Hacker News Reader

Comment by gorbachev | Hacker News Reader

"GPA does matter"

No, it does not, unless you're a recent graduate. Absolutely nobody pays attention to your GPA, if you're more than a few years in your career.

View on HN

I know of a company that requires (or at least did a few years ago when I interviewed with them) new grads to have a GPA in of at least 3.0 out 4.0 to even be considered for the position (US-based aerospace company). A classmate of mine had circumstances (mostly out of their control) that caused their GPA to be lower than the threshold so they couldn't hire them despite them having glowing recommendations from current, highly respected employees. The hiring manager wanted to hire them but couldn't. So they were brought in as an intern and was hired as an "internal hire" in order to bypass the hard GPA requirement.

I never put my GPA on any resume. I had a garbage GPA because the only classes I went to were CS classes so I got horrible grades in all my required electives. I was worried someone would ask and no one did.

I always put my GPA on my resume. I'm always hoping somebody will mention it and nobody ever does.

Did you not have to submit transcripts of your results?

I think the only company that has ever asked me for this has been Google.

Why would I care about how someone did on some contrived tests 10 years ago?

to prime your biases for when you watch them endure your company's contrived tests

At no point in my career, even fresh out of school, has anyone asked me for this.

What can people even do with that info though? You can’t compare universities as each course is different. So I guess you can compare two people at the same university? Not very useful is it.

Back in 2004, I had a phone screen with the folks at Time, Inc., for a systems admin position. Now, I'd been out of school for about 10 years at that point. The interviewer's first question was "what was your GPA in college?", and I was forced to confess I honestly didn't remember.

He stammered a bit, apologizing, and then hung up on me. I've always considered that dodging a bullet. It's a weird thing to ask someone with many years of professional experience. The only thing I could infer was that all of their staff were very young, and this was still relevant to them.

But then, every organization has it's quirks.

I remember an interview with a French company (in the UK) a few years ago - when they realized I had arrived in tech via a vocational route it got very frosty.

Another data point to back this up: we've had hiring managers provide resume reviews for over 1000 students at CodeDay and "remove your GPA" is the most common feedback. I don't recall ever seeing someone say to add it.

As a new grad I didn't have my GPA on my resume and it never actually came up except for the occasional transcript request. I had a fine GPA, but not high enough for it to be a nice datapoint.

I had plenty of interest with lots of companies, including many FAANGMGOEWVIOPJW companies.

This was years ago though.

Maybe things have changed, but when I went to career fairs as a uni student in the 00s they all asked for my GPA. Less than 3.5 was pretty much an instant no.

I'm talking like 2012-2015ish here. I was never asked for it specifically, or asked why it was not on my resume. A few big companies asked for my transcript, but that's all. I don't even know if they looked at it.

I had about a 3.5, so nothing to write home about. Got offers from a few big tech companies.

I really think they didn't care, unless my barely 3.5 GPA just made the cutoff when they looked at my transcripts.

> when I went to career fairs *as a uni student*

At that point that was the only thing you could possible show.

That's not true. Projects, internships, and interviewing skills are how you get into companies as a uni student. GPA is maybe required for some, but it's definitely not the only thing a uni student should be showing.

Googlewhack!

It matters to me- if I got asked what my GPA was I took it as a strong signal that this company didn't know how to evaluate engineers. ¯|_(ツ)_/¯

It sure is a great way to discriminate against those from working class families though - the kind of people who won't have had much access to private tutoring.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com