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I'm applying for postdocs with a PhD in Comparative Literary and Cultural Studies. I've seen some folks include nominations and selection as an alternate for awards on their CV.

I was an alternate this year for a Princeton fellowship and an alternate some years ago for the Association of University Women dissertation fellowship. Do I include these on the CV? I do have letters/e-mails to back this up somewhere in my files...

What about "best grad student paper" nominee at a national conference?

I didn't include these before, but now I'm not sure... What do you think?

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The two basic criteria I recommend using for answering questions on whether to include something optional on a C.V. are:

  1. Are you proud of it? [note]
  2. Will it detract from other things on the C.V. by feeling like "filler"?

I don't know the particular awards you're talking about or how competitive they are, so I can't make a specific recommendation regarding them. At one extreme, being runner up for an award where only three people are nominated isn't very interesting; at the other consider how big a deal it is for a movie to be nominated for an Oscar even if it doesn't win. See if you can find out how big the applicant pools were and how many alternates were accepted, and if it was highly competitive, then include it on your C.V. and also include the competition numbers. I would also advise to err on the side of inclusion (people who don't care will just ignore it) unless it will detract by comparison from other things that you have won.

[note] Certain things are non-optional, of course, for the sake of honesty, even if you aren't proud of them: you've got to include things like internships, and all of your papers, whatever you might have done while young and naive.

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  • the two awards are national competitions, hundreds of applicants and fairly prestigious.
    – Pupahava
    Commented Oct 19, 2014 at 15:59
  • Then definitely include them! Be sure to give that contextual information if it won't be obvious to everyone in your field.
    – jakebeal
    Commented Oct 19, 2014 at 16:08
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    I would add (3) Is there a way to verify the accomplishment, if only in principle? If a conference publishes best student paper nominations, then listing that your paper was nominated is fine. But if you find out through back-channels that your paper was nominated, then listing the nomination is a little sketchy.
    – JeffE
    Commented Oct 19, 2014 at 16:34
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    "you've got to include things like GPA"? I have never seen a CV with a GPA. I'm sure some people do include it, partly depending on their field and partly depending on the stage of their career. Please note that the OP is applying for post-doc positions.
    – Sverre
    Commented Oct 19, 2014 at 17:43
  • There's even some nice theory about this: See papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=777924
    – Corvus
    Commented Feb 17, 2015 at 5:36

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