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I won an award handed to me in January 2013 for 'best work' that I performed in 2012. The certificate literally says "... For the Best Work in 2012 ... Awarded January 15, 2013".

Now I would like to place this on my resume. Should I state it as "Best Work Award, 2012" or "Best Work Award, 2013"?

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    Is this an industry award or something that's solely a part of the organization you work for? What was the award for, and why haven't you considered highlighting the accomplishment instead of the award? What do you hope to achieve by highlighting the award? – jmort253 Jan 28 '13 at 4:21
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    @jmort253: Speculation: The opinion of whoever gave the award might be more meaningful to someone reading the resume than a statement about the work done to earn it. But we don't have enough information to know that. – Keith Thompson Jan 28 '13 at 4:38
  • Hi @KeithThompson, the point of my questions are to eliminate the speculation, as speculation in questions can lead to a lot of answers that are just guesses. It would be great if stackoverflowuser2010 could clear up the missing details. :) Hope this helps! – jmort253 Jan 28 '13 at 15:32
  • You really can overthink these things, no one reading your cv is either going to care, or to check :-) – Matt Jan 28 '13 at 18:08
  • @jmort253: It is a company-wide award. I have highlighted the accomplishments in the "job detail" section of my resume, but I have a separate "awards" section, so I want to put the award there. To answer your last question, I hope to achieve a better job. :) – stackoverflowuser2010 Jan 28 '13 at 18:34
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If I were going to mention it on my resume, I'd phrase it as:

Best Work Award for 2012

to make it clear that it was for work performed in 2012. Someone reading your resume is unlikely to care when it was awarded.

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  • They are also unlikely to even require proof of such award. They might attempt to contact your supervisor at the time. As you point out the award was for work done in 2012, so the phrase you suggested, really is the only correct answer. – Donald Jan 28 '13 at 18:23
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Where it is currently 2013 - I'm with Keith on "Best Work for 2012" as being the reason for an award or recognition. Realize that whenever you cite internal company awards, the details of the award is likely to mean almost nothing to most of the readers of your resume, as they won't know or care about the details of your company. Given that it is only January 2013 - one would hope that you haven't won a "Best Work" award for this year yet! And anyone reading the resume and seeing Best Work 2013 is likely to be a bit surprised.

One caveat - should you win an award known to the general public, then the rule should be go with the publicly known naming convention regardless of accuracy.

Also - in cases where you've won multiple awards, you'll probably default after a while to "recognized numerous times for outstanding performance" or something similar in the experience section - just enough to highlight that you're a go getter - which is the imporant part.

Congrats, by the way!

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