After three months of employment at the current job, I finally have an office. Actually it’s more like a coset. To be fair, it’s a walk-in closet but it has a door that locks so I’m not complaining.
I sit here unpacking boxes of stuff that I took from my previous job, and I have quite a few awards, certificates of achievement, tokens of appreciation, and one small pointy-edged marble trophy that could, in a pinch, be used as a murder weapon.
Would it be tacky of me to put these things on display at my new job? Some of them are fairly significant recognitions and I’m quite proud of them. Almost all were issued and signed at the VP level - of a Fortune 50 company. Be that as it may, they are for the most part just pretty pieces of paper. My field of expertise is IT Service Management, which is something many people find to be esoteric and hard to understand. Obviously my department heads understand it or I wouldn’t have been hired, but those are not the people who may visit my closet and see my various awards on a daily basis.
Better I should just leave these things in the box from whence they came?
I wouldn’t put them all up, but a select assortment might be just the thing. Pick a few that are the most important, or that most directly relate to what you are doing now with your new company. Leave the tokens and trophies at home, unless they are also practical pieces of office equipment.
I wouldn’t - it seems like you’re trying too hard.
“Look! Look! I’m really good at this IT stuff! Look at all the awards I got!”
Yeesh - you were hired for your skills. Assuming they’re good (which I assume they are), I would keep your awards from a previous employer to yourself.
YMMV and all that.
(I have this kind of thing as well and I hide ALL of it.)
In general I think that people who do that are lame. You would probably be mocked for it behind your back.
In case you think that this is bitterness talking, I was one of only three people and the only engineer to get a pretty significant recognition last quarter and it’s in a file folder in my desk.
Display only if they are national industry awards, and only if it is common for others in the company to display similar awards. I feel tacky displaying awards I’ve got within this company let alone at a different job.
Whether it’s tacky or not is a matter of opinion. Another thing to consider is if your previous employer is a competitor of your current employer. I doubt they would appreciate you hanging up an award with the competitor’s logo on it.
I’d put up a really, really signifcant, company wide award. Most companies I’ve been in give out group award to keep people motivated - those I’d put away. When you accumulate awards at your new company, you can replace the old one.
My criterion - if the award was significant enough to go on your resume, you can display it.
Though depending on your work environment, a potential murder weapon might come in handy.
I agree mostly with the above who say not to put up the certificates and the like, unless they were an major outside industry award or the like.
My one exception might be the marble trophy. If it looks like a cool paperweight or has an interesting design, you might be able to get away with leaving it on your desk or shelf. The question is whether it seems like it could credibly something you like having around, rather than something saying “I’m great.”
If it looks like third place trophy in a pee-wee league competition, however, leave it in the box.
There is a definate style of using previous employers stuff in IT departments arround here. But it isn’t awards, it is things like t-shirts, mugs, mouse mats. It just is considered cooler than using your current companies stuff (which you none-the-less take home and save to use at the next company you work in ). But this is just a style, and I’m unsure how prevalent it is even in the Silicon Valley.
Awards though are too much blowing your own trumpet, so unless they are really significant (Nobel Prize) or realy insignificant but fun (winning Robot Wars) don’t show them off.
