<p>This GPA discussion came up again last night in one of my Industrial Engineering study groups and we just had to agree to disagree:</p>
<p>I have a buddy who is 38 years old- he is finishing his IE degree after being away from school for 15 years- He has no GPA due to being a transfer yet but he landed his first co-op his first semester back in school because he had some experience in Manufacturing.</p>
<p>I have another buddy who is 18 years old- majoring in IE- very bright, nerdy but super arrogant, never worked in his life but has a "know it all", I am better than everybody else attitude-his GPA is 3.8. I would say a smart kid with a weird personality.</p>
<p>I am 36- Have a degree in Economics- currently majoring in IE- Years of work experience not related to IE- I applied for several internships, have a low GPA due to a rough first semester, never included my GPA on my resume, I got a few responses but did not follow up because I am currently working a job on campus- My GPA is rising but I don't know if I can manage to get to a 3.0 GPA- I think a 2.8 GPA would be more realistic.</p>
<p>Which one of us would be more attractive to a recruiter and why?</p>
<p>GPA is important to land a highly ranked position. You need to know the relevant material in order to be a good employer. Work experience is a plus, too. Whoever works the hardest and can show it will get the best jobs.</p>
<p>If the employer applies a GPA screen as an initial screening method, you are likely to get screened out if your GPA is too low. 3.0 is probably a common minimum.</p>
<p>But if both you and your 3.8 buddy with no work experience both pass the initial screening (if any, GPA or otherwise), your greater work experience will likely be more favored.</p>
<p>I declined to hire several high GPA “know it all” types as they would have been terrible to work with. Engineering is typically a team effort and one needs to be able to function as an effective team member.</p>
<p>The company I worked for was a large one and had a 3.0 GPA cutoff for hiring college applicants. Smaller companies tend not to have such a cutoff. I found that those who started low and worked their GPAs up usually had a valid reason why their GPA started low (typically poor study skills that they then fixed). So, to me the true GPA was the higher upper division GPA. They typically made good engineers.</p>