How does the GPA evaluated by the HR people? From the following four choices whom should they pick? Provided that all the schools I mentioned below, have regional accreditation. a) Candidate "A" with a 3.0 - 3.3 GPA from a prominent B&M school. Who achieved his/her degree entirely in classroom format. b) Candidate "B" with a 3.5 - 3.7 GPA from a good B&M school but achieved his/her degree entirely through distance education (a little residency might or might not be included) c) Candidate "C" with a 4.0 GPA from a completely virtual school -- achieved his/her degree entirely through DL (Little Residency). d) Candidate "D" with a 4.0 GPA from a well-known B&M school -- achieved his/her degree entrily through DL through the schools virtual extension (No residency).
IMO, in most cases, work exprience/performance is much more important than GPA, provided the required degree is in hand and is accredited. The GPA is only important for grad school entry and compeditive entry level positions (new 21-22 year olds rigt out of school with no/little related job experience.
A bad GPA (2.2) is certainly going to make you think the person is marginal but beyond that I look at several things: Do they have an accredited degree. HR screens this for me (can be RA or NA but........... NO UnA). School name does not impress me as much as their work experience and how they handle the interview and in-basket exercises. These things form the basis of the decision and not whether they have a degree from a 2nd tier school vs one of the Big Three portfolio degrees. Just my two cents in my corner of the world. North
As NNAD points out, GPA is usually only a major issue for someone early in his/her career (entry level or within perhaps 5 years). For entry-level positions, we have a recruiter who filters all resumes -- this is necessary because in this internet era (monster.com, etc.) we can get 1,000 applicants for a position that 10 years ago would attract no more than a few dozen applicants. The recruiter will discard resumes with GPA less than 3.0/4, unaccredited degrees, wrong majors, etc. This narrows the number of resumes down to a manageable number that our Recruiting Committee can briefly look at. The few resumes that seem interesting (less than 1/10th of the original pile) then go back to the recruiter, who obtains transcripts and letters of recommendation. She reads this material and sends the ones that match the job requirements best back to the Recruiting Committee. The Recruiting Committee thus doesn't pay much attention to the GPAs, but rather to the details of the transcripts. In our case, the GPA is thus used only in the initial screening, and any GPA of at least 3.0/4 is OK in this regard -- provided the rest of resume matches up. People who don't provide a GPA at all almost always end up in the pile of resumes rejected at the first pass, and thus their resumes are never seen by our Recruiting Committee.
