How Much Does Your GPA Matter for Entry-Level Jobs?

As recent graduates and students, you may be wondering if your GPA is the key to landing that dream entry-level job. Traditionally, GPAs have been seen as a strong indicator of a student's readiness for the professional world.

However, in today's job market, employers are beginning to look beyond academic achievement. It's becoming increasingly apparent that a high GPA alone does not guarantee success in the workplace. Many companies now take a more wholesome approach to recruitment, reducing the emphasis on GPAs and, instead, valuing candidates who bring a wide variety of skills, experiences., and perspectives. 

Therefore, as a graduate, it's important to focus not solely on your academic scores but also on developing a well-rounded profile to attract potential employers. To understand how you can prepare for this new approach from top employers, we analyzed a year's worth of data from the thousands of recruiters who use our platform to hire early career talent for internships and entry-level jobs. Read on to discover the data-driven insights we uncovered!

Decoding the GPA expectations for students

While we found that the average minimum GPA for STEM roles was 3.65 and the average minimum GPA for non-STEM roles was 3.58, only a small share of roles that recruiters shared on our platform actually had a GPA requirement attached to them.  Specifically, we found that just 12% of STEM roles had a minimum GPA requirement with the qualifications, as well as just 9% of non-STEM opportunities. In other words, we discovered that recruiters on our platform do not place a large emphasis on GPA today. 

How much does the ranking of your school matter today?

Much like the significance of GPA, our research suggests that today's employers are not giving excessive importance to the academic reputation of the institutions from which they recruit. Specifically, we discovered that the majority of employers on our platform are open to candidates from all represented colleges and universities, with less than 20% restricting their search to the top 50 or 20 institutions for non-STEM roles (as per the rankings by U.S. News.)

Looking deeper, we see 73% of STEM positions and 78% of non-STEM positions on our platform do not list a school ranking filter. Interestingly, only 1% of employers on our platform are specifically targeting students from the top 20 institutions.

Our data set reinforces the trend that the top employers today are refocusing their hiring strategies toward identifying workplace readiness, capability, and potential, and are paying special attention to untapped talent from lesser-known institutions. Looking to connect with the employers on our platform? Make your free profile and kickstart your career search today.