How important are grades when applying for a job?

Question

When it comes to studying, I'm dead lazy. Most of the time I couldn't care whether I get 70% or 99%, besides being somewhat happy after getting a 99% back. As a result my grades aren't all that good, especially for the courses I find boring. However, when it comes to practical tasks that one would get in industry I'm better than many of the students who obtain better grades.

How important are grades when applying for a job? Are there other things that you could do to make your CV look more impressive even with mediocre grades? For example, I do really well at programming competitions and teach other top students on algorithms and data structures that are beyond the scope of the university syllabus.

Obviously I'm referring to a job at a software engineering company, if that makes any difference.

EDIT: Pasting a comment I made further down

I'm only lazy when it comes to boring things I find too easy. When the work is challenging I'm extremely well-motivated. Right now I'm doing some very interesting work for my masters degree and as a result it's looking like I could get it out in a year as opposed to the average of two years

EDIT2: Types of classes/questions that pull my grades down

The types of classes/questions that pull my grades down are those that require you to memorise chapters of a book. For example, draw a diagram of the DES encryption algorithm and explain each step. They could have asked any one of many algorithms, so in order to ace the test you'd need to memorise them all fairly well. Another example is reciting page-long proofs that are impossible to come up with on-the-spot and have to be memorised to some degree before the test.

EDIT3: Some background

Just to add some background to my personal experience. I am currently studying masters in Computer Science. I have completed internships at Google and NVIDIA and got excellent reviews. I got in by strong referrals, and without them I'm not sure I'd have gotten in. I'm interested in what it's like without such strong referrals, which is the positions we're in most of the time.

Answer 1

I'm in charge of screening developer applications for a software company, and grades are very important. If your CV/resume has poor grades, it goes straight in the bin. I don't want to hire someone who's "dead lazy" in any way, even if they are good at practical tasks.

In response to marcog's comment: Yes, absolutely. It's evidence that you pick and choose what to put effort into, and that you're incapable or unwilling to do jobs you don't enjoy. Now we'll always endeavour to give our developers projects that interest them, but sometimes that's not possible - we all have to slog through some dull work sometimes. I need people who I can rely on to do the work well, whether they find it interesting or not.

Answer 2

In my experience, grades only matter at your first, directly-out-of-school job, and even then, they're secondary to your self-presentation skills and actual knowledge. The only way I saw grades in effect is the initial "should we summon this person for an interview" question.

It's funny, but I actually saw the opposite to "common sense" happen - someone with exceptionally good grades was not summoned because he was "over qualified" for a starting position and (very much) under qualified for anything else.

Of course, this is for a starting position at a "regular" software house. Algorithms-heavy development would, I imagine, keep a closer watch on grades.

However(!), this does not mean that someone with very low grades (much below average) wouldn't be adversely affected by his/her grades - after all, it is the (almost) only datum if you have no real experience.

Answer 3

I would say, that it depends on what you do when you were supposed to be studying. If all your study time was used watching YouTube, you grades will probably give the employer a fairly accurate view of your skills. If however your time was spend developing some interesting piece of open source code, you actual skill may be better than what your grades reflect.

However, is may be difficult to highlight the fact that your grades may not represent your skill, and the recruiter will most likely use your grades as an initial go/no go parameter, so if you have below average scores you may miss out on a few opportunities.

Answer 4

Having a good degree opens doors. It's your foot in the door. Without it you're going to find it difficult to even get interviews at the places you really want to work at.

Once you have some experience (certainly > 5 years), the grade of degree becomes moot - the fact that you have one is good enough when combined with experience.

If you don't have a degree at all, it becomes even more difficult and even more experience is required to overcome the "stigma" of not having a degree. Some companies require a degree regardless of how much experience you have.

Short Answer - If you want to work at the best places, implement some discipline into your studying. It will pay dividends very early on and throughout your career.

Answer 5

In my experience, grades are not that important.

But If you are really dead lazy, you can't hide that forever. Being smart is great, but it is not enough. So you have to work on your attitude to show your worth to potential employers.

Answer 6

In my experience of working for and consulting with many large UK organisations, including banks, universities, accountants and the national broadcasting corporation, nobody ever checks that you have the qualifications you claim to have. I have never, in 30 years working in IT been asked to provide documentation for my qualifications.

Answer 7

I got me a couple of merit-based scholarships but didn't think much of them. Until I went for some interviews and I realised that they mean a lot to the employers and a week later I found myself in a position I could chose my job from several offers and negotiate on some details. Grades do matter - is my answer.