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Message
re: Employers to New Grads: We Don't Care About Your Grades, Classes, or College
Posted on 8/21/14 at 10:37 am to Epic Cajun
Posted on 8/21/14 at 10:37 am to Epic Cajun
I've applied to 3 jobs and gotten three offers since graduating. Never once was I asked for a gpa (3.0). First 2 were at banks, I worked at a bank for 4 years while in college, third was at a company owned by a friend's father. In my experience for college graduates it goes:
1a Connections
1b Experience
2 Interview/First Impressions (Have a cousin that was given a State Farm Agency in HST because she interviewed well. No degree and was a receptionist in an unrelated field beforehand)
3 Grades/College Prestige/Everything else
My wife graduated with a 3.8 with a ton of extra curriculur's. She had a bunch of opportunities for interviews in her field, but was turned down at every place because they refused to hire anyone without 2 years of experience. She's on year 2 now making dick in order to get that experience. Her grades were also never requested.
All this said, if you want to be a doctor, your arse better make a 4.0.
1a Connections
1b Experience
2 Interview/First Impressions (Have a cousin that was given a State Farm Agency in HST because she interviewed well. No degree and was a receptionist in an unrelated field beforehand)
3 Grades/College Prestige/Everything else
My wife graduated with a 3.8 with a ton of extra curriculur's. She had a bunch of opportunities for interviews in her field, but was turned down at every place because they refused to hire anyone without 2 years of experience. She's on year 2 now making dick in order to get that experience. Her grades were also never requested.
All this said, if you want to be a doctor, your arse better make a 4.0.
2
Posted on 8/21/14 at 10:41 am to Icansee4miles
quote:
Truth. And I'm one that absolutely hates this approach. Give me a 3.0 student with good experience and a personality over the 3.8 inexperienced, socially inept grad every day of the week. If someone got through an engineering degree at a reputable institution, I can teach them the job. I can't teach them a personality.
I read something a while back, don't remember where, but it was a study about GPA and job performance. Those with a GPA of 3.0-3.5 were more likely to be "management material", than those with 3.6-4.0 GPAs. I'll look for the study.
Posted on 8/21/14 at 10:46 am to Icansee4miles
Yeah out of my group of friends that went the petroleum engineering route the ones with the better personalities have been the most successful 10 years after graduation. They also had to start in the field for service companies out of college because of their shitty gpa 
Posted on 8/21/14 at 10:47 am to junkfunky
quote:
If I can find someone who has worked in his field full time for 2 years while getting their degree they are going to be the one to beat.
That's great, I'm talking about entry level positions. I've never had a new grad with 2 years experience. Why? because the job requires that degree to get the experience
Posted on 8/21/14 at 10:49 am to Mr. Wayne
quote:
She had a bunch of opportunities for interviews in her field, but was turned down at every place because they refused to hire anyone without 2 years of experience.
oh how quaint.
this is how it went for me too.
i had a double major (math/journalism-advertising) because i was a geek that also wanted to hang out in classes with hot girls too.
anyway, the point is nobody at the ad agencies in houston (i wanted to be a copywriter) would give me the time of day. they would practically laugh me out of the building with my shitty little resume & degree from LSU.
this was 1990.
i had a Mac SE and a shitton of experience on PageMaker, Freehand (precursor to Illustrator) and tons of experience using Linotronic 300s and Postscript.
so i was hired by a computer retailer in houston..and immeidately began cold calling those same agencies to sell them macs.
because they were just moving off typeset/letraset vinyl type into computers, i made sales with ease because i would go in and do little tutorials on how to layout stuff in PageMaker..hell the Macs sold themselves back then.
CSB i know..but i got my revenge because several of them tried to hire me and by that time i had already decided on a different career path so i would remind them of how they treated me when i was originally interviewing with them as i walked out the door with a smile on my face.
This post was edited on 8/21/14 at 10:57 am
Posted on 8/21/14 at 10:59 am to Icansee4miles
quote:
A good list, but if you were rank ordering, you need to move #3 to #1.
I've gotten passed over multiple jobs because I am black. I hate when people say this. You aren't in my shoes, I have to hit the other 5 out of the ball park to offset being black. I look around my offices, all I see are white people but reading this message board, you would believe we are at an advantage.
This post was edited on 8/21/14 at 11:00 am
Posted on 8/21/14 at 11:01 am to junkfunky
quote:
I'll stick with the 2.2 guy that already has 2 years of job experience in the field he's applying for.
That post would have come across a lot smarter if you had said a 3.2 guy.
2.2 was a little too ambitious for whatever point you are trying to make. Regardless of "work experience", the difference between 2.2 and 4.0 shows a clear intelligence/dedication gap. Why require college at all?
Posted on 8/21/14 at 11:02 am to Mr. Wayne
quote:
(Have a cousin that was given a State Farm Agency in HST because she interviewed well. No degree and was a receptionist in an unrelated field beforehand)
How long ago did this happen?
Posted on 8/21/14 at 11:03 am to Walking the Earth
quote:
Regardless of "work experience", the difference between 2.2 and 4.0 shows a clear intelligence/dedication gap.
It's not always that cut and dry.
Posted on 8/21/14 at 11:11 am to LNCHBOX
quote:
It's not always that cut and dry.
I agree. But I can't imagine that many companies out there will pick a 2.2 guy over the 4.0 guy strictly based on 2 years of work experience.
Either they're not checking GPAs at all and just want people with experience (college degree or not) and that poster just threw in 2 hypothetical ones to win the internet or their hiring practices are seriously out of whack.
Posted on 8/21/14 at 11:12 am to Walking the Earth
And now to really get this thread going!
LINK
It's got it all. Not only is it from the hated New York Times but the article is titled "Why You Can't Catch Up".
