<p>Um, yes, UCB, thanks for stating the obvious. I get paid based on how well I meet our recruiting targets-- numbers, geographic coverage, diversity, special skills/strategic languages, cost containment, how well I train my team, etc. I am not a social worker and it is not my job to figure out how to interview the maximum number of candidates every single year and spend millions of dollars more than I have to in order to meet my targets. For companies which get thousands of resumes a week, the point is not to make the task as difficult as possible by having loose and highly subjective hiring criteria so that you need to interview millions of college grads. The point is to get to the answer is the most cost effective way possible, while covering off several important goals, not violating the law in any of the countries we do business in, etc.</p>
<p>An argument could be made that by asking GPA we are screening out the kids who for lots of legitimate reasons, excelled in college at things other than academics. And I’m fine with that. And by asking for a cover letter, we are screening out people who are terrible spellers (don’t ask). And by asking for a transcript, we are screening out kids who graduate from one institution, but spent time at several others and can’t or don’t want to produce all of those transcripts when applying.</p>