't allow post-nominals unless they were professionally related. Thus, I couldn't use "PhD" because I wasn't in a profession related to my degree. But a medical doctor or psychologist would use something like: John Jones, Capt, PhD, USAF. (I didn't complete my first doctorate until after I retired, but the point remains.) Debrett's says you can use both, even in styling. Thus: Captain (Doctor) Rich Douglas would be appropriate. And overdone.

I don't use the title "doctor" in purely social settings. But in today's podcast (where I'm the host), I introduced myself as "Doctor Rich Douglas, Executive Director of...." It's relevant there.