How to Put Awards and Honors on a Resume (Types and Examples)

Awards are the cherry on top of a compelling career story and allow you to stand out from the pack. If you have created a resume without detailing a couple of awards, you are missing the official recognitions that substantiate your work and accomplishments. When hunting for a reasonable job, you must show hiring managers something that gives you a distinct edge over other job seekers. 

Attracting attention is challenging when other job seekers often hold similar education and work experience. One key element that can decorate your resume is the award and honors you received during your glittering career. These are tangible testimonials to substantiate your skills, work ethic, and prowess in a field, separating you from the applicant lot.

But how can you showcase these eye-catching awards effectively on your resume? And more importantly, is it always necessary to do so? 

What’s the Honors and Awards Section of Your Resume? 

The honors and awards section is a resume segment dedicated to showcasing your past successes. Here, you can list awards and accolades that are relevant to the role you are applying for. This might include your college GPA, industry award or another distinction you received in the past. 

When you are brainstorming ideas to put on a resume, don’t miss out on non-traditional additions. For example, if you received Latin honors i.e., Magna Cum Laude or Summa Cum Laude as a high achiever at college, you can mention this distinction in your resume in the education section or separately in a section dedicated to honors. 

Similarly, if you stood out in extracurricular activities in high school, consider leveraging your achievements in your resume. Remember, it is a great way to show a track record of success especially when you lack professional experience and have not ample resume materials to rely on. 

Why list Awards and on Your Resume? 

Attracting the attention of HR managers and getting selected for a job interview can be challenging for any position, i.e., entry, junior, mid-senior or senior level. Here is why displaying honors and awards on an academic list is useful: 

Differentiation: Make Your Resume Stand Out

Awards distinguish you from the competing applicants. Making the Dean’s list will impress the hiring manager. You cannot tip the balance in your favor by merely listing your responsibilities during the past roles and forgetting to showcase your achievements. Awards endorse your abilities, so use your awards and achievements to demonstrate your ability to excel. 

Compensate for a lack of experience 

If you have completed your graduation recently and have a limited work history with career gaps, listing high school distinctions and awards can be useful to compensate for your lack of experience. Achievements make up any holes in your resume and fill any gaps that can make your case weak in front of HR managers. 

Highlight your Competencies

Awards are not freebies and often require specific skills to get your hands on them, be it technical knowledge, leadership skills, teamwork, or creativity. For example, you cannot clinch a Salesperson of the Year award without demonstrating the ability to influence and negotiate with customers/clients. Similarly, you cannot bag the “Innovative Product” award without implementing creativity and problem-solving skills. 

Augment Relevancy and Resonance 

Adding relevant awards to the job you are applying for shows your potential employer that you have gone above and beyond to seal the distinction for that role.  Let’s say you are applying for a content writer position and have an “Employee of the Month” award for producing the best content pieces in a previous role. The award becomes a compelling selling point for recruiters and can prove vital in your next successful onboarding. 

Types of Awards and Honors to List on Your Resume 

The type of awards you should include on your resume should be relevant to the role you are applying for. For example, if you are stepping up to the plate for a management position, you would need to showcase your leadership and communication skills. If you are throwing your name in the hat for a content writer job, you should list honors and awards that illustrate your industry-specific distinction. 

In short, highlighting the awards and accolades you have racked up in the past can go a long way in establishing your credibility. Here are five types of awards and examples to put on your resume: 

1. Best Performer Awards.

Showcasing excellent performance on a resume is a good way to get the attention of recruiters. Whether it is for sales or marketing, these types of awards show that you are an asset to the organization you work for and are rewarded for your outstanding work. However, such awards should not hang in your CV as standalone, and you should always mention them with the results you produced at an organization. It is great that you achieved the best Performer award, but be specific about what you did to clinch it. 

2. Employee of the Month. 

Too many job seekers overlook the importance of adding Employee of the month awards because they feel these are not that significant to put on a resume. The question arises about the credibility of the award – if some wins this award every month, how worth-winning its it? 

However, if you have a habit of sealing the employee of the month awards at companies where you work, then it starts to carry some weight and you are able to impress recruiters. Also, if you work at a large company with thousands of employees then getting your hands on the Employee of the Month Award becomes a big thing. 

3. Academic Honors/High School Student Awards. 

Academic awards demonstrate your brilliance as a student of a certain educational field or the quality of any research work you have done as an academic. Student of the Year Award is a very commonly distributed distinction, and if you are fresher joining a workplace, don’t forget to mention this one if you have won in the trophy cupboard at your home. 

However, once you have established your career as a member of multiple workforces for a few years, it is imperative to drop the high school awards such as the National Science Fair Award, from your resume because now you have the quantifiable achievements and role responsibilities that count to list on your CV. 

Here are some other awards and achievements you can mention: 

• High GPA
• High School Honor Society
• SAT exam results
• Scholarships
• Dean’s list
• Departmental awards
• Fellowships
• Grants 
• Degree-specific honors
• Cum laude distinctions

4.  Leadership Awards. 

Regardless of your target industry, leadership awards always remain pertinent to prospective employers, as companies always look for candidates who excel in resource management and have excellent communication skills. For example, if you have been honored with the Manager of the Year Award, consider adding this information in your resume. Recruiters prefer job seekers with impressive leadership backgrounds, and these awards will serve as a testament to your relevant abilities. 

5. Industry Awards. 

In comparison with academic awards, industry awards hold a higher power of persuasion. Employers would definitely like to consider a Sales candidate if the President’s Club for sales acknowledged him/her, doesn’t matter how long it dates back. As a candidate however, you should prioritize your most recent recognition as much as possible if it is relevant to your target industry.

Where to put Awards on Your Resume?

Your entire resume should be peppered with achievements, and while some people like to reserve them for the relevant sections, most people tend to sprinkle awards throughout their CV. There are a number of options when it comes to placing awards and honors in your CV. You can mention them in the section that is dedicated to the awards and honors or put them under the Education and Work Experience section. Also, you can mention your top earned or most significant Award in the Summary section of your resume. 

Education Section. 

The education section of the resume as evident by its name is only appropriate to mention your academic awards but the rule remains to only list them if they are impressive enough. Remember, there is no need to put your GPA or any academic details such as the title of your thesis so think carefully about just how much space you wish to use. 

However, you can always mention Scholarships and leadership roles in your resume. But here is the thing, employers are less concerned with your academic achievements than your professional skills. So, the longer it’s been since you graduated, the less detail you should throw in the section. 

Work Experience. 

If you have an award that you earned as a part of your job within the company or is not widely recognized within the industry you can always use its natural space under the work experience section by dedicating one bullet to an award that you received while working with a certain company. Try to include awards from the most recent roles and leave the older ones until they are significant. 

Example of Awards in Work Experience Section

• Bagged 2024 Employee of the Year Award after growing sales by 89% through accurate market analysis. 
• Clinched Cold Call Award by generating a record number of leads. 

Summary Section.

While those 5-7 lines of the resume summary should only cover the key aspects of your career, but if you are a seasoned professional and have anything particularly awesome, you can also incorporate it directly at the start of the document under the professional summary and impress the recruiters and prospective employer from the get-go. 

For example: “Results-driven and Award-winning Content Writer with 10+ years of experience looking to leverage my skill.” 

Dedicated Awards and Achievements Segment.

The Placement of the awards section within your resume document is flexible. People often place it toward the end of the resume. A separate resume award section is rare. Unless you are among the top percentile of applicants in the industry it will be unlikely that you have many high-profile awards. So, it is always preferred to list the awards in the particular section they pertain to for added context. But if you have multiple honors or the awards you have are not tied to a specific entry elsewhere on your CV, you can feel free to create a separate section to highlight your accomplishments. 

Tips for Putting Awards and Achievements on Your Resume

Understanding when and where to showcase your awards and accolades can be tricky. Use these five tips to correctly place and highlight distinctions in your resume so that they have maximum effect and can impress employers.  

1. Add Concise Context  

Align your achievements with the skills and qualifications listed in the job description. Describing the purpose of the award is important because there are chances your recruiter didn’t know about it specifically or couldn’t understand the purpose and quantification of it. It would also explain the attributes that earned you the award. 

For example: “Best Innovator Award 2024 for leading a team of engineers to develop a delivery drone system.” 

This description shows the name of the award and also explains the reason i.e., engineering and leadership skills that earned you the laurels. 

2. Feature the Most Significant and Relevant Awards 

Mentioning smaller or those with little significance awards can lessen the importance of those that really matter. So don’t stuff your resume with minor accolades as more is not always better. Display honors and awards based on their relevance. If they don’t pertain to the role you are applying for, save them for another day. 

3. Mention the Date

Don’t forget to mention the date you received the award/honor. Defining the date is important as it tells the HR managers that your achievement is not outdated and has relevance. 

4. Use Action Verbs 

Use action verbs to describe your awards and achievements to highlight them more effectively. For example, rather than just listing the award, say something more action-oriented like won, achieved, recognized, honored, bestowed, etc. 

5. Use Quantifiable Achievements 

Nothing impresses your potential employer more than backing your achievements with metrics that are quantifiable. Measurable numbers make your achievements easy to understand while also adding weight to your claims. 

For example: “Increased website traffic by 23% in a time span of 9 months.”  

6. Showcase your Consistency  

Market yourself as a consistent high-achiever with awards that are time sensitive i.e., “Employee of the Month”, “Employee of the Year” or “Dean’s List Nominee”. Being a frequent recipient of such honors shows your persistence as a high performer. 

On the contrary, if you manage to get hold of these distinctions once or twice then they may make you appear inconsistent. Always try to include awards and accolades that prove your value as a consistent operator. 

7. Minus Irrelevant and Controversial Awards from Your Doc

Including an award that is not tailored to your new responsibilities for a role sends a signal to the recruiters that you are sending out some generic resume for every position. Likewise, don’t taint your resume with religious or political awards. They might mean a lot to you, but that doesn’t mean your prospective employers will be sharing the same ideology and beliefs. 

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Examples of Awards and Accolades on a Resume 

Putting awards and achievements on your resume should be a seamless process. With the concise and competitive list of awards, you will be fielding interview requests for HR managers in no time. Use these examples to land for your next big role.

1. Marketing Manager

Awards and Achievements.

Best Campaign Award - Recognized for leading the "Innovate & Engage" campaign, which increased brand engagement by 40%.

Top Performer of the Year - Achieved highest revenue growth among all marketing managers within the company.

Creative Excellence Award - Awarded for developing a groundbreaking digital ad strategy that won the industry’s 2023 Creative Excellence Award.

2. Software Engineer

Awards and Achievements.

Employee of the Month - Received for exceptional contributions to the development of the company’s flagship software.

Innovation Award - Recognized for developing a new feature that improved software performance by 25%.

Best Team Player - Awarded for leading cross-functional teams to deliver a major software update ahead of schedule.

3. Sales Representative

Awards and Achievements.

Salesperson of the Year - Achieved the highest sales volume in the company for two consecutive years.

Customer Excellence Award - Recognized for outstanding customer service and client relationship management.

Top New Business Acquirer - Awarded for bringing in the most new business accounts in a fiscal year.

4. Project Manager

Awards and Achievements.

Project Excellence Award - Honored for delivering a high-profile project on time and under budget.

Leadership Award - Received for exceptional team leadership and project management during a complex company-wide initiative.

Efficiency Improvement Award - Got recognition for implementing process improvements that increased project efficiency by 30%.

Incorporate these achievements into the relevant sections of your resume, such as in a dedicated "Awards and Achievements" section or within the bullet points of each job under your experience section.

Final Words on Listing Awards on a Resume 

When creating your resume, include a mix of awards and achievements in your document, and provide the context and skills or duties that earned you the distinction. Spread awards across the resume while a separate section immediately after the work experience section or at the bottom of the document is optional. Here are a few other takeaways:  

Keep clutter away: Avoid writing long paragraphs and use bullet points instead.

Prioritize: If you are dedicating an entire section to your achievements, think about which accomplishments deserve to occupy that space. 

Exclude anything potentially controversial:  Some awards and achievements may be too personal or controversial. Remove any political or religious accomplishments. 

Don’t exaggerate: Avoid fake glories by making something up. You might get asked about your award and accolades in your job interview. Or they might do a reference check. Lying or exaggerating can prove detrimental and cost you otherwise a smoothly earned job.

Mention your biggest laurels in the professional summary: You can always list awards and honors separately under a dedicated Awards and Acknowledgments section or treat them under the education and work experience section. Apart from these sections, if anything is particularly awesome, you can also incorporate it directly in the start of the document under the professional summary.