Do awards matter on the market?

A reader writes in:

How important are "awards" sections on a CV?  Do hiring departments put much weight on them? I only ask because I routinely see faculty CV-s include them, but for the couple that I have, I have to say I'm not impressed with them knowing what getting them required. They largely involved me engaging in a lot of schmoozy self-promotion and essentially out-self-promoting others who were nominated for the same award. Is this really a CV section an early career philosopher should be worried about lengthening?

I'm curious to hear what readers think. On the one hand, I'm inclined to think that a teaching or service award is likely to be a real boon to a candidate when applying for jobs at teaching institutions. Having served on several search committees, my experience has been that there are so many well-qualified candidates, and the differences between them often so small, that distinctions like awards can probably make a real difference. But what about at research schools? Here, I suppose that a book award or article in the Philosophers' Annual might make a difference. But I'm not sure. I'm also not all sure that most awards are gotten through schmoozing. I received a teaching award at my university in 2017, and it came as a complete surprise to me--and another member of my department received the same award a few years later, and she didn't schmooze for it either.

In any case, what do you all think? Do awards matter on the market? If so, is there anything that grad students or job-marketeers should do in terms of pursuing them? 

Comments

[Assoc Prof]

It seems to me that there is a wide disparity with awards. Some are quite substantial while others are commonplace at an institution and don’t mean as much.

In general, I suppose my prudential advice for job applicants would be to describe the nature of more substantial awards in detail while leaving out details on less substantial ones.

[Julia]

I agree with Marcus' assessment. I always appreciate it when people briefly explain how an award is given out. Some teaching awards are basically meaningless, and some are very competitive, and it's helpful to know for the reader of the CV what the award criteria were. For example "Awarded to 2 graduate students annually in the College of Arts and Sciences based on class observations by an independent committee."

[Amanda]

I think this is one of those things that will just vary by committee member. Some will take them seriously and some won't. At research schools, receiving grants can be a big plus, and some paper competition awards might be as well. Awards for things like "best grad student" mean next to nothing. In short, if it is not obvious the award is highly competitive it probably won't mean anything at a research school.

I think teaching schools will also vary a lot by committee member. I don't take teaching awards seriously, because at my institution, they nominees come from faculty and are a complete joke. We've given out teaching awards to persons for reasons having nothing to do with their teaching.