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<p>Mine went down. :(</p>
<p>" Intrigued by the response that some jobs put higher gpa into a different pay grade.</p>
<p>Are you saying that if you graduate with a higher GPA, you will earn more for the same position than the person with a lower GPA, or will you be Job Level II as opposed to Job Level I, so therefore, get higher pay?</p>
<p>Great incentive for kids to get better grades in college, if GPA does determine pay rate. "</p>
<p>That’s with a government place, I don’t remember seeing any non-government places do that. The way it worked was that you got pay raises based on how many years you’d been there, including one pay raise when you were there for (if I remember right) 6 months. If you had over a 3.5 you started as if you’d been there the 6 months.</p>
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Actually… government places don’t differentiate GPA and what school you went to… well maybe degree.
I make the same as the people who went to USC, Cal, UIUC or even Cal State Fullerton, as the people who got a 3.8 or a 2.2, as the ones who have PhD.</p>
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Actually, the incentive of having a high GPA will come later when you apply for a good grad school or top b-school…</p>
<p>Many companies these days have standard starting salaries, in which case a GPA doesn’t really help you. But in some of the more competitive positions, notably consulting, they offer you a salary based on your qualification. So a student with a 4.0 GPA and 3 years of co-op experience will almost certainly get a higher offer than a student that just barely meets their qualifications. </p>
<p>In fact, it’s SOP for some consulting firms to throw out super-low-ball offers just to get some “go-fers”. So they’ll find someone just below their normal qualifications and offer $25,000 / yr. If the person rejects the offer, oh well, he wasn’t qualified anyway. If the person takes the offer, that person is about as close to free as you can get, and you can “abuse” him until he leaves or proves his worth. Some students will take the offer because they just want to get into the industry.</p>
<p>^^^That is if you get an offer in the first place. </p>
<p>GPA is one of the things I look at when making hiring decisions, others being demonstrated leadership skills, previous relevant work experience, writing ability, college reputation, and overall impression made during an interview.</p>
<p>This whole discussion of GPA seems to disregard what school you attend… I mean a 3.5 at MIT vs. a 3.5 at xyz u are not created equal</p>
<p>Well, no, but that’s because a 3.5 is a C-average at MIT ;)</p>
<p>For new college hires, there’s targeted recruiting and non-targeted recruiting. If a company is targeting your school, usually you’re just competing against others at that school for some positions, so that school’s overall GPA is what matters, not school reputation. For non-targeted recruiting, school quality does count, since that’s one dimension on which students are competing.</p>
<p>At the first tier schools, most hiring is done through targeted recruiting. At the lower tier schools, you see less targeted recruiting, so students have to go look for non-targeted positions.</p>
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<p>Is this mostly just MIT/Caltech, or is targeted recruiting more widespread? Secondly, how can we know if a company is targeting our school?</p>
<p>“Is this mostly just MIT/Caltech, or is targeted recruiting more widespread? Secondly, how can we know if a company is targeting our school?”</p>
<p>well you can probably know that by just judging from how many companies come to your school for on campus interviews, career fairs, resume drops. </p>
<p>or</p>
<p>ask your career office</p>
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<p>The first tier schools all are targeted by a wide range of employers: the top 5 internationally, the top 15 or so nationally, and the top 50 or so regionally. Even the lower ranked schools will be targeted by local employers. The University of Houston’s engineering students are very heavily recruited, despite being 2nd tier, because of the proximity to so many manufacturing plants. </p>
<p>You know your school is being targeted if the company schedules an on-campus presentation; if they show up with a team of recruiters; if they sponsor scholarships, competitions, or senior design projects at your school; if they frequently visit to make presentations to honor/professional societies; if they hold tailgating events before games; if they call to invite you to lunch frequently; etc. One or two recruiters with no presentation is usually just a semi-target, and just showing up at the career fair is passive interest.</p>
<p>it also depends on the size of the school I think. National companies prefer to recruit say…non-top 15 overall but top 25 like Berkeley or Michigan over a top 15 school like Wash U St Louis just because of the fact that it makes more sense to put the resources in a much larger recruiting student base than a small one… just think about money spent per student. Not to mention big schools have a bigger alumni base pulling for them.</p>
<p>(note: Not talking about only engineering companies, but all companies. Hence the non-top 15 overall for Berkeley and Michigan)</p>
<p>For an industrial job after an undergrad, you can go with a rule-of-thumb that GPA is not as important after 5 years of employment. That is, a potential manager should not be asking you for your grades or coursework done five years ago. HOWEVER, if you have a great GPA (as in 3.8 and above), you should always put it in the resume. AND it DOES get noticed. I will say a similar rule-of-thumb applies as to which school you went to. If you went to a great school, put education at the top of the resume. And it may make a difference. But on an average, a manager will not ask for it. As a matter of fact, after 10 years of experience, I sometimes have software engineers without an engg degree earning more than those with a degree, and I did not even know (until they voluntarily pointed that out). At the same time, I see a resume from MIT, I think about creating a job if I don’t have a position open now.</p>
<p>Yeah I understand there’s a big difference between a 3.8 and a 3.0 and a big difference between MIT and Whatsamatta U. I’m just thinking about the difference between a 3.5 from a respectable state school and a 3.3 from the same state school. I’m not expecting to get hired by McKissney or however the hell you spell it, just hoping to get into a Fortune 500 company like GE or DuPont or something along those lines.</p>
<p>Oh, ok. No difference between 3.3 and 3.5. What is more important is what type of courses you do. Thus if you do a couple of relevant courses (and that depends on what the employer is looking for) and get dinged on gpa, no issue. Also, recommendations do matter for some employers. But number one will be how well you do in the interview (which in turn will depend on the type of courses you did and strength of your preparation in those). Net-net: gpa difference of 3.3 and 3.5 is insignificant for job purposes. I don’t know for grad school directly after undergrad.</p>
<p>Cool, thanks.</p>
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<p>Why not add your SAT score, then? Or how about adding your high school information if you were a valedictorian? </p>
<p>After a reasonable amount of time, your accomplishments should speak for themselves. I would laugh at a 10+ year experienced resume with a GPA on it.</p>
<p>GP Burdell, laughter is good medicine for reducing stress, enhancing brain chemistry. So you should laugh even if someone does not put excellent gpa on their resume. </p>
<p>Question was on gpa, so I answered it. I personally would not care for SAT and Valedictorian. But I have scanned the resume twice if at the end of it I see International Math Olympiad award (or some insane award) even if it was for high school. </p>
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<p>Based on this argument, you should not see anyone with more than 10 years experience to put their education or the school they went to for undergrad. You will dampen the whole Ivy League education industry.</p>
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<p>The colleges you attended and the degrees you have (including degree qualifications) are important points. Demonstrating you were an above average student 10 years ago by including a GPA isn’t. In fact, in my many years, I have never seen an experienced hire (5+ years of experience) include a GPA on a resume. It’s hard to believe that every single one of those students was a below average student.</p>
<p>And create a spot for an MIT grad? If the person has an outstanding track record of performance and success in the industry, maybe. But not just because of a college degree. I knew many highly successful students that amounted to nothing in the working world. </p>
<p>College GPA is an indicator of potential work performance - that’s it to a hiring manager. Why would you care about that when you have actual work history right next to it?</p>