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I'm a Ph.D. student considering getting business cards printed to facilitate follow-ups after conferences, etc. I am barely in touch with industry but I'm in a field where business cards are common.

My university has a set layout, but we have quite some freedom on what to include. There are some questions on whether we actually need a business card as a graduate student, but here I'm more interested on what to include on them.

I'm thinking at least:

  • Name
  • Title
  • E-mail (as it is the primary form of communication for academics)
  • Post address of university

And maybe:

  • LinkedIn
  • Personal page

I'm hesitant to include:

  • Room number (we occasionally switch; updated room number is found on personal page)
  • Telephone (same as above; could include cell number)

Not including telephone may be a bit harsh, but I'm curious whether you have some input in these matters. What should be included and what is less important?

David Richerby
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    Name, institution and email sound like they'd be sufficient – Landric Sep 16 '15 at 11:06
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    What field are you in? Do people use business cards in that field? I've been in theoretical computer science for over 15 years and haven't seen a single business card in the whole time. The answer may well be "Don't bother getting them at all: nobody uses them." – David Richerby Sep 16 '15 at 12:52
  • I have the department administrator's office (instead of my own) on my business card, since as a graduate teaching assistant my particular office space is likely to change year-to-year. – Matt Menzenski Sep 16 '15 at 13:17
  • @DavidRicherby: I'm in applied computer science, and I have given out and received a few business cards on every conference I have attended so far. Fields differ, and maybe so does the selective perception of people who have business cards ready for distribution and those who do not ;) – O. R. Mapper Sep 16 '15 at 13:55
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    In my field I have received several business cards at conferences too and could unfortunately not exchange. Also, I probably would be more proactive in handing them out in case the parties desire to follow up. –  Sep 16 '15 at 13:57
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    @O.R.Mapper Sure. It's just that before asking "What should go on my business card?", one should ask "Do I need one at all?" It wasn't clear from the question that the asker had considered that but, from their later comment, it's now clear that they have. – David Richerby Sep 16 '15 at 15:58
  • @menzenski So your response to "If I put my office number on my business card, it will go out of date and direct somebody to the wrong place" was, "I'll put somebody else's office number, which is guaranteed to direct them to the wrong place!" I'm not seeing the logic, there. My solution would be to not put any office number on the card. – David Richerby Sep 16 '15 at 16:02
  • Possible dupe: http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/24088/is-a-business-card-necessary-for-a-graduate-student – eykanal Sep 16 '15 at 17:15
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    Possible dupe: http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/9857/what-title-to-put-on-a-professional-business-card – eykanal Sep 16 '15 at 17:15
  • @JimRaynor: If you have more information than you want to deal with, you could always add a QR-code/barcode to your card and have that link to your webpage (presumably you have one through your university). – Andrew Coonce Sep 16 '15 at 19:12
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    @DavidRicherby I see your point, and probably should have specified that my department is very small (~14 graduate students), and all the offices are in the same hallway as the departmental administrator's. If someone's going to arrive at (or send something to) the wrong office, better that they arrive at the office of someone whose job responsibilities include showing people around. – Matt Menzenski Sep 17 '15 at 13:42

4 Answers4

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My experience of business cards in academia is that they are mostly just an easier way to share contact information than scribbling it on a napkin.

As such, the only things that are really important are institution, name, title (because everybody will expect it), and sets of preferred contact information.

As such, if you want people calling you, put down your phone number; if you don't want people calling you, don't put it down. Likewise for all of the other standard aspects. You probably should have a web page that you want people to visit.

As for social media sites like LinkedIn: I'm rather dubious about them, simply because there are potentially so many. I think one wouldn't be a problem, but the extrapolator in my mind goes to a ridiculous image of somebody handing me a card with their LinkedIn, Twitter, Google+, ResearchGate, Facebook, etc. Don't be that person, or else if I meet you at a conference and you hand me your card, I may have a difficult time avoiding laughter.

jakebeal
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    no linkedin no please! – Herman Toothrot Sep 16 '15 at 11:23
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    Social networks within academia seem largely to be a huge failure... – Moriarty Sep 16 '15 at 11:30
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    @Moriarty Not always --- one of my communities seems to get a lot of value out of Twitter. – jakebeal Sep 16 '15 at 12:03
  • Oh, well, not everybody expects the title (in fact, I removed it from my business card). Out of curiosity I had a look at emails from around twenty European and Asian colleagues and only a few of them, mostly from Germany, reported their title in the email signature. – Massimo Ortolano Sep 16 '15 at 16:00
  • @user4050 Why? What's wrong with it? – enthu Sep 16 '15 at 16:32
  • @user4050 I find LinkedIn very useful for finding information about people who don't maintain well-developed personal / institutional web-pages. The fact that is prompts people to fill in particular bits of "vital statistics" information is really useful (e.g., is this person a grad student or a postdoc? Well, their personal page is useless and the group page is broken, but LinkedIn says they got a PhD two years ago, so they must be a postdoc...) – jakebeal Sep 16 '15 at 17:10
  • @Moriarty All top conferences in Software Engineering, e.g. ICSE, ASE, CAV, etc, have facebook page. – sean Sep 17 '15 at 03:39
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    I'd refine this suggestion: don't put links to any social-media or stuff, just put in your site. And in your site, you may link whatever you wish (and you may also change idea later!). Please use a qrcode: if I see an URL and I have to manually type it by hand, I'll hate you dearly. – o0'. Sep 17 '15 at 08:13
  • @jakebeal I find linkedin to be an incredibly intrusive company and I will always advice against it. – Herman Toothrot Sep 17 '15 at 09:49
  • While all answers are excellent, I found this one the most clear and helpful , I'm accepting this. Thanks so much. –  Sep 17 '15 at 13:09
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The point of a business card is to provide contact details. Even though some people might consider it to be outdated, it still has uses; for instance during the poster sessions some people hang envelopes to which you can drop your card for more information or a pdf of the poster.

As such the absolute essentials are your name and department/university, as well as different ways of contacting you. Mine includes:

  • telephone number
  • postal address
  • email

To that list you could add a homepage iff you have one that is in connection with work. I think it's rather annoying to find someone's personal homepage with blog posts about irrelevant stuff or wedding photos, when I was trying to reach their slides or publications.

Regarding your comment about phone numbers, I'd say if someone who receives the card today won't be able to reach you from that number in a year or so, then there's no reason to include it. Again, the idea is to give people different ways of contacting you.

Don't be too alarmed about empty space on your card, it's actually quite useful to scribble down your cell number, Skype username or small notes when you are exchanging cards.

Finally, my card has a QR-code in the back that encodes the same information on the card into an electronic business card. So if someone has a smart phone, they can convert the physical card to a contact on their phone/tablet by scanning it.

Hope this helps

posdef
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As you will be giving the card to people that you want to remember you.

I would include a photo, name, email address and short list of your research interests. If you have a useful webpage about your research include it as well.

There is nothing worse than having lots of cards you have been given and not being able to remember why you were interested in the person.

Ian
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A business card should include some basic information that people can remember you by, as well as your preferred methods of being contacted.

I would recommend:

  • Name
  • Degree Program
  • University
  • College/Department
  • Mailing Address
  • Email
  • Phone number

For example:

Example

Andrew Wasielewski
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    You can't separate "PhD" from "student" in that way. What is the year supposed to mean, expected graduation? – Ben Voigt Sep 16 '15 at 17:54