<p>/summer employment you had while in school? While a decent GPA of around 3.3 is sort of a hurdle point for some job offers, it seems quality internships at well-known firms and decent recommendations from them are more important than the 4-year degree and GPA alone. If you have 2-3 strong internships w/ solid feedback, the job prospects are much better than someone w/no internships, or work experience at unheard of firms and say a 3.7-3.8 GPA. While the institution one attends is important, the work experiece keeps becoming a larger over- weighted factor each year out of college, beginning w/the very first post-graduation job.</p>
<p>Sounds like you asked a question and answered it.</p>
<p>Yeesh–I hope 3.3 isn’t a hurdle point…</p>
<p>Some companies (like Google for engineering jobs, for example) have a GPA cut-off. Without a certain GPA you will notvget an interview. I don’t know what the cut-off is, but I’m pretty sure it is well above 3.3…</p>
<p>you are correct about asking and answering, i should have added: Are others finding this to be the case too?</p>
<p>I increasingly see internships as a prerequisite for the first post graduate job. However, the requirement for the internship is often GPA based, unless the candidate has connections or desirable hard skills. Obviously, luck and timing are factors, as well. I don’t think you can make it an either/or equation. Once a student has their first professional job, I agree that GPA is irrelevant until time to apply for grad school at which point it matters again.</p>
<p>I have three years of work experience relevant to the fields I am applying to, and I am still being told time and time again in interviews that my experience is a problem. And in the few jobs that are still willing to consider me, they want to pay me like $2 more than minimum wage because of my lack of experience (and I still haven’t been hired). It’s extremely distressing. While you do need a good GPA, graduating without any internship experience is a huge mistake. My friend did that and now isn’t getting any interviews at all, for anything. And she has seven years of work experience, just not anything remotely relevant to her career.</p>
<p>Agree, work experience trumps GPA in locating that first job. It doesn’t necessary need to be an “internship” but work experience even remotely connected to your career plans is very helpful.</p>
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<p>I faced many of the same issues. Luckily for me, I had a job lined up coming out of college that I ended up taking full-time. I had more than a couple of schools tell me I didn’t have enough experience to get a GA position with them. This was after having a part-time job in my field for 4 years, over 1500 hours of experience through school, and two internships of at least 300 hours apiece.</p>