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Ask HN: Do your grades really matter?

9 points by chunky1994 ↗ HN
A little background.

I'm now (going to be) a second year physics student at uWaterloo, and due to the fact that I was ill, I didn't do too well during my second semester, and a couple of courses in my first semester. I still managed to pull off 80/90+ in all my core courses, and I'm now a bit worried as to whether I'll get a decent co-op job.

I have a pretty reasonable resume, a couple of github projects in C++ and python, a research internship in algorithms (with a paper on the way).

So, what I want to know from the HN community is, would you hire me for a good co-op position (whether in software or otherwise), or am I doomed to a job where I need to file papers all day?

14 comments

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clockwork_189
Coming from another UW student, it depends.

If you want to go into post graduate studies then yes grades matter. Some companies do look at grades, so it matters to them. But for the most part, especially if you are looking for employment in the software development sector, grades mean nothing. Well...they mean you have good learning skills but that too is subjective from person to person.

I have shitty grades myself, but I do have a kickass portfolio which is what lands me jobs. Simply put, if you have nothing to show for your skills, then people will look at your grades. Hence if you have an awesome portfolio, dont really worry too much about your grades, but do ensure you pass and clear your semesters :)

grumps
+1 for grad school, in particular if you ever think Law might be a potential.

It can help with the first job but rarely matters.

jsnk
UW EE2012 grad here.

I had pretty bad gpa, mid 70s, but I still pulled interviews from pretty big tech companies like Twitter, MS, LinkedIn etc.

"I do have a kickass portfolio which is what lands me jobs."

OP should do just fine.

thsiao
I'm a VP at start-up, spent 11+ years at big company hiring lots of folks out of college. I look at work experience first, if you actually did real stuff, got real results.

Good grades just validate what I see on experience, bad grades tell me something might be off - is it all smoke & mirrors.

And yes, it only matters for the first job. After that, I honestly hardly even look at what college you went to.

I'd suggest also breaking out your GPA for your major vs. overall. That tells me that you're really good at your major (probably related to the job you're applying for anyway) but that maybe you just are bad at liberal arts.

ayers
I second this. I am hiring for junior and senior developer roles currently. For candidates fresh out of university/college I will have a look at their grades. For anyone that has real work experience, I will focus on that and won't bother with grades or university/college.

Someone once told me that grades do not matter once you get your first job, after that you are only as good as your last job. In my personal experience I think this is rather accurate.

stocktradr
Second this as well. In previous positions I've held, I first looked for track record, projects, or work experience that helped me gauge competency.

Grades was something I actually looked at last. Might be my hiring methodology but if you're going into an interview, be sure to try and focus on projects/work you've done to help compensate lower grades.

ig1
It will depend in the company, but in generally for internships/first jobs grades tend to be an important factor as there's little else distinguishing between most candidates.

Some companies might have minimum grade policies which means you'll get automatically filtered out. In some cases you can get around this by going a less conventional route (i.e. speaking to an employee and getting them to let you bypass the filter).

Most of the research in recruitment studies show that early impressions stick, so once they've decided "we (don't) want to interview this person" they'll likely stick with that position regardless of future information.

Hence for companies which don't pre-screen your best chance is making sure they see what makes you stand-out (personal projects, experience, etc.) before they see your grades. So make sure your CV skews in that direction.

caw
I found this to be true as well. If you're coming in through the resume route, yes you'll be judged on GPA. My co-op job had a particular emphasis on GPA since we were a branch of the school, hired loads of co-ops from the school (lots of datapoints), had permanent hires from the school, and had enough people familiar with the courses in each subject to tell what the course was like.

If you're not going for that sort of job, then all you need is the GPA threshold, and no one is going to care afterwards. Get out of the square root club if you're there and pull up your GPA to where your target job wants it. So if their filter cutoff is 3.5, get a 3.51 and call it a day. If your target job cuts off at 3.0 then really that's all you need to get. It could reduce your stress level (not sure how bad UW is), and let you do other things that would help your chances of getting a job more (clubs, leadership positions, volunteering, networking, etc). Some people split up their GPA between "core GPA" and "cumulative GPA", which could help if you're doing bad in your chem classes but passing all your CS classes.

AznHisoka
It depends on who you ask. If you ask recent graduates, or college students they will say Yes. However, ask someone who graduated 6+ years ago, and they will just smirk, laugh, and say No.
AgLiAn
No degree, I earn pretty much as web developer (above the average for my country).
dman
Grades dont matter. But having a track record where you have sought to excel in some facet of your life matters. For a lot of people grades / school are a ready made environment where they seek excellence.
bnejad
I've never been asked exactly what my GPA was for my internships/co ops, but many had something like "Above a 3.00 GPA required" in their job posting. None of the companies ever asked me about it in the interview or elsewhere, so I imagine it was just HR.
jane_portman
For the first job what really matters (and makes you different from other candidates) is your actual intelligence, ability to catch things fast and genuine interest to develop in the chosen field.

That's what smart employers are looking for. In case they set up a formal resume competition for grades, maybe that's not where you'd prefer to work?

samfisher83
Well if you have a 3.0 you probably won't get an interview with Goldman Sachs. I think grades do matter especially with the bigger firms.