Guidance on Post-Nominal Letters | Graduation (2024)

FAQs

Guidance on Post-Nominal Letters | Graduation? ›

Respect the order:

Post-nominals are the shortened forms for academic awards and civil and military honours. There is an order in which to write the post-nominals. In summary, the rule is to write the highest honour first.

Post-nominals do not include spaces or punctuations between any letters. The first letter of each abbreviated word is capitalised. Post-nominals use no more than 20 characters in total. 'And' should be represented by an ampersand ('&') not by the text 'and'.

When a professional has earned more than one set of post-nominal letters, it is appropriate to display each set of letters after his or her name. This is done in descending order, with the most prestigious letters being first (closest to the name), followed by a comma, then the next set of letters and so on.

So, yours would be Firstname Lastname, BSc (Hons), MSc, MBPsS. (But BSc is rarely added except in formal listing, and Hons isn't really needed at all). You could further differentiate by listing where you received your degree from - for example, I could list Firstname Lastname, BSc Hons (Lanc), MSc (Bris), MBPsS.

5.3 Postnominals should not include full stops, but should include commas to separate the different types of award or membership, and to separate academic awards from different institutions.

All entries on the public register include post-nominals. This enables easy verification of active registration and level of achievement. It is often used by employers to quickly check a candidate's credentials.

Pre-nominal letters are a title which is placed before the name of a person as distinct from a post-nominal title which is placed after the name. Examples of pre-nominal titles, for instance professional titles include: Doctor, Captain, EUR ING (European Engineer), Ir (Ingenieur), Mons.

Should post-nominals have commas? ›

Post nominals

Each postnominal should be separated by a space, without a comma.

Avoid including general educational qualifications after your name. For example, you want to avoid adding acronyms to your name like this, Jane Smith, BA. If you use professional certifications after your name, make sure you include the details of the qualification in the education section of your CV.

How to List an Associate Degree on Your Resume. As previously suggested, write out the full name of your associate degree followed by the abbreviation in parenthesis. If you have limited years of experience, you'll likely include your GPA and academic awards in this section.

Basic order and examples

The standard order of the modern ISO basic Latin alphabet is: A-B-C-D-E-F-G-H-I-J-K-L-M-N-O-P-Q-R-S-T-U-V-W-X-Y-Z.

Teach letter formation using 'families of letters: e.g. start with the easiest first (long letters): l, t, i, u, j, y. Then go onto the next easiest letters (curly letters): c, a, g, q, o, e, f, s. Then the 'bouncing ball' letters: r, n, m, p, h, b, d. And finally the 'zig zag letters: v, w, x, k, z.

Postnominals are letters placed following a person's last name to indicate education qualifications, title of office, decoration or honour. Postnominals include abbreviations of an award or awarding institution.

The only academic credentials (degrees) that you should list after your name at the top of the résumé should be doctorate level degrees, such as MD, DO, DDS, DVM, PhD, and EdD. A master's degree or bachelor's degree should never be included after your name.

List the highest education degree first, for example, Michael Anderson, PhD, MSN. In most cases, one degree is enough, but if your second degree is in another relevant field, you may choose to list it. For example, a nurse executive might choose Nancy Gordon, MBA, MSN, RN.