I'm not even sure I agree with it but they claim to have the stats. And, to be fair, this only looks at correlations related to going to grad/professional school, as opposed to directly into the working world.
LINK
It's got it all. Not only is it from the hated New York Times but the article is titled "Why You Can't Catch Up".
I'm not even sure I agree with it but they claim to have the stats. And, to be fair, this only looks at correlations related to going to grad/professional school, as opposed to directly into the working world.
This post was edited on 8/21/14 at 11:16 am
Posted on 8/21/14 at 11:15 am to Walking the Earth
quote:
2.2 was a little too ambitious for whatever point you are trying to make. Regardless of "work experience", the difference between 2.2 and 4.0 shows a clear intelligence/dedication gap. Why require college at all?
my GPA at lsu was 2.5. what that showed is that i partied 6 out of 7 nights a week.
my GPA on my masters was 4.0. what that showed is that i did it while working full time and had no life
in neither case did the GPA ever come into play in job discussions..except applying for a part time instructor position with the local community college.
This post was edited on 8/21/14 at 11:16 am
Posted on 8/21/14 at 11:15 am to Walking the Earth
quote:
I agree. But I can't imagine that many companies out there will pick a 2.2 guy over the 4.0 guy strictly based on 2 years of work experience.
As you can see in this thread most employers won't even ask so chances are the experienced guy will get the job.
quote:
Either they're not checking GPAs at all and just want people with experience (college degree or not) and that poster just threw in 2 hypothetical ones to win the internet or their hiring practices are seriously out of whack.
I'd rather look at standardized test scores than GPA.
Posted on 8/21/14 at 11:18 am to CAD703X
quote:
my GPA at lsu was 2.5. what that showed is that i partied 6 out of 7 nights a week.
my GPA on my masters was 4.0. what that showed is that i did it while working full time and had no life
in neither case did the GPA ever come into play in job discussions..except applying for a part time instructor position with the local community college.
Well, I'm obviously not going to do a Yankee White on your life so I'll just say that you were very fortunate and leave it at that.
I would also say that anyone else attempting to replicate this course of action would be taking a serious risk.
Posted on 8/21/14 at 11:19 am to Icansee4miles
quote:
A good list, but if you were rank ordering, you need to move #3 to #1. That's why I keep telling my two boys that they need to hit the other 5 out of the park, they can't change that one.
Yeah, I wanted to put that one first but I was afraid someone might holler racism.
Posted on 8/21/14 at 11:20 am to euphemus
They say that, but GPA is often the first thing worthless HR people (aka 90% of HR people) look at when selecting who to interview. GPA may not be a major deciding factor between candidates who are interviewed, but it matters a heck of a lot for getting that interview.
Posted on 8/21/14 at 11:21 am to Icansee4miles
I got two good offers from companies who didn't care what my GPA was and I'm not sure they ever knew. I had plenty of relevant experience.
I also got gunned down more times than I can remember for not making the GPA cut for shell, Exxon, John Deere, Dow, marathon, motiva, General Electric, and a shitpile of other companies because experience be damned, my GPA sucked.
Id like to speak to anybody who goes around telling engineer students that they shouldn't worry about GPA because it doesn't matter. You might get lucky like I did, but the guys with 3.8's don't need to worry about getting lucky. They're going to turn down more jobs and more money than the 2.5 guy could ever dream about accepting.
I also got gunned down more times than I can remember for not making the GPA cut for shell, Exxon, John Deere, Dow, marathon, motiva, General Electric, and a shitpile of other companies because experience be damned, my GPA sucked.
Id like to speak to anybody who goes around telling engineer students that they shouldn't worry about GPA because it doesn't matter. You might get lucky like I did, but the guys with 3.8's don't need to worry about getting lucky. They're going to turn down more jobs and more money than the 2.5 guy could ever dream about accepting.
Posted on 8/21/14 at 11:21 am to DownshiftAndFloorIt
Yep
Posted on 8/21/14 at 11:23 am to Walking the Earth
quote:
It's got it all. Not only is it from the hated New York Times but the article is titled "Why You Can't Catch Up".
Not sure that study says what it thinks it says. The cohort of people going to Yale or Johns Hopkins is very different from the cohort of people going to tier 4 schools, in ways that have nothing at all to do with the name on their diploma. The inability to catch up has nothing to do with whether the college has given you the "tools" you need. In reality, for almost all people, those tools are there (or not there) way before they went to college.
Posted on 8/21/14 at 11:26 am to DownshiftAndFloorIt
quote:
Id like to speak to anybody who goes around telling engineer students that they shouldn't worry about GPA because it doesn't matter. You might get lucky like I did, but the guys with 3.8's don't need to worry about getting lucky. They're going to turn down more jobs and more money than the 2.5 guy could ever dream about accepting.
Fair enough. I'm a slacker and lucked out because the industry I was going into...web/multimedia..was relatively new and even an afternoon spent perusing a few technical books at Barnes & Noble was enough to make me look like superman in interviews.
also by teaching a few software classes at night at the local community college on 3D design & multimedia, i also rubbed elbows with the higher ups at NASA and lockheed martin in houston who were just dabbling their toes into this at the time. i developed a reputation as an 'expert' because i had a job doing multimedia full time and the adjunct job was related to what i did already.
This probably won't apply to established career paths such as engineering where things are very well organized and systems for hiring people are very thorough.
The 'new economy' is a boom or bust thing..you hit upon the right startup at the right time and even the secretary is retiring in 10 years.
You could also go to work for someone who goes belly up in a year and you're out looking for a new job.
So yes, one size does not fit all. I chose a 'riskier' career by bouncing around from one tech career to another.
This post was edited on 8/21/14 at 11:30 am
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