Have you ever found yourself struggling with an important business document or annual report? Not with the actual content, but with something seemingly minor.

 

Why is “senior manager” in lowercase here and not there? Do I just remove every capital letter? But “chief executive officer” looks strange like this. What if we capitalise every job position? No, this doesn’t seem right either…

 

We’ve all been there.

As complicated as it seems, capitalisation in business writing is governed by the following four simple rules:

 

• Capitalise job titles if they come directly before a name

In such cases, they are considered part of the name, and so they are capitalised:

“Head of Department Reese Murphy leads our dedicated team.”

 

• Do not capitalise job titles when used descriptively or generically

“Our dedicated team is led by the head of department, Reese Murphy.”

You might be thinking, “But the job title is placed before the name, just as in the previous example!”

 

Yes, but not directly. Notice the comma between “department” and “Reese”. Because of that comma, the job title is being used descriptively, presenting Reese Murphy as the head of department.

 

Now consider this sentence:

“Every department in our organisation is led by a highly experienced head of department.”

 

Here, the job title is being used generically, referring to “head of department” simply as a noun, as a job title, rather than an actual person holding that position.

 

• Capitalise job titles when referring to persons holding a high-status role

“The Chief Executive Officer is responsible for the company’s overall direction.”

“The Prime Minister’s visit to the company’s headquarters was highly anticipated.”

The Chief Executive Officer and the Prime Minister are both influential individuals in their own right. We capitalise their position as a sign of respect and to highlight its importance.

 

• Capitalise job titles in signature lines

This one’s pretty straightforward. Make sure to capitalise your job title in your email’s signature line, for example:

“Kind regards,

Max Borg,

Financial Manager”

 

💡 Tip: Remember to capitalise both parts of hyphenated job titles, like Vice-President or Secretary-Treasurer.

 

If there are no guidelines or requirements, you may follow these four job title capitalisation rules and remember the golden rule of writing: be consistent. Once you decide which job titles to capitalise and which ones not to, make sure you stick to that approach consistently when using the same job titles in the same context in other parts of the document.

 

Some industries or organisations might have specific in-house rules for capitalising job titles. It’s good practice to check whether there is a style guide you should follow.

💡 Tip: Be mindful of the so-called ego rule. This one is not an official rule, but still worth keeping in mind. If your superior wants their job title capitalised at all times, then consider doing so, especially for internal documents. On the other hand, when the document in question is to be published, you need to consider how irregular capitalisation could be perceived by the readers. So, in that case, it’s advisable to recommend that the job title capitalisation rules be followed.

 

Do you have any other queries on capitalisation? If so, feel free to drop us a line. We’d love to discuss this topic with you!