Thoughts on hiring – request the transcripts
Previous “Thoughts on hiring” articles
Grades are a data point with strong predictive value for future success.
People don’t like hearing that statement, and I don’t blame them one bit. Many students with low grades go on to great success. Many A students end up working for C students. Grades don’t matter at all in comparison to enough good real-world experience.
But it doesn’t change the fact that the statement is still true: grades are a data point with strong predictive value for future success. And they’re not just predictive in terms of ability to obtain high grades in subsequent study, they’re predictive of success in the real-world.
That’s why I find it mind boggling how few companies will ask for transcripts when hiring co-ops, interns and new graduates. These people have just spent 2-4 years working for a credential, and they’ve been meticulously and carefully scored by subject matter experts about their relative progress.
A lot of hard, careful work gets put into generating those data points. The best part is firms can benefit from using those data points without even having to pay for them directly, since the taxpayer and the students have paid the cost.
In terms of evaluating grades beyond looking at how high they are, I suggest the following.
Be forgiving of low grades early in a program, an upward trend is something to look for. Maybe limit yourself to looking at the last year or two years.
Check their grades in difficult but important courses. Every good program of study has them. Students, faculty and likely career office staff can tell you which ones. There are are courses that even strong students can’t help cringing at when you mention the course name (just mention real-time programming to a Waterloo CS grad if you don’t believe me). Find those difficult but important courses and give those data points 10x the weight as their overall average.
And the obvious… forgive low grades if there are overriding factors. What those factors are exactly varies. I know a guy at Microsoft Research. He failed a midterm because he was too busy developing new algorithms in his spare time to care about it. That’s an extreme case.
Looking to hire a co-op, intern or fresh graduate? Request the transcripts, analyze and filter accordingly.
