Hi all. Hoping I can get opinions as to whether or not this is proper etiquette.
I just found out my membership into the Audio Engineering Society was approved. In order to join the AES, a review board has to see three reccomendations and know your academic and professional credentials.
So, now that I am a member of a somewhat select, respectable professional organization, is it proper to put that after my name in a title? I know that people in various other media fields do it (American Society of Cinematographers, Writers Guild of America, etc.) but I’m not sure what the proper thing to do in this case would be. I’d certainly <u>like</u> to do it because I think it’s kind of impressive to have a title, but I wouldn’t want to do something that was out of line. What’s people’s opinions?
I am a member of the American Institute of Certified Planners (AICP), and I use it in professional correspondence. You might want to see how others in your profession use it.
Absolutely! But I’d say on correcpondence or on business cards would be most appropriate; or where you’d be recognized as having a certain amount of credibility assigned to your area of expertise.
For instance, I’m a “Certified Travel Counselor”, a distinction for which I’ve studied and practiced, so “CTC” follows my name in professional settings.
Except in Australia. Those with letters after their name have such a fetish about making sure the whole world knows this as well. I’ve even seen it in personal, hand-written letters too many times that it cannot be a one-off thingie. For a country that claims to be so egalitarian, I could never understand, nor receive an adequate explanation, for this strange preoccupation in the whole time I live there.
Then again, had I indulged in this weak ego wanking … Sir Duckster, AA, JBSc, GDipComp, MACS, OEM, CoS, ROTFLMO, M-O-U-S-EEEEEE!
Interesting. The law firm I clerk with doesn’t put professional titles even on business cards. There will be a job title, but nothing to indicate professional qualifications (other than a qualication inherent in a job title - eg, ‘solicitor’). No LLBs, LLMs, BComs, (Hons), BAs or what have you.
I’ll echo something plnnr said, just to emphasize it. Look at what others in your profession do.
I know it’s done, but in my field I’d generate some snickers if I listed professional societies (I belong to two) with my name.
Something that may influence whether it’s done in a particular field, I think, may be whether or not state licensing is required, in which case you’re already liable to be attaching some alphabet soup to your name. And it may occur in fields like IT, where people may not travel on the strength of college degrees so much as they do on certifications (I don’t know that, though - IT people?).
