Do you need to know my GPA?

July 14, 2008 5:50 PM

8 years out of school, does my GPA need to be on my resume?

My college GPA was decent (cum laude), but I wonder if I should take it off my resume now that I'm more intermediate-level in my field (project management). Does this help, or make me look more juvenile, or is it irrelevant? TIA.

posted by sweetkid to Work & Money (22 answers total)

I think it makes you look inexperienced. 8 years out of school, I would expect someone to be selling themselves based on their 8 years of experience, not what GPA they had in school.
posted by gregvr at 5:54 PM on July 14, 2008 [2 favorites]

Take it off. At this point, no one cares.
posted by dogrose at 5:55 PM on July 14, 2008

It's irrelevant AND it makes you look more juvenile. Delete.
posted by gnutron at 5:57 PM on July 14, 2008

Fourth. The moment you have more than a couple of months' real experience, your GPA is just two digits with a dot between them.
posted by Tomorrowful at 5:59 PM on July 14, 2008

Absolutely not. BA cum laude is okay, but definitely not a raw number.
posted by gesamtkunstwerk at 6:01 PM on July 14, 2008

say "cum laude" after your degree, but no GPA. once you've had a job, they're judging you by other things.
posted by thinkingwoman at 6:06 PM on July 14, 2008 [1 favorite]

Another vote for "cum laude" after your degree, if you wish, but no GPA.
posted by scody at 6:09 PM on July 14, 2008

I have never put my GPA on my resume. As a hiring manager, I tend to view people who use it as younger and less professionally mature than people who don't. My other pet peeve: a graduation year on a resume. I don't want to be able to pinpoint a candidate's age (in most cases) to within a year or two. Taking those items off will make you seem more experienced. Your education is a minimum hurdle you had to cross to prove you were qualified for your first few jobs. Now, let your work speak for itself.
posted by decathecting at 6:11 PM on July 14, 2008

Depending on what type of jobs you're applying for, I would take it off.

Know that some jobs will ask it of you. My employer asked me for every transcript since undergraduate. Some state and federal jobs also require a GPA.
posted by answergrape at 6:12 PM on July 14, 2008

GPA scores on resumes are tacky. If your potential employer wants that info, he/she will ask you to submit transcripts. Designations like cum laude are distinctive, and imply high GPA w/o being tacky and spelling it out. If you've earned one, by all means include it.
posted by wheat at 6:19 PM on July 14, 2008

I agree with the other posters on this. Do not put your GPA it is a useless number that does not mean much in the real world. In fact, I generally refuse to continue interviewing at companies that ask what what my GPA was in college (only exception was during the dot-com bust when I needed work badly).
posted by sirhensley at 6:24 PM on July 14, 2008

Nope, not even if you just graduated. When it comes to hiring decisions, it's really just a boolean. "Has a degree" or not.

Nobody cares about the GPA.
posted by rokusan at 7:11 PM on July 14, 2008

Response by poster: All answers are great. I can't believe I've had it on there so long.
posted by sweetkid at 7:25 PM on July 14, 2008

I've never had my GPA on my resume. And after a few years, who cares?
posted by octothorpe at 7:29 PM on July 14, 2008

My other pet peeve: a graduation year on a resume.

Interesting. I have my graduation year on my resume because I assumed that people might want to verify it with the college -- of course, now that I think about it, I don't know why they'd bother wasting the time. Any other opinions on a specifying a grad year being a negative?
posted by fishfucker at 7:35 PM on July 14, 2008

I disagree with decathecting: I would put the graduation year on the resume. If I saw one without a year, I would wonder what the author was trying to hide by omitting it. But the resumes I usually see are academic vitas, which usually have 1 or 2 graduate degrees after the bachelor's.

I'm with wheat on the GPA, though: anyone who wants to know it will ask for a transcript. Honors are fine, but not the number.
posted by brianogilvie at 8:10 PM on July 14, 2008

@Sweetkid
I leave my cum laude designation on my resume, but do not include my GPA.


@Fishfucker
Your grad year gives people an idea of how old you are, which can work against you if you're either "too young" or "too old" for your position. This assumes that you don't include your entire work history on your resume.
posted by cnc at 8:12 PM on July 14, 2008

Nobody ever cared. Something they might have mentioned FRESHMAN YEAR.
posted by Askr at 9:25 PM on July 14, 2008

My other pet peeve: a graduation year on a resume. I don't want to be able to pinpoint a candidate's age (in most cases) to within a year or two.

Seems to me you could work out someone's approximate age from when their first serious job was. I mean, if I omit my graduation year then say "First job, August 1990 to February 1995, Junior developer, Microsoft" I'm not exactly concealing my graduation date - or my age. Unless perhaps my work history is long enough that I can just omit that job without raising any eyebrows.
posted by Mike1024 at 12:25 AM on July 15, 2008

An academic vita is not a resume. It's an entirely different animal, and the rules are completely different.
posted by decathecting at 7:52 AM on July 15, 2008

wow, thank you for asking this question. i really had no idea that it was so bad to put your gpa/grad year on there. but the points people make seem valid.
posted by misanthropicsarah at 8:17 AM on July 15, 2008

I put grad year. I assumed that was a requirement. I'm not all that old. And if they don't want to hire me based on my age, I don't want to work for them anyway.
posted by wheat at 1:02 PM on July 15, 2008