Comments on: Do you need to know my GPA?

Question: Do you need to know my GPA?

sweetkid — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 17:50:25 -0800

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.

By: gregvr

gregvr — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 17:54:42 -0800

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.

By: dogrose

dogrose — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 17:55:40 -0800

Take it off. At this point, no one cares.

By: gnutron

gnutron — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 17:57:08 -0800

It's irrelevant AND it makes you look more juvenile. Delete.

By: Tomorrowful

Tomorrowful — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 17:59:34 -0800

Fourth. The moment you have more than a couple of months' real experience, your GPA is just two digits with a dot between them.

By: gesamtkunstwerk

gesamtkunstwerk — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 18:01:16 -0800

Absolutely not. BA cum laude is okay, but definitely not a raw number.

By: thinkingwoman

thinkingwoman — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 18:06:55 -0800

say "cum laude" after your degree, but no GPA. once you've had a job, they're judging you by other things.

By: scody

scody — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 18:09:01 -0800

Another vote for "cum laude" after your degree, if you wish, but no GPA.

By: decathecting

decathecting — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 18:11:54 -0800

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.

By: answergrape

answergrape — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 18:12:23 -0800

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.

By: wheat

wheat — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 18:19:59 -0800

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.

By: sirhensley

sirhensley — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 18:24:19 -0800

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).

By: rokusan

rokusan — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 19:11:28 -0800

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.

By: sweetkid

sweetkid — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 19:25:12 -0800

All answers are great. I can't believe I've had it on there so long.

By: octothorpe

octothorpe — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 19:29:44 -0800

I've never had my GPA on my resume. And after a few years, who cares?

By: fishfucker

fishfucker — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 19:35:06 -0800

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?

By: brianogilvie

brianogilvie — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 20:10:57 -0800

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.

By: cnc

cnc — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 20:12:25 -0800

@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.

By: Askr

Askr — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 21:25:35 -0800

Nobody ever cared. Something they might have mentioned FRESHMAN YEAR.

By: Mike1024

Mike1024 — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 00:25:08 -0800

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.

By: decathecting

decathecting — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 07:52:54 -0800

An academic vita is not a resume. It's an entirely different animal, and the rules are completely different.

By: misanthropicsarah

misanthropicsarah — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 08:17:30 -0800

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.

By: wheat

wheat — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 13:02:34 -0800

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.