By SIMON F MENDY: Some believed that low GPA is a function of not performing higher on whatever standardized grading system your school was using. Therefore, the excuse is that you didn’t study hard enough or work hard enough to understand what was expected of you so that you could perform higher. Whether that is true or not; you will be surprise to hear that very few employers actually care about GPA once you get into the real world. Grades, degrees, and even work history normally fall into the category of basic screening criteria for a new hire. You either meet the baseline requirements for the role, or you don’t. If you don’t make the cut you won’t be asked to come in for an interview…so congratulations! Since you’ve been asked to take an interview you’ve already made it past the first hurdle.
I believe scoring marks is a skill that not many students have. It is not completely related to how good you are at the subject. But always remember that the skill of scoring marks will be completely useless outside college. I was in a dinner with a practicing HR for 9 years and I asked him this question and this was his reply. “I would prefer to hire the person with the 2.0 GPA who worked 50 hours a week to support himself than one with 4.0 GPA who has no work experience what so ever.” Good grades are not a barometer for success in the real world, he continued.
So, When you are faced with this question: Why do you have a low GPA?; do not get defensive and/or show any signs of discomfort. To me there is no single best reply which you can use everywhere when confronted with the question. It depends on the situation and the position you are been interviewed for. Many people with less than stellar GPAs got jobs of their choice because of other skills. In general here is a framework you can use –
Say: “I don’t feel that my GPA is an accurate representation of my skill set”. Then follow up with a list of things you did instead of focusing on school work. For example, maybe you worked a full or part-time job, or did other random projects like voluntary community activities. These projects, jobs, and activities tell a lot more about you than your GPA. Most good employers recognize that. If you got bad grades just because you partied the whole time, then you probably won’t have a good answer. Of course if that was the case, you probably wouldn’t have gotten the interview anyway.
It’s certainly important to be honest about your grades but highlight accomplishments alongside it as well. Many college students have low GPAs because they’re focused on other things, like working at the school newspaper, being heavily involved in clubs, volunteer work, or building new organizations on and off campus. Or maybe your grades were low because you were working to pay your college tuition or living expenses. Explain this to your interviewer and transition into more positive aspects of your college experience by saying something like, “Although these activities negatively affected my GPA, I was able to build my skills in other ways and fulfill a number of other accomplishments, including…………….” and provide some examples.
After a few years no one will ever ask for your college GPA again (unless you are applying to graduate school). In the adult working world the results you earn on a daily basis dramatically outweigh academic success, or failure. In the trenches, the truly valuable employee is not the person who went to the University of The Gambia and graduated with a 4.0 GPA, it’s the person who sits down and gets things done. You know that ideas without execution are stupid and pointless.
Basically, as long as your reason for that low GPA was NOT “I partied every weekend or never studied”, I would think any reason would be good enough. You should be honest when justifying yourself. Use your other skills and experiences to point out that you used a lot of time to develop as a skilled professional-maybe you took an unpaid internship, or headed an extracurricular group or activity in your field. I think most employers would prefer a “hands-on employee” that a ‘GPA employee “who cannot transform theory into practice
All in all, you do NOT need a high GPA to get an impressive job. You do however need to be good at what you do. You can show that by either having side projects, winning competitions of some sort, having multiple relevant internship experiences, good recommendations from relevant people, etc. Sell yourself on your strengths and not your weaknesses (if GPA is a weakness). It is all about how you market yourself (you should be genuinely good at whatever you’re interviewing for though).
About Author
Simon F Mendy is a social media intern with Gamjobs.com. He is an IT enthusiast who love writing and keep his readers always on the loop of latest happening around jobs and employment in the Gambia. Simon held a Bsc in computer science and mathematics from the university of The Gambia. He has strong interest in object oriented Software development process, especially using .Net and Java based technologies. You can follow him: https://www.facebook.com/simon.mendy.12
