Capitalization of Job Titles

For the Sake of Vanity

Have you ever had a boss who thought he was more important than he actually was (or is)?  Even if you haven’t, you probably know the type: He values his own opinion above those of all others, he considers certain tasks simply beneath him, and he wants his job title capitalized all the time.  He, by the way, could just as easily be a she.  This shoe comes in peep-toe pumps, too.

As much as this person might annoy you, there is really only one thing you can do: stop capitalizing his (or her) job title.  In fact, with the information I am about to give you, you could stop capitalizing his job title almost all the time with just an adjustment to where it falls in the sentence.

Bwa-ha-ha-ha!

That’s a maniacal grammarian’s laugh.  Use your imagination.

Seriously, though, there are only a few times when job titles should be capitalized.  Most of the time, they shouldn’t.  And when someone insists that his (or her) job title be capitalized all the time, we grammarians refer to it as vanity capitalization.  Capitalizing your job title when it doesn’t require capitalization is like laughing at your own joke.  Only in this case, the joke is really lame.  It’s an attempt to make something appear more important than it really is.

So when do you capitalize a job title?  When it precedes the persons’s name, essentially becoming a part of the name.

            Executive Vice President Michelle Williams will attend.

            Please forward all correspondence to Chancellor McAdams.

            All poo patrol volunteers should report to Head Poop Scooper Pam.

And even if the title precedes the name, if the title is preceded by an article (a, an, the), the title does not get capitalized.

            The head of mechanical engineering, Bob Cotterpin, is a nice guy.

Now, there are a few exceptions to these rules, but they are few and far between and not necessarily widely agreed-upon.  So stick with this as your basic guide.  If you need a more in-depth analysis, drop me a line, and I’ll try to help you out.

Oh, and if you want to make sure you never have to capitalize your boss’s title, just make sure it always follows his (or her) name.  Unless it’s part of the signature line of a letter – that’s one of those exceptions